The Imaginary Parallel

In the New York Times letters column, Old Socialist Norman Thomas found a letter from Old Philosopher Bertrand Russell defending teachers who refuse to answer the questions of congressional committees. Britain's Russell compared the teachers' stand to George Washington's disobedience of the law and to the Christian martyrs' refusal to sacrifice to the emperor. This was too much for Thomas, who this week fired off a letter of his own to the Times. Wrote he:

"Of course there is no absolute ethical command: 'Thou shalt always obey every law.' But there is a presumption in favor of obeying law. Strongly opposed as I am to McCarthyism, I am compelled to support the legitimacy of congressional investigations. I think the Jenner and Velde committees are doing rather more harm than good by their present inquiries, but the plain truth is that they are not as yet conducting a general fishing expedition into ideas and beliefs. They are questioning comparatively few teachers about their primary loyalties.

"They have brought about the imprisonment of no one and, with one possible exception, the only teachers dismissed are those who have refused to answer questions which are not illegal or necessarily impertinent . . .

"Would Bertrand Russell not agree that honest speech is a far better defense of civil liberty than silence plus a pleading of the Fifth Amendment? The parallel to George Washington or the Christian martyrs is imaginary."

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