The Great Fear [antikvár]

Preface On May 15, 1954, in the high summer of the great fear, the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee warned that "the threat to civil liberties in the United States today is the most serious in the history of our country." It was indeed a desperate time, a time when the words "democracy" and "freedom" resembled gaudy advertising slogans suspended above an intersection where panic, prejudice, suspicion, cowardice and demagogic ambition constantly collided in a bedlam of recriminations. The wealthiest, most secure nation in the world was sweat-drenched in fear. From New York to San Diego, from Seattle to Miami, federal, state and municipal employees worried about their pasts, their student indiscretions, their slenderest associations, and hoped that the letter from the loyalty board would never come. Some hastened to save their own skin by denouncing a colleague. Young men inducted into the armed forces were suddenly confronted with political allegations and the threat of a dishonorable discharge. On Capitol Hill the running was now made by professional scalp-hunters; the statute books groaned under several seasons of legislation designed to outlaw dissent. Under harsh klieg lights Congressional inquisitors roasted civil servants, film stars, industrial workers, lawyers, teachers, writers and trade unionists, while reporters jostled in the corridors, panting for another allegation—any allegation—from the Senator whose manure was publicity. "NEW PROBE!" In schools, universities, town halls and local professional associations, a continuous, pious mumbling of oaths was heard—the liturgy of fear. "I do swear, I do affirm . . ." What? "That I am not, was not.