Dever Secretly Signs Anti-Red Bill

In a secret more Saturday night, Governor Dever signed the anti-subversive bill without any announcement, the CRIMSON learned last night.

Walter C. Carrington '52 president of the Liberal Union, said he had scheduled as appointment with Dever for today to present a potition with the signatures of 1.000 students opposed to the bill. Yesterday, Carrington was refused the interview. He was told by the Governor's executive secretary that the bill had already been signed. Carrington plans to send Dever a potition protesting the action.

A State official pointed out yesterday that the attorney general could indict several undergraduate organizations here if he wanted to interpret the law "literally." He would not elaborate.

According to the law, a "subversive organization is any association of more than three persons ... established for the purpose of advocating, advising, counselling, or inciting the overthrow by force or violence or by other unlawful means the governments of the Commonwealth or the United States."

Why Dever signed the bill without official announcement was not clear. His office held yesterday that the bill was necessarily signed at an add hour, and therefore the Governor could not make an announcement.

However, opponents of the bill charged that Dever is trying to cover up the bill. They contended that bills usually are not signed until the end of the month, and seldom only ten hours after approval by the legislature.

Other provisions of the bill make it illegal to belong to any group adjudged subversive by the attorney general. If found guilty of membership, a person would be subject to a fine of $1,000 and three years in jail.

Anyone convicted under the law could not hold public office or "teach in any public or private educational institutions in the Commonwealth."

The new law is in the result of several years of attempts in the state house to get an anti-subversive bill passed. This year, three such bills came before the House and Senate.

They were: a bill requiring college presidents to dismiss Communists from their faculties; another outlawing the Communist Party; and a third calling for loyalty oaths from all lawyers and setting up a series of penalties for participation in subversive groups.