Weak Week

The ghost of Martin Dies is still alive and kicking the bejesus out of everybody who happens to be politically left of the Manchester Yacht Club. This regrettable fact has been proven twice already this week--both instances concerning higher education.

A few days ago, the House un-American Activities Committee, which Martin Dies commanded in its hey-day from 1938 to 1944, announced that it was going to poke its nose into school and college textbooks. The Committee doesn't plan to learn anything useful from this excursion; it just wants to see if any Bolshevism lurks in these volumes.

On Sunday, University of California officials announced that they were going to require all faculty members to sign loyalty oaths. This institution has been under pressure for some time by one of Martin Dies' local chapters--the California state senate's committee on subversive activities. This group has a much sterner loyalty oath bill for teachers pending in the state legislature already. It is quite probable that the university's action was an attempt to forestall this bill.

These two affairs aren't passing by unnoticed and unopposed. Many educators have denounced the House Committee's textbook maneuver, and the California faculty is reported to be "concerned," at least, about its university's proposal to introduce the childish little pledge to the flag.

There are two depressing conclusions that come out of the week's work: (a) that so many state and national legislators are following the precepts of Martin Dies; (b) and that so many college administrators haven't got the guts to stand up against them.