Bender on Communists

The John Reed Club, a recognized undergraduate group, last month held a meeting at which Gerhart Eisler, against whom the Justice Department has been conducting deportation proceedings, spoke on "'The Marxist Theory of Social Change." At the urging of radio commentator Fulton Lewis, Jr., a number of alumni and others wrote the College, protesting against Eisler's being permitted to speak on Harvard property.

In reply to these correspondents, Dean Bender issued a statement re-affirming the right of any recognized student group to invite to Harvard any speaker it wishes. The statement read in part.

"The world is full of dangerous ideas, and we are both naive and stupid if we believe that the way to prepare intelligent young men to face the world is to try to protect them from such ideas while they are in college. Four years spent in an insulated nursery will produce gullible innocents, not tough-minded realists who know what they believe because they have faced the enemies of their beliefs . . . We have confidence in the maturity and intelligence of Harvard students. We have confidence in the strength . . . of American democracy. There is no danger from an open communist which is half so great as the danger from those who would destroy freedom in the name of freedom. These decadent descendants of Jefferson and Lincoln reveal their lack of faith in American ideals and in Americans. If Harvard students can be corrupted by an Eisler, Harvard College had better shut down as an educational institution.

"I knew of no faster way of producing communists than by making martyrs out of the handful of communists we now have. Forbidding them to speak . . . would be accepting communist practices in the name of Americanism. Whatever may have happened elsewhere, Harvard still believes in freedom and the American way.

"Our policy for student organizations is simple. Any recognized student organizations can hold a meeting in a Harvard building, if they can find a room available, and listen to any speaker they can persuade to come. The fact that a man speaks at Harvard does not mean that Harvard in any way endorses his views or even that the organization involved does. If the Dean's Office were to attempt to decide who would be allowed to speak to a Harvard organization, whose views were safe and whose weren't, the views of those permitted to speak would then carry Harvard's official endorsement. Furthermore it would be impossible in practice to agree on what speakers threatened to corrupt our youth. Some people would bar President Truman, others Senator Taft. Still others would bar anti-vivisectionists or opponents of birth control or World Federalists or Christian Scientists or Monsignor Sheen or Colonel McCormick. The answer is not suppression of "dangerous" ideas . . . but more vigorous statement of American ideas, and faith which would be well-founded in the ability of our students to distinguish between good and evil.

"Harvard College is dedicated to the task of producing mature and independent educated men. I devoutly hope that the time will never come when we are faced with the sorry spectacle of a great University and a great country trembling timorously in fear of the words of a communist or of a demagogic commentator."

Dean Bender's statement is a welcome one, especially in contrast to his action in the New Student case last spring. At that time, the Dean's Office refused to grant recognition as a Harvard publication to the left-wing magazine principally on the grounds that a high percentage of its contents was written by non-Harvard authors. Yet literary magazines have often printed issues written entirely outside Harvard without protest from University Hall. Thus the political content of The New Student seemed to be the key factor in determining University Hall's stand against the magazine.

In light of this background, the recent statement was a very encouraging one. At a time when academic freedom in particular, and freedom of speech in general, are taking a bad beating because of the current wave of anti-communist hysteria, Dean Bender's strong re-affirmation of faith in the free exchange of ideas is a welcome reassurance that there are those who will not let themselves be brow-beaten by J. Parnell Thomas--or Fulton Lewis, Jr.