For a Wise Balance

Taking a step last week that many a Democratic politician heartily wished he had taken long ago, President Truman appointed a nine-member citizens' commission to examine the whole thorny question of subversion and loyalty in a free society. Said the President: "We must be sure that our laws and procedures at home are adequate...to preserve our national security against treason, espionage, sabotage and other subversive acts...At the same time, we are concerned lest the measures taken to protect us from these dangers infringe the liberties guaranteed by our Constitution and stifle the atmosphere of freedom..."

To head the new Commission on Internal Security and Individual Rights, Truman named an old war horse and respected citizen, retired Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, whose most recent public assignment was U.N. administrator for the abortive Kashmir plebiscite. The other members were of the same high caliber: Miss Anna Lord Strauss, former president of the National League of Women Voters (vice chairman); the Rt. Rev. Karl Morgan Block, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of California; Republican ex-Senator John Danaher of Connecticut; Harvey S. Firestone Jr., chairman of the Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.; William E. Leahy, Washington lawyer; Russell C. Leffingwell, Chairman of J. P. Morgan & Co.; Charles H. Silver, vice president of the American Woolen Co.; and the Most Rev. Emmett M. Walsh, Coadjutor Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio.

The commission was given a wide directive to survey the entire tangled mass of anti-subversive legislation, check the operation of the new McCarran law and to look into, the effectiveness of the Government's loyalty and security program. Truman suggested that the group might also consider the problem in relation to state and local government, even in "private groups of all kinds." In, general, they would "seek the wisest balance that can be struck between security and freedom."

The President had presented the nine Americans on the commission with a great opportunity and grave responsibility. The problem of security was obvious and compelling. But no one wanted the throttling kind of thought control inspired by Mc-Carthyism and leading, as Harry Truman aptly put it, to "the deadly imposition of conformity." Many a plain citizen, confused and alarmed by all the whirling words, would listen carefully to a quiet, disinterested voice that spoke with knowledge and authority. The commission might fail; but if it could find the way to security with freedom, it would earn a nation's gratitude.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.