In spite of denials of prejudice and assertions that no stigma attached to alien registration, it is manifest that some, at least, of the sponsors of the bill thought that aliens as a group are suspicious characters.85 The coupling of the provisions for fingerprinting and registration of aliens with provisions aimed at anti-democratic agencies and alien criminals may be viewed as reflecting the attitude that the alien is dangerous to our democratic institutions. Little attention was paid to evidence, adduced by a number of Congressmen," that our aliens are not less law abiding than our citizens. Undoubtedly the driving force behind alien registration was the force of fear, born of ignorance, on the part of native-born Americans with respect to aliens. This ignorance and fear are particularly powerful in sections of the country where few if any aliens live, and representatives of these sections played a leading part in the enactment of the measure. It is, however, one of the redeeming features of disclosure legislation that it establishes a reasonable technique for alleviating such ignorance and fear, which otherwise might find cruel and dangerous outlets. Since the passage of the Alien Registration Act of 1940, none of the many pending punitive measures directed against aliens as a class has made any headway in Congress. The administration of the Alien Registration Act. The administration of the registration provisions of the Alien Registration Act dispelled the fears of many that it would be a blow to the civil liberities of a large part of our population and that it would tend to turn most of the registrants against the United States. The administration of the Act has been fair, unprejudiced, and unbiased. There was little of the suspicious attitude on the part of the people generally that might have developed. This may have been owing in part to the simultaneous registration of males from twenty-one to thirty-five for selective srevice. Certainly there was nothing of the sort of thing predicted by Senator Connally: "We informers and others would see to it that the postmasters registered all the aliens. I can imagine such a man calling up the postmaster and saying 'Has Old Man Bohunk over here ever registered as an alien? If not, we want to know, and we will see that he comes in * * * * * 87 * thought * * The favorable reaction on the part of the aliens may be explained by the fact that, while this law was strange and unusual in the annals of the United States, Europeans were quite familiar with the requirement of constant police registration, with the necessity of showing their passports on any and all occasions, and of notifying and registering with the police any permanent, and often any temporary, change of residence. Therefore, in many cases they felt reassured by the knowledge that they had registered with the constituted authority in the fashion to which they had been accustomed abroad. Reports from various sources indicate that the task of registering more than five million aliens was carried out with courtesy and consideration. Special problems received special attention. Every effort was made to assure the aliens that the fingerprinting did not imply discrimination. Many of those who registered did so cheerfully and with a sense of satisfaction that they were proving their loyalty and real affection for this country. Credit for handling the delicate job so skillfully goes to the administrative wisdom of then Solicitor General (now Attorney General) Francis Biddle in appointing Earl G. Harrison as Director of Alien Registration, and backing him in his conduct of the work. Mr. Harrison recognized the Alien Registration Act as an opportunity to gain the confidence of the large alien population, and to draw them closer into the main streams of American life. On December 8, the value and usefulness of the Alien Registration Act was proved. The United States Government had available the detailed records of practically every alien in the United States. These records proved invaluable in rounding up the suspect alien enemies, in determining what actions were necessary against concentrations of alien enemies, in studying the possible 84 "At first, I confess, Mr. Speaker, I was somewhat skeptical * * because in the past this operation [fingerprinting] smacked somewhat of criminal implications, but after a careful consideration of the matter I have come to a different conclusion." Congressman Taylor, 84 Cong. Rec. 9533 (1939). "There is no stigma connected with it." Congressman Hobbs, 84 Cong. Rec. 10358 (1939). 85 See statements of Congressman Keefe, 84 Cong. Rec. 9540 (1939); Blackney, 84 Cong. Rec. 10365 (1939); and Smith, Hearing before a Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, on H. R. 5138, 70th Cong., 3d Sess., at 11 (1940). 86 84 Cong. Rec. 10362 et seq. (1939). 87 86 Cong. Rec. 8344 (1940). effects of military.orders on alien enemies, and in effecting a more sympathetic attitude toward the loyal, trustworthy alien "enemies." Since the government was able to proceed so effectively against dangerous alien enemies in the country, vigilantism and hysterical cries for mass action against the Germans, Italians, and Japanese among us were probably less serious than they otherwise would have been. In pursuance of the President's proclamations of December 7 and 8, provision was made and regulations adopted. for a registration of enemy aliens within our borders. This registration showed in its scope and questions the understanding attitude of the Department of Justice in that it permitted the so-called "friendly alien enemy" an opportunity to explain in detail the reasons for his residence in the United States and for his leaving his native land, and possibly removed some of the stigma and fear attaching to the term "alien enemy," since it offered him an official opportunity to explain his loyalties. At the time of this registration a type of booklet or, as regarded by many of the aliens, passport, showing that he had registered and was duly recognized as being legally entitled to proceed with his business, was issued to each registrant. The previous registration under the Alien Registration Act had familiarized the aliens with the procedure of registration, and the mere fact that the wartime registration was also conducted at the post offices possibly quelled some of the uneasiness as to his status in the mind of the innocent or friendly alien enemy. In view of this history, a fair appraisal of the Alien Registration Act must acknowledge that however mistaken the assumption of alien disloyalty which helped to bring about this law may be, the law has not harmed the civil liberties of aliens; has been of considerable use to the government in its handling of the "alien enemy" problem; and has at least helped to eliminate a dangerous sense of fear and uncertainty in the public mind and in Congress with respect to the place of aliens in our country's life. GAPS IN EXISTING DISCLOSURE LEGISLATION While it cannot yet be said that disclosure legislation has proved to be a perfect antidote for the poison of anti-democratic propaganda, it may fairly be concluded that such legislation is a useful weapon in the struggle: that unlike other weapons it does not threaten the democracy that wields it; that in practice this legislation has not been administered in a partisan or oppressive manner or in such a way as to interfere with the civil liberties of any one; that the enforcement of these laws has raised the level of political understanding on the part of the general public and, even more, on the part of the federal executive departments; and finally, that the defects which have thus far appeared in statutes of this type are technically remediable. Our analysis of the three principal statutes in this field points to the need for a more complete and effective Coverage and exposure of antidemocratic propaganda than has yet been achieved. But our analysis would not be complete without an attempt, based on a bird's-eyeview of the field of antidemocratic propaganda, to determine whether the three statutes examined cover this entire field and whether new legislation is needed to complete the defenses of our democracy. The three statutes examined apply the method of disclosure to the activities of foreign agents, subversive organizations, and aliens. But any comprehensive view of antidemocratic propaganda activities in the United States indicates that such activities are frequently carried on by citizens, not on the pay roll of any foreign principal, who do not operate through the medium of subversive organizations. The question should therefore be faced: Can disclosure legislation be applied to prapaganda activities of this character? It may be that a broadening of the Voorhis Act for the registration of organizations, such as has been suggested in the preceding pages, would bring nearly the whole domain of antidemocratic propaganda under disclosure requirements. But there would still remain the possibility of individual propagandists, using the favorite Fascist "divide and conquer" techniques, to undermine our polity by sowing hatred and dissension in our midst. If the Voorhis Act is not broadened in the manner suggested, then activities in this direction by domestic organizations as well as by individual citizens will go unscouted. The hate campaigns which are designed to break apart our society into a maze of conflicting racial and religious groups are probably in the long run a much greater threat to our democracy than the activities of all foreign agents, subversive organizations, and aliens put together. For the fact is that highly respectable men in public life and organizations of patriotic citizens frequently engage in such propaganda activities; these activities, directed particularly against Negroes, Jews, Catholics, aliens, and citizens of foreign birth or parentage, threaten, moreover, to deprive the United States of the loyalty of more than half its present population, and to alter the patriotism of the remainder of our people into an intolerant sectarian group solidarity. Is there no way of subjecting this antidemocratic propaganda to some effective public scrutiny through the use of appropriately framed disclosure legislation? A minimum objective of such legislation would necessarily be the exposure of the authorship and sponsorship of a growing mass of anonymous propaganda designed to inculcate hatred of racial and religious groups within our nation. Whatever may be the right of an American to calumniate his fellow citizens of other races or religions, there is at least a reciprocal right in his neighbors and in his government to investigate and expose the source and the substance of his calumnies. This right must be exercised if the integrity of our democratic process and the unity of our nation are to be preserved in the face of a carefully organized campaign by the Nazi forces and their allies to instill the poisons of disunity in the American body politic. A statutory requirement that such propaganda show on its face the source from which it comes would involve neither a violation of civil liberties nor a departure from tested principles which have already been applied in the field of propaganda as well as in the field of foods and drugs, political advertising, trade in securities, and other important fields of civilized life. It may be that within the structure of our Federal Government a part of this problem ought to be left to the states. Yet, there are lines of federal responsibility along which no state action can be as effective as action of a national scope. Control of the mails and of imports cannot be exercised by local governments, and if the nation is to be protected against the misuse of national instruments for the distribution of anonymous anti-democratic propaganda, that protection can only be afforded by national legislation. So, too, our national elections have come to be field-days for the forces that seek to sow the seeds of internal dissension, and here again the Federal Government must take whatever action the situation demands.88 The Special Senate Committee to Investigate Campaign Expenditures, of which Senator Gillette was chairman, found that in the 1940 national election one-third of all the campaign literature it was able to collect was wholly anonymous, and that this included the most virulent, dishonest, and scurrilous campaign material published. A bill introduced by Senator Gillette to meet this problem" proposed to render it a federal offense to circulate "published matter which exposes, or tends or seeks to expose, to public hatred or contempt any group or class of persons, comprised of or including persons who are citizens of the United States or subject to the jurisdiction thereof, because of race, religion, descent, or nationality, and which is designed to influence any election" to any federal office. It further proposed to bar such anonymous: propaganda from the mails and from importation into the United States. 89 The Gillette bill does not stop with a set of prohibitions. Recognizing the simple fact, to which the history of our labor legislation bears ample testimony, that important social reforms cannot be achieved by mere prohibition, the bill proposes to set up special administrative machinery which is to be charged with responsibility for bringing to light the authorship and sponsorship of the scurrilous propaganda against which the bill is directed. Of the activities of such an agency, the report to which reference has already been made 9 has this to. say: "An essential part of this bill is the provision establishing an Office of Minority Relations to conduct necessary investigations and to issue factual reports on the sources of those scurrilous attacks with which this bill is concerned. Such an administrative agency should work largely with and through State agencies in those States which attempt to deal with this problem locally. It should make available to organizations, public officials, and other individuals timely and accurate information with respect to these scurrilous attacks. By making available the results of its investigations to the Bureau of American Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution and other public and private bodies, such an agency would be of inestimable aid in making possible authoritative and accurate answers to the falsehoods and fallacies that are the chief ammunition in the Nazi campaign 88 On the constitutional power of the Federal Government in this respect, see Burroughs v.. United States, 290 U. S. 534 (1934). 89 Institute of Living Law, The Gillette Bill for Propaganda Exposure 2 (1941). 90 S. 990. 77th Cong., 1st sess. (1941). 1 Note 89 supra. against American unity. These things the proposed agency could do without engaging in propaganda, and the bill wisely imposes a division of labor, under which the task of exposing the sources of un-American propaganda is accepted as a responsibility of government, while the task of answering such propaganda is left largely to private initiative. "Obviously, the proposed agency is not intended primarily for law enforcement, a function which will necessarily be carried out by the Justice Department, with respect to criminal prosecutions, by the Treasury Department, with respect to importation, and by the Post Office Department, with respect to the mails. Its functions will be the more constructive ones of investigation, research, and the supplying of information. In order that the activities of the proposed agency may be removed from suspicion of partisanship, the bill provides that the Director of the Office of Minority Relations shall be appointed by the President from a list of three nominees presented by the chancellor and regents of the Smithsonian Institution. The office of chancellor is held by Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes [now by Chief Justice Stone] and the Board of Regents is a nonpartisan body of distinguished scientists and statesmen. The subordinate employees of the proposed agency would be subject to civil-service laws and regulations, and thus barred from partisan political activities. "While the Office of Minority Relations might well be established as an independent agency, reasons of economy and administration suggest that it ought to be placed within some existing executive department. Of various departments which may be considered in this connection, the Department of the Interior appears to be most appropriate, because of the activities of that Department in dealing with misunderstandings, prejudices, and fallacies affecting Indians, the native populations of Puerto Rico, the Hawaiian Islands, and the Philippines, and other minority groups, and in fostering good relations between these groups and their fellow Americans. Finally, the problems with which this bill deals are peculiarly important to Alaska, Puerto Rico, the Hawaiian Islands, and the Philippines, and therefore the conduct of this research function by the Interior Department would be of value to that Department in managing its present responsibilities with respect to these territories and possessions." The Gillette bill proceeds from a recognition that a poisonous growth on American soil is making use of our democratic processes to destroy democracy. It springs from the belief that the cure for evils inherent in democracy is more democracy, specifically, that exposure to the light is the safest and most effective way of dealing with this poison. As yet the measure has not had the general scrutiny which legislation in this field needs to have before there can be a sound appraisal of its merits and its social costs. At best it represents the growing point of the law in the field of propaganda exposure. Mr. STRIPLING. All right; that is all. Mr. NIXON. Thank you, Mr. Gaston. Mr. NIXON. This will conclude the open hearings of the committee, the Subcommittee on Legislation, at this time, and the committee will now resolve itself into executive session for the consideration of further matters. The meeting will be adjourned. (Whereupon, at 2: 50 p. m., the subcommittee adjourned.) (The following statements were ordered to be printed in this hearing :) STATEMENT BY EUGENE LYONS, NEW YORK. N. Y., FORMER UNITED PRESS CORRESPONDENT IN THE U. S. S. R., AUTHOR OF ASSIGNMENT IN UTOPIA; THE RED DECADE; STALIN, Czar of ALL THE RUSSIAS In facing the problem of Communist infiltration in the United States, it is well to bear in mind a number of basic facts: 1. The Communists in this country, under whatever name and guise they may operate, are not an American movement but simply the American section of an international organization. For a time this affiliation was open and admitted; in recent years it has been camouflaged. But these are merely the changing tactics of expediency and do not alter the fact itself. 2. The dominant element in that international set-up is the Soviet Russian contingent. This dominance is so absolute that the world organization has in practice become a facade for the Soviet dictatorship and an instrument of Soviet policies and purposes. Whenever there is a difference of opinion within the international ranks, the decisions of the Russian leadership always prevail; nonRussian sections either take it or get out. Thus communism today is not even an international movement; it is strictly a Soviet Russian enterprise with branch offices in all other countries. It is international only in the sense that Cook's tours is international, in that it has agents and offices in other countries. 3. Whatever it may have been historically, communism here and now is no longer a specific economic faith with a fixed body of beliefs. It is simply a blind allegiance to a foreign dictatorship. The true Communist does not know what he believes from day to day, but only whom he follows. He does not accept a set of theories, good or bad, but obeys a set of orders, known as the current party line. All talk of impairing his right to believe what he pleases and to advocate what he pleases is therefore nonsensical. The Communist has no private beliefs at all; a changing line of goods is shipped to him by headquarters to "push" that season; he is in effect the sales agent of a foreign ideological house. 4. The party line is not determined by American Communists for American Communists. It is determined by the Soviet dictatorship and imposed upon American Communists. It is a notorious fact that many hairpin turns in that line have been made by Moscow without even the courtesy of advance notice to the American section, which has invariably followed the new turn without protest. 5. The professed beliefs and practical objectives of the American Communists at any given time have little if any relation to American life and interests. They reflect Soviet Russian needs, policies, interests, and objectives. The American Communist Party and all its open and disguised extensions are essentially a pressure group for a foreign regime. In the light of these fundamental facts, I can see no logical reason why the Communist pressure group should enjoy any more privilege and immunities than any other hired or voluntary pressure group for a foreign power. Its status seems to me exactly parallel to that of the prewar German-American Bund. That, too, was an organization of American citizens and alien residents dedicated to serving the policies of a foreign dictatorship. I am no constitutional lawyer, but I know of nothing in our Constitution and Bill of Rights which guarantees foreign agents (whatever disguise they may assume to fool the public) the right to organize as a political party, to nominate candidates for Government offices, and to appear on the American ballot. Those who object to the denial of these political prerogatives to the Communists must, in deference to consistency, allow the same rights to groups like the German-American Bund. The only difference is that the Communists have been more adroit in camouflaging their foreign agency as an American movement. That is why, as a matter of principle, I favor legislation outlawing the Communist Party whether under that name or any other it may assume. As long as we are at peace with the power which they serve and obey implicitly, the Communists should not be denied the right to organize and to meet, precisely as the German-American Bund was allowed to organize and to meet. But in the interests of national security, of course, they should be expected to register as agents of a foreign agency and to submit regular accountings of their activities and finances. In other words, I make the clear distinction between the right of a foreignagent organization to exist and its right to function as a political party. Outlawing the political phase of the Communist movement will not solve the problem of Communist infiltration, of course, any more than preventive medicine abolishes all disease. The most important Communist activities today and always are in effect underground anyhow; these must be dealt with by the police and investigative arms of our Government. The existence of a legal party above ground merely helps conceal the existence of the more important underground segments. Moreover, it tends to throw an aura of legality and respectability around the whole conspiracy. It should be remembered that the most effective part of the Communist movement in America-the part that is most valuable to Soviet Russia and most menacing to the United States is the so-called periphery of fellow travelers, sympathizers, and innocents. The legality of the Communist Party is valuable in snaring these periphery collaborators. Why should they hesitate to cooperate with this party any more than with the Democratic or Republican Party? That |