SECURITYand FREEDOM the GREAT CHALLENGE Thirtieth Annual Report of the American Civil Liberties Union Dedicated to ROGER N. BALDWIN Esecntive Director 1920-1910 JOHN HAYNES HOLMES Chairman of the Board of Directors 1940- 19 T 0 EDWARD A. ROSS Chairman of the National Committee 1940-1950 with Respect, Gratitude and Affection TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION--“A FREE NATION OF FREE PEOPLE” 5 SECURITY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES .,.. 10 A. GENERAL ANTI-SEDITION LBGISLAI‘IVE EFFORTS 10 1. The McCarran Act ,. .,, 10 2. “Little McCarran” Acts 3. The Smith Act .,. ,.,..... ,.. :i 4. House Un-American Activities Committee ,........ .,............ 5. House Lobbying Committee ::, 6. State Investigations 17 B. SKIJRITY AND LOYAL’IY AMONG EMPLOYEES 17 1. Federal Program 2. The McCarthy Charges ::, 3. State and Local Programs; 4. Private Programs’ 22 C. OTHER THREATS TO FREEDOM OF OPINION 25 1. General Free Speech .,,....,,..,.... 2. Radio and Movies ., :: 3. Magazines and Books ..,. .._........... 29 4. Schools and Colleges .._.......... 5. Labor Unions .._...... 6. Aliens .._ .,..... .,.. .._ 7. Conscientious Objection __....,.._.........._.,..,,.......,,........................... D. OTHER THREATS TO DUE PROCESS OF LAW 1. Wiretapping ..,,...., .,..... 2. Bail Cases 3. Picketing of Courts 4. Grand Juries 38 THE FIRST FREEDOM .._............... 39 A. GENERAL FREE EXPRESSION .._.............................. B. LABOR ,,., . .. .. .. .. .. :; C. CENSORSHIP .,,,,.. ,.,... 40 D. RELIGION .,.. 44 DUE PROCESS OF LAW ,. 46 A. WIRETAPPING ,, ., .,,.... ..,...,_ .,, .,... .., .,.. 46 B. FAIR TRIAL .., 48 C. PUNISHMENT ,,... ,, 49 EQUALITY 49 A. MINORITIES ..~... 50 B. STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACTIVITIES .._......... .._...... 53 1. Employment and Education .._ 2. Housing and Public Accommodations :; 3. Voting and Fair Trial .,.... ,... 55 C. PRIVATE ORGANIZATIONS 56 1. Social 56 2. Employment and Education 57 D. OTHER GROUPS 57 1. Indians; 2. Orientals .._.............. 57 3. Alaskan, Hawaiian Statehood 59 4. Aliens ,.,..... ,.......... ..,,.,.. 5. Labor ..,..,. .., 2: 6. Women .. 7. District of Columbia 2: INTERNATIONAL CIVIL LIBERTIES .., 61 BALANCE SHEET OF COURT CASES 65 ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE 74 FINANCES ,,..._..__...._..._....................,..,..................,..................... 82 ERRATUM: On page 43, line 14, cohmn one, the word “supported” shortld read “opposed.” Message from Roger IV. Baldwin T14nR,- -_. fhirttr. VPZI~C yxrr. thr militant efforts \vorltl councils and alliancca. Only so can we ,--. I ,.-“., . .._ r of the A- merican Civil Liberties Union offer what the pcoplrs of the world still find to impress the principles of as their hope. <,f justice and civil liberty on our dcmoc- I~r~~~:rc.\~--lrcrtlr)tll tv work racy, by enlisting in every fart their own rcforllis with- challenge to them, have out a,, iI,ll’[,a~rl-.-antl fills< hcen our contribution to -5al~tirul. such progress as has been What we achicvr at holtre, made-in law, practice and in mairltaining our prin- untlcrstantling. And progress cil)lCh ai[ainat the attacks of has hccn considerable, de- the i~uful and short-sighted, spite wars, depressions and will meet instaht rccognitinn police states. :ItNl hcartc ninl: rc\lxxlsc Ours is today, and for the throughout a w&I 5cnsitivc foreseeable future, not only to our advances and our fail- an effort to buttress our own “KS Scvct in our thirty years democracy, still far from our goals, but to were obligations so hravy, nor the stakes for uphold those principles and practices in the Union and all democratic tortes so high. Message from John Haynes Holmes 0 one whose service covers the entire fanaticism, to krt and right alike, wllich aims 7r career of the American Civil Liberties its first attack on civil liberties. Union, there is great content in survey Are WC to lose what we have gained? Mmt ing these past thirty years. From such per- all our work bc done over again? Yes, if we spcctive one sees the threats to liberty which have been overcome, the forms of sup pression and oppression which have been removed, and the definite progress which has been made in many directions. The improvement of con- ditions during this period shows that the courageous, patient, persistent, and highly intelligent work of the I ACI,U has not bern in vain. that, in 5011x trl.rnia ot srlf- The Nation and the Union together have pr<~tc.cti~~n, thq bc rlr,t tcl,ilWd to sacrifice learned things which stand firm today as and thn5 forfeit the vrry fret&m indis- safeguards against the loss of what has been pensablc to civilization, so laboriously gained. This is a critical hour for us and the Yet must we be eternally vigilant so that world. Let us hc alert, amid waxing dan- lessons learned at great cost should not now gcrs, to keep unimpaired at home the bless- be forgotten; causes served heroically may ings of liberty and freedom which we would not be ignored nor despised. In this hour, spread abroad for the enlightenment and there comes the current hysteria of fear and liberation of mankind. Foreword The last previous annual report of the American Civil Liberties Union bore the date of August 1949, and covered the period from mid-1948 to mid-1949. Midway in 1950, the North Koreans crossed the 38th Parallel. T.he usual slack of our summer season disappeared. In its place, there opened a still-continuing period of intense activity during which our small staff has been unprecedentedly burdened with vital emergency tasks. We have had to operate in the faith that our members want us to direct almost all our energies toward currently defending civil liberties, instead of de- voting them to summarizing what has happened and what has been done about it. Experimentally, in late 1949 we began to send a monthly bulletin to the membership, in place of the former quarterly publication. Our membership figures, showing tiny losses and large gains, indicate that it is doing the work of providing information and cultivating interest in and understanding of the heavy burden under which the office is laboring. That burden has been heavier because a new executive director was in- stalled in February, 1950, and-under instructions from the Board-has conducted some experiments in organizational structure and function. Nobody can ever replace Roger Baldwin but he and the executive and clerical staff he had assembled, together with the Board and National Committee, the local ACLU organizations and the general membership, made the task of his successor less difficult (and more pleasant) than could have been expected. For the most part, the present report covers the period from mid-1949 to the end of 1950; in a few instances, the record is carried forward into early 1951. Hereafter, it is our plan to issue an annual report as soon as possible after New Year’s Day, to cover the preceding calendar year. In an attempt to make it more systematically instructive and more widely read, we are experimenting with some changes in arrangement and format; and we should like to have from its readers any suggestions, critical or construc- tive, which may occur to them. Limitations of staff time and printing space make it impossible to include everything, and we need advice on what to put in and what to leave out. Warm thanks are due to the members of the executive and clerical staff, under the guidance of our Public Relations Director, for their yeoman efforts in preparing the materials which constitute the detailed sections of the report; and to Mr. Jay Lavenson, an ACLU member in Jenkintown, Pa., for his many hours of.volunteer service in drafting and consultation. 4 “A Free Nation of Free People” Patrick Murphy Malin Exm~tiue Director, ACLU ~KXGEDY and anxiety always have been inseparable from human existence. Growing knowledge and developing conscience have elimi- nated or reduced some kinds of tragedy and anxiety, but have also intro- duced or accentuated other kinds, Where civilization stands in any particular time and place, in its attempt to provide a higher proportion of people with a higher proportion of their hearts’ desires, is a calculation subject to inadequate comparative information and varied personal judg merit. but, it is probably safe to say that the middle of the twentieth century finds the citizens of the ‘United States, despite all that good luck and good management have done for them, more conscious of tragedy and ansiety than Americans have ever been before. The year 1950 brought a special deepening of their anxiety. The cold w&u turned hot in Korea, and the possibility of World War III-with its threat of unimaginable destrucrion-became, for the first time for many people, a reality. International tension, for the first time for many people, was recognized to present problems which could not be solved quickly or simply, but which might extend indefinitely into the future and esact terrible costs. One of the most serious threatened costs is the curbing of individual freedom in the name of national security. Lincoln posed our problem in his first message to Congress in the feverish and fateful month of March 1861: *‘Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too iueuk to maintain its own existence?” Like all men, separately and corporately, from the beginning, we have an appetite for organization and an appetite for freedom. We want stabil- ity and calm, and we want change and excitement. We want internal order and external protection; we want variety and progress. We do not 5 want weakness and anarchy, but we do not want stagnation and tyranny, either. When our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, they brought forth a specific kind of new nation-“conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”. That is our glory, and our perplexity.