Hardy Perennial

Each winter, the thoughts of Massachusetts legislators turn rather heavy-handedly to thoughts of Communists in schools. Two years ago it was the Barnes Bill. Last year it was the Sullivan Bill. Now there is a measure, conceived by two Representatives named Lally and Concannon, which received an unfavorable vote in committee yesterday. It goes to the House Monday.

Unlike its predecessors, the new bill is not punitive, merely investigatory. But it provides for a commission to make "recommendations for legislation" which would presumably contain some form of punishment for teachers and institutions that did not comply with the new laws. President Conant sees the incipient danger of such investigation when he asserts it is "likely to produce more damage than good."

There was no need for this sort of measure in in 1948. There was none in 1949. There is still none. There are sufficient laws now to curb really subversive teachers: the Teacher's Oath of 1935, the Smith Act, all the laws against advocating the overthrow of the government by force and violence. And there is certainly no special emergency. One of the supporters of the bill, testifying at the hearing, admitted that he had no evidence of communist infiltration into schools.

It would be pleasant to dismiss these bills as a sort of yearly madness, but they are turned out by serious people who really believe they know best what should and should not be taught. The College community got worried about the Barnes and Sullivan Bills and was right in doing so. It ought to get worried about the Lally-Concannon bill and two similar proposals which are awaiting action by the Education Committee. Unless people stay worried about this kind of legislation, "academic freedom" will someday be only a vestigial phrase.