Legislative Group Rebuffed in Tries 'To Get Colleges'

Early this June a group of diehards in the Massachusetts House of Representatives had cause for limited optimism. Then, the Massachusetts Commission on Communism, which for a year had been studying subversive activities in the state, published names of 85 alleged past Communists, including Wendell H. Furry, associate professor of Physics; Mrs. Helen Deane Markham, former assistant professor of Anatomy; and Leon J. Kamin, former teaching fellow in Social Relations.

Since February, the representatives had been trying to secure passage of legislation which would have forced all schools and colleges, both public and private, to discharge "Fifth Amendment Communists" and Communist sympathizers from their teaching staffs. Members of the group admitted that they were "out to get Harvard."

'Bunch of Lazy Bums'

They were rebuffed, however, when the State Supreme Court preserved the autonomy of private educational institutions by declaring in an advisory opinion, that the proposed legislation was unconstitutional.

Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, the Massachusetts tribunal is allowed to hand down opinions on constitutional questions before the legislation becomes law; no test case is required. Both the sponsors and opponents of the legislation favored asking for a court opinion, but the sponsors soon regretted this move.

In its decision, the court asserted that the legislation would be "an interference with the excise of the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination." It would represent a "from of compelling a person, through fear of legal consequences, to accuse or furnish evidence against himself."

Representative Charles Iannello (D., Boston), one of the group supporting the legislation, was quick to label the justices "a bunch of lazy bums who aren't Americans, but traitors."

Five Bills Become One

Originally, in February, five bills were introduced into the House, Ianello sponsored the essential one, which defined a Communist sympathizer as "anyone who shall invoke the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution at any hearing . . . conducted by a committee ... established by the Congress of the United States or the Commonwealth of the Massachusetts."

Before voting on these measures, the House referred them to the Committee on Education. This group reported back a single bill which was essentially a rewrite of Ianello's original measure.

This would have compelled private colleges to discharge teachers refusing to answer questions concerning their possible Communist affiliations. But before the House voted, it referred the measure to the Supreme Court. The adverse to the Supreme Court. The adverse opinion stifled Iannello and his associates--until the publication of names by the Commission on Communism.