"I speak of only one source of shame to decent Americans who want their country to be admired by the world. I mean the group of bigots known as the Dies Committee--then the Rankin Committee, and now the Thomas committee--THREE NAMES FOR FASCISTS the world over to roll on their tongues with pride."
--Henry A. Wallace
* * *
WHEN eleven Board members of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee were given prison sentences of from three to six months, there were varying reactions in this America of ours. Progressives seemed to have been stunned into silence; reactionaries gloated, and through their press--which means most of America's press--told the nation what they chose to tell.
Apart from myself, these eleven include Edward K. Barsky, internationally known surgeon, head of all volunteer hospitals in Spain during the Anti-Franco War; Louis Miller and Jacob Auslander, both physicians; Richard Lyman Bradley, professor of Teutonic languages and department head at New York University; Charlotte Stern, and James Lustig, labor leaders; Ruth Leider and Harry Justiz, lawyers; Manuel Maganna, business man; and Midge Chodorov, housewife.
The incident was unprecedented. Never before had eleven such well-known people--men and women whose work and record is know to thousands--been framed on so slim and shoddy a basis. These eleven people were sentenced to jail because they are anti-fascists; for that reason, and for no other reason.
As one of them, I would like to tell our story. It is not a complicated story, and it will not take much telling. But it is a very important story--one of the most important stories of these times for all Americans who believe in freedom and democracy.
* * *
The people I listed above are the Board of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee. For five years we have been engaged in raising and dispensing funds for relief of Spanish Republicans, those first fighters against fascism, who have suffered so long and so grievously. It has been estimated that during this time we have saved thousands of lives; we are very proud of that.
During the war years, we were a licensed relief agency, under the supervision of the President's War Relief Board. Our books were examined by the Treasury Department, who extend to us a tax-exempt status.
Most of our funds are dispensed by the Unitarian Service Committee, who supervise our hospitals in Southern France. We have built hospitals and established orphanages; no Spaniard who came to us was turned away. Ours was, and is, a work of mercy, to shelter the homeless, to feed the hungry, and to make the sick whole.
* * *
But because we helped those who fought Franco, the Un-American Committee, the infamous Wood-Rankin Committee of the House of Representatives (now the Thomas-Rankin Committee), decided to smash us. They adopted a very simple method: they asked us to produce all our books, records, and lists of names.
We have two lists in our office. We have a list of our contributors, more than twenty thousand in number, and we have a list of Spaniards we have helped, some in France, some in Portugal, some in the Spanish Underground.
It is not difficult to guess what would have happened if we had turned over these lists to that shameful and unspeakable body, the House Un-American Committee. The twenty thousand contributors would have become their prey for future persecution. And, more importantly, we had good reason to believe that, if the Wood-Rankin Un-American Committee obtained the names of the Spaniards we had aided, those names might not remain unknown to the Franco Government.
It is plain, then, that they asked us an impossible thing. One cannot turn hangman and informer at the behest of a miserable group, of who Henry A. Wallace said:
"I speak of only one source of shame to decent Americans who want their country to be admired by the world. I mean the group of bigots known as the Dies Committee--then the Rankin Committee, and now the Thomas committee--three names for fascists the world over to roll on their tongues with pride."
We are not heroes, not by any means. We simply did what any decent, self-respecting Americans would have done. We told the custodian of our records, Helen Reed Bryan, our executive secretary, to take all measure to protect our books within the limits of the law. Then we went to Washington in answer to the subpoenas served upon us by the Un-American Committee.
* * *
For a whole day, behind locked doors, we were grilled, threatened, insulted and vilified. We answered all questions. But we were firm on one matter--we would not be bludgeoned and threatened into surrendering our lists. Any fair-minded body of American citizens could come to our offices and see what they wished; we made that offer and we make it today. But not the Un-American Committee.
It surprised neither us nor anyone else that we were cited for contempt of Congress. A citation for contempt by the Un-American Committee has become a badge of honor for those who believe in America and American principles.
But we were not brought to trial at that time, a year and a half ago, when we were cited. We were brought to trial only when the anti-progressive witch-hunt reached its climax. A charge of criminal conspiracy was trumped up against us, but was dropped when no evidence could be presented. When we were found guilty of contempt, unprecedented prison sentences were handed out to us.
When the sentences were given, eight column heads splashed across every Washington, D.C., newspaper. Without exception, the headlines read:
11 ANTI-FASCISTS JAILED
So it was that in July of 1947, we tasted the special rewards our government reserves for those who are guilty of hating fascism, of hating injustice and wrong.
* * *
It is important for you to understand that we are neither heroes nor martyrs. We are eleven Americans who believe in the basic principles upon which America was built. Because we believe in these principles, we are going to jail.
It is not the first time that men and women who hate injustice and wrong are imprisoned. In Germany and Italy and Japan, this same thing happened to thousands and tens of thousands. But now it is happening here--in these United States of America.
Long ago, at a time when Americans had not yet forgotten 1776, a man called Henry Thoreau was sent to Concord Jail because he would not pay taxes to a government that engaged in an unjust war against Mexico. He was standing at the prison window, when Ralph Waldo Emerson came down the street.
"Henry, what are you doing in there?" Emerson asked.
"What are you doing out there?" Thoreau demanded.
Today we can ask: "Why are you silent--you out there?"
It is later than you think. Already, you live in a country where anti-fascism is a crime. Must we go through hell again, see the last vestige of liberty outlawed, freedom exiled? Or will you turn this case of the eleven into the worst boomerang our native fascists ever loosed?
In this land of ours, there is nothing stronger than the voice of a free American. Use that voice while you still remain free. Washington, D.C., is not as far off as Berlin or Madrid. If you speak up, loud and clear, you will be heard.
If you remain silent, God help us all.
* * *
The following is the statement of Howard Fast, which Judge Richmond Keech would not permit to be read in open court before imposing sentence:
"MY WORK with the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee has been, I think, the best kind of work men may aspire to, the highest kind--to alleviate suffering, to lessen distress, to make the sick well and the starving whole, and to save life. And the very fact that this work was directed toward those earliest of gallant fighters against fascism, the Spanish Republicans, should make it all the more precious in the sight of good men. If I have erred, it was in giving too little, not too much.
"I cannot conceive of this as a crime. I cannot find anything about our Committee that would make it un-American, that brings it into the scope of the Wood-Rankin Committee's investigation. Quite to the contrary, it seems to me that such work as we do expresses the best, the most generous and humanitarian qualities of the American people.
"I was asked by the Wood-Rankin Committee to present to them books and lists of names. Among those names were thousands of our contributors, people who had unselfishly given to our cause.
Among those names were those of Spanish Republican fighters whom we had helped, some of them back in Spain now, some of them with families in Spain. I did not have custody of these records and lists, but, even if I had, how could I turn them over to a group with such a record for persecution and infamy?
"I am a writer. All my work, from the time I first set pen to paper, stands as a record of service and love for this country of mine. I am incapable--and I hope I may be incapable to the day I die--of taking any action against the United States of American which would harm her in the slightest way.
"I have been found guilty of contempt of Congress. But, in my conscience, I have violated no law of the United States. Rather have I acted in the only fashion that an American might have acted in such a situation. If the court feels that I have defied a Committee of our Congress, I can only repeat what the Washington Post said, editorially, of that Committee, that: 'Its antics have tended to weaken respect for the investigatory functions of the Congress and even the Congress itself. Indeed, it has invited and provoked, if it has not justified, contempt as an expression of traditional American independence and self-respect.'"
* * *
This pamphlet has been published by CITIZENS TO DEFEND THE JOINT ANTI-FASCIST REFUGEE COMMITTEE. Vincent Sheean is the chairman of this organization, which was created to fight for the freedom of the Board members. None of the funds collected for Spanish Refugees have been diverted for this fight, nor have any such funds been used for the publication of this pamphlet.
* * *
These eleven anti-fascists need your help. Their cause is your cause and America's cause. Checks for their defense should be made payable to--
Vincent Sheean, chairman
and should be sent to--
CITIZENS TO DEFEND THE
JOINT ANTI-FASCIST REFUGEE COMMITTEE
192 Lexington Avenue
New York 16, N.Y.
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