Either Way You Win

U.S. Communists are noisier than numerous. And they prefer, whenever possible, to have the shouting done for them by others and thus seem not only more respectable but larger than life. In Washington last week they gave a demonstration of this technique. Their target was the Mundt-Nixon bill.*

Before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee appeared Singer Paul Robeson, a long time fellow traveler, to denounce the bill. He refused to tell whether or not he is a Communist. Declared Robeson: "Nineteen men are about to go to jail for refusing to answer that question. I am prepared to join them." Nobody asked him to go to jail. The subcommittee listened to a few other witnesses, decided to end the hearings. They had already run a day longer than scheduled.

With that, the Communist machinery swung into action. The Committee for Democratic Rights, which has among its sponsors Communist Ben Gold, leader of the C.I.O. fur workers, and New York's Communist Councilman Benjamin J. Davis Jr., announced a march on Washington. It was joined by the National Non-Partisan Delegation to Washington, an outfit which had planned a demonstration to demand anti-lynching legislation.

Two days later 5,500 men & women, mostly from New York City, descended on Washington in three special trains, chartered buses, private cars and planes. They had a field day. They invaded the Senate office building, picketed the White House and caused a disturbance in a restaurant which bans Negroes. Three were arrested (one had no connection with the demonstration).

They topped off the day with a rally at the foot of the Washington Monument, where Paul Robeson sang Ol' Man River and everybody cheered the name of Henry Wallace.

The demonstration so riled some Senators that they angrily trumpeted their determination to push the Mundt-Nixon bill through--although it had been headed for the shelf. That was O.K. with the Communists. If the bill became law they would be martyrs. If it didn't, they could chortle triumphantly that they had killed it.

* Authors Karl E. Mundt and Richard M. Nixon both won political triumphs last week. In South Dakota, Mundt won the Republican nomination for the Senate, is an almost certain winner in November. In California, Nixon won both the Republican and Democratic nominations, assuring him of re-election.

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