ON SEEGER

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

"HUAC, HUAC,

What a lucky thing it is for you and me,

That our freedoms are well guarded

By politically retarded

Men of unimpeachable integrity."

So the afternoon of March 29 found Peter Seeger '40 guilty on ten counts for contempt of Congress. I cannot overlook the irony inherent in the conviction of Seeger for refusing to speak before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The most salient factor in the folk singer's character is his seeming inability to stop voicing his political and social opinions. Each Seeger concert is as much the singer's philosophical thesis as the folk songs themselves, and even the song "The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" is chacteristically prefaced by the performer, Carnegie Hall, December 27, 1957,

"I think I could turn and live with animals...

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God...

Not one is demented by the mania of owning things...

Not one is respectable or unhappy the whole world over..."

Prosecutor Irving Younger clearly stated the position of the law for the jury, and I am sure that as far as the law is concerned "the only issue in this case is if Peter Seeger committed contempt of Congress." Underlying the case, however, are two larger issues which must eventually be answered if the law is to have any meaning in its future concerns. First, the communicative and influencing power of the performing artist must be intelligently recognized. And the limitations placed upon this power must take into account the fact that an artist, in order to be great and inspiring, must believe so strongly in his art and its themes that he can thoroughly convince not only himself but his audience as well. The American people and their government must mature into the realization that the performing artist, along with the writer and painter, is effective and entertaining only so long as he speaks with the empassioned truth of his convictions--regardless of their complexion. Not even the HUAC would ask Pablo Picasso to explain his red period and name those artists with a propensity for a similar pigment.

The second problem in Seeger's struggle with the Congress was unwittingly outlined by Prosecutor Younger in his criticism of the defense attorney's "Alice-in-Wonderland logic." This same term may paradoxically be employed to describe the HUAC's Alice-like wonder at the folk singer's material. How could the same Peter Seeger who recognized the evils of war in popularizing "Down By the Riverside" recognize a similar evil in the men starving during the depression of the 30's while "The banks are made of marble?" For a convincing performer there is no such entity as a polite truth or a romantic stage presence which melts in the wings into a conservative reality. If this is what the American people want there are American "folk singers" who chant Russian peasant songs to the accompaniment of periodic taps on the dashboard of a Mercedes sedan, or emit plantation work songs out over the violin section from the confines of tight black pants and silk shirts. These are the part-time romantics who make their deliveries without the "Alice-in-Wonderland logic" and with all the power and effectiveness of half the critical mass. The public, in its approach to the performer, cannot effectively substitute legislation for an understanding consistency of attitude which will no longer allow it to delight in the intense romantic creativity of a man's art and fear this trait in his political beliefs.

The only alternative to this adjustment on the part of the public is to keep our creative nonconformists conveniently confined so that we might derive the pleasure of their art without the mental annoyance of attempting to understand the artist. I might add that a modification of this system has been proved effective in the convenience of recent collecting of blues and spirituals under the decadent conditions of the Louisiana State Prison in Angola. But for his color, Seeger might find immediately compatible attitudes in that southern community. Booker T. Bradshaw, Jr. '62.

* Angola prison is restricted and will accept only Negro prisoners.