56 Professors Maintain Probes Destroy Liberty

Fifty-six professors, including seven from Harvard and Radcliffe, have signed a statement condemning Congressional investigating committees as "contributing to a subtle breakdown in our democratic processes."

Signers of the statement from the University were: Kingman Brewster, Jr., professor of Law; Percy W. Bridgman '04, Higgins University Professor and Nobel Laureate; Edwin J. Cohn, Higgins University Professor; Rupert Emerson '22, professor of Government; Perry G. E. Miller, professor of American Literature; George Sarton, professor of the History of Science, emeritus; and May Sarton, Briggs-Copeland Instructor in English Composition at Radcliffe College.

In a statement released by Professor Allan Knight Chalmers of the Boston University School or Theology, the educators said that their "primary concern" is not in the technical or legal points involved in Congressional investigations into education, which "may or may not uncover the fact that certain individuals have belonged to odious but not illegal groups, or subscribed to a philosophy we find abhorrent.

Three Principles of Liberty

"We find far more important the fact that these committees are, in effect, helping destroy three principles basic to American liberty: That guilt is personal and not by association; that guilt depends on acts and not on thoughts and words, and that a man is innocent until proven guilty."

The educators cited Thomas Jefferson's statement that "if there be any among us who wish to dissolve this Union, or change its republican form, lot them stand undisturbed, as monuments to the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat."

Other professors signing the statement are associated with M.I.T., Boston University, Wellesley, Tufts, Northeastern University, Springfield College, American International College, Andover-Newton Theological School, and other institutions in the Boston area.