RIGHT TO UNPOPULARITY

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Professor Leach's conduct in requesting the termination of the draft deferment of the Lubell Brothers is the final blow necessary to pry the undersigned from their comfortable apathy and contentment. It is no longer possible for an individual believing in the dignity of his fellow men and the Divinity of an Infinite Power before which all men are only partial in their knowledge--it is no longer possible or proper--to remain silent.

What have the Lubells done? Assuming that their testimonies would, in fact, be self-incriminating, then we may deduce that they have had some connection with the Communist Party. We do not like the Communist Party. We have reason to believe its objective is to take from us the freedom we cherish. But we have a democratic procedure for dealing with subversion through our courts and through legislative enactments. It cannot be our policy to allow government by the mob, government by the whim and caprice of segments of our population. Professors who abet such extra-legal procedures act with no more responsibility than lynch mobs or demagogues. If the Lubells have acted injudiciously they must be handled by the properly constituted bodies of our government.

Now what instead has been done? They have been asked to resign from the student newspaper. One has been expelled from the honorary Legal Aid Bureau. The president of the Massachusetts Bar Association has condemned the pair as unfit to be lawyers. And now a responsible member of the Law faculty has asked--despite Dean Griswold's announcement that the two would not be expelled--that steps be taken which would prevent the Lubells from continuing their legal education. All of these statements fall within the right of any citizen. The newspaper can properly expell a member, the Bureau can properly force a resignation. And Mr. Leach can go contrary to the determination of his colleagues. But how long can the rest of us remain silent? How long must it be before the forces wishing to preserve a man's right to first class citizenship (until criminally convicted) exert counter pressure? Counter pressures which unqualifiedly announce that we are not afraid of the existence of two communists or communist sympathizers in our student body and that if some members of the community would take away their opportunities, we would welcome them among us all the more. We would urge that where an organization such as the Legal Aid Bureau (particularly such an organization where politics seems to play so little a part in the effectiveness of a member's work) is strong enough and democratic enough to stand against the epidemic minds, it do so.

If the Lubells are communists we do not sympathize with their politics. But we do affirm their right to be unpopular, even to be wrong, and we will treat them as human beings as long as we admit ourselves to be fallible and imperfect. Carl Sapers '53   Robert Layzer '53   Anthony Bellenson '54