OF REDS AND MUSH

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Paul Hanlon's letter which compares the dangerous knowledge of Communism to the dangerous knowledge of safe cracking is absolutely right. Both are bad and should not be taught. While it may be true that safe cracking is taught to locksmiths and that a knowledge of communist theory and practice is a vital tool today, we can not afford to take the chance that crooks and mush head idealists will use these tools for bad. Therefore, we must do our best to forget what we know about Communism. An operational difficulty may arise when no American remembers what Communism was. The doubters will start wondering if Communism was bad or not. Therefore, I think that we should establish a board of three good men who will be allowed to know about Communism, so that in the future they can remind us that it is bad. After burning the books about Communism we should go after Biology because this bad knowledge results in germ warfare. I plan to remove all the knives from the Union tomorrow because they can be used for bad. It is lucky that Dr. Struik, to whom Mr. Hanlon refers, has been conclusively accused of Communism because if he were not stopped, he would go right on teaching mathematics. His students might not realize that he was sneaking in some bad Communist mathematics. Mr. Hanlon is also right that freedom really means "freedom as we ought" not "as we wish." A Communist should not be free to teach because be will teach as he wishes instead of as he ought. To make sure that nobody teaches any Communism by mistake, all prospective teachers should be told a little about Communism so that they will see that it is bad. Only in this way will they realize that they ought not to teach Communism. They will still have the freedom to teach good things as they ought. Then they should immediately forget this bad knowledge just in case they are mush head idealists. Richard Cooper '58