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Benjamin J. Davis, New York's Communist councilman who thinks Communism is a science (TIME, Jan. 26), uncovered another foul capitalist plot last week. This time, said he, it was "an attempt to intimidate the powerful Negro sentiment behind the presidential candidacy of Henry Wallace."

What got Communist Davis' dander up was the arrest in Harlem one night last week of Claudia Jones, 32, nee Claudia Vera Cumberbatch, known also as Mrs. Scholnick (for her ex-husband). Miss Jones, a Negro, is secretary of the National Women's Commission of the Communist Party, a member of its national committee, long active in the late Young Communist League and a frequent contributor to the columns of the Daily Worker.

Like Alexander Bittelman, the Russian-born Communist intellectual picked up a fortnight ago in Miami, she is an alien. She came to the U.S. from Trinidad in 1924, and the Department of Justice would like to send her back. She spent one night on Ellis Island and then was bailed out for $1,000. Promptly the Communist apparatus of protest (which involves meetings, indignant telegrams, denunciations) meshed into gear.

It might be, however, that considerable time will elapse before Bittelman is deported to Russia or Claudia Jones to her native Trinidad. There will, of course, be the usual lengthy appeals to the courts. But even after they are exhausted, there is one other big hurdle in the way. Their native countries may simply refuse to take them back.

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