Those called to testify before this and other similar investigations can be classified in three categories.
First there are Communists and those who have reason to believe that even if they are not Communists they have been accused of being and are in danger of harassment and prosecution.
Second, there are those who approve of the purposes and methods of these investigations.
Third, there are those who are not Communists and do not believe they are in danger of being prosecuted, but who yet deeply disapprove of the purposes and methods of these investigations.
The first group will naturally, and I think wholly justifiably, plead the constitutional privilege of not being witnesses against themselves. The second group will equally naturally be cooperative witnesses. I know because I belong to this third group, and I have been struggling with its problems for many weeks now. I would like to explain what the nature of that dilemma is. I think it is important that both those conducting these inquiries and the public should understand.
It is often said: If a person is not a Communist and has nothing to fear, why should he not answer whatever questions are put to him and be done with it? The answer, of course, is that some of us believe these investigations are evil and dangerous, and we do not want to give our approval to them, either tacitly or otherwise. On the contrary, we want to oppose them to the best of our ability and persuade others to do likewise, with the hope of eventually abolishing them altogether.
Our reasons for opposing these investigations are not captious or trivial. They have deep roots in principle and conscience. Let me explain with reference to the present New Hampshire investigation. The official purpose of the inquiry is to uncover and lay the basis for the prosecution of persons who in one way or another promote the forcible overthrow of constitutional forms of government. Leaving aside the question of the constitutionality of the investigation, which is now before the courts, I think it must be plain to any reasonable person who is at all well informed about conditions in New Hampshire today that strict adherence to this purpose would leave little room for investigation. It is obvious enough that there are few radicals or dissenters of any kind in New Hampshire; and if there are any who advocate use of force and violence, they must be isolated crackpots who are no danger to anyone, least of all to the constitutional form of government of state and nation. The Attorney General should be able to check these facts quickly and issue a report satisfying the mandate laid upon him by the legislature.
We do not know the whole story, but enough has come out to show that the Attorney General has issued a considerable number of subpoenas and has held hearings in various parts of the state. And so far as the available information allows us to judge, most of those subpoenaed have fallen into one or both of two groups: first, professors at Dartmouth and the University of New Hampshire who have gained a reputation for liberal or otherwise unorthodox views, and, second, people who have been active in the Progressive Party. It should be specially noted that whatever may be thought of the Progressive Party in any other respect, it was certainly not devoted to violent overthrow of constitutional forms of government but on the contrary to effecting reforms through the very democratic procedures which are the essence of constitutional forms of government.
The pattern I have described is no accident. Whatever their official purpose, these investigations always end up by inquiring into the politics, ideas, and beliefs of people who hold what are, for the time being, unpopular views. The federal House Committee on Un-American Activities, for example, is supposed to investigate various kinds of propaganda and has no other mandate whatever. Over the years, however, it has spent almost no time investigating propaganda and has devoted almost all of its energies to “exposing” people and their ideas, their affiliations, their associations. Similarly, this New Hampshire investigation is supposed to be concerned with violent overthrow of government, but it is actually turning out to be concerned with what few manifestations of political dissent have made themselves felt in the state in recent years.
If all this is so, and if the very first principle of the American constitutional form of government is political freedom—which I take to include freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association—then I do not see how it can be denied that these investigations are a grave danger to all that Americans have always claimed to cherish. No rights are genuine if a person, for exercising them, can be hauled up before some tribunal and forced under penalties of perjury and contempt to account for his ideas and conduct.
Let us now return to the problem of the witness who would have nothing to fear from being what is nowadays styled a “friendly” witness, but who feels deeply that to follow such a course would be a betrayal of his principles and repugnant to his conscience. What other courses are open to him?
He can claim the privilege not to be a witness against himself and thus avoid a hateful inquisition. I respect the decision of those who elect to take this course. My own reason for rejecting it is that, with public opinion in its present state, the exercise of the privilege is almost certain to be widely misinterpreted. One of the noblest and most precious guarantees of freedom, won in the course of bitter struggles and terrible suffering, has been distorted in our own day to mean a confession of guilt, the more sinister because undefined and indeed undefinable. It is unfortunate, but true, that the public at large has accepted this distortion and will scarcely listen to those who have invoked the privilege.
Alternatively, the witness can seek to uphold his principles and maintain his integrity, not by claiming the protection of the Fifth Amendment (or the Fifteenth Article of the New Hampshire Bill of Rights), but by contesting the legitimacy of offensive questions on other constitutional and legal grounds.
Just how far the First Amendment limits the right of legislative inquiry has not been settled. The Supreme Court of the United States is at this very moment considering a case (the Emspak case) which may do much to settle the question. But even before the Court has handed down its decision in the Emspak case, it is quite certain that the First Amendment does place some limitations on the power of investigation, and it is always open to a witness to challenge a question on the ground that it transgresses these limitations and, if necessary, to take the issue to the courts for decision.
Moreover, a witness may not be required to answer questions unless they are “pertinent to the matter under inquiry” (the words are those of the United States Supreme Court).
What is the “matter under inquiry” in the present investigation? According to the Act of the New Hampshire legislature directing the investigation, its purpose is twofold: (1) “to make full and complete investigation with respect to violations of the subversive activities act of 1951,” and (2) “to determine whether subversive persons as defined in said act are presently located within this state.”
I have studied the subversive activities act of 1951 with care, and I am glad to volunteer the information that I have absolutely no knowledge of any violations of any of its provisions; further, that I have no knowledge of subversive persons presently located within the state.
That these statements may carry full conviction, I am prepared to answer certain questions about myself, though in doing so I do not mean to concede the right to ask them. I am also prepared to discuss my views relating to the use of force and violence to overthrow constitutional forms of government. But I shall respectfully decline to answer questions concerning ideas, beliefs, and associations which could not possibly be pertinent to the matter here under inquiry and/or which seem to me to invade the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (which, of course, applies equally to the several states).
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