Disloyal Americans

In the past year, 793 Government employees have been fired for disloyalty to the U.S. This was the estimate last week of the Civil Service Commission, which reported that quiet investigations had also flushed out 18 other "disloyal" jobholders, who resigned. Civil Service Commissioner Arthur Flemming estimated that before the investigations were over, about 3,200 of the Government's 2,000,000-plus employees would be tagged as disloyal. The report did not define the shades of disloyalty. The War Department alone gave a hint: 158 of the 190 civilian employees it had fired were "ineligible for employment for disloyalty involving Communism."

The report came in a week when Congressmen were in a mood to act against anyone with the faintest Red tinge. President Truman had ordered full inquiries into the political loyalties of federal jobholders (TIME, March 31). He directed that loyalty boards be set up in each department. The President's plan provided some rights of defense and appeal.

But Kansas' dour, white-haired Republican Congressman Edward Rees seized the moment to bring up his bill for establishment of a five-man federal board of review, which would pass on the loyalty of all employees and applicants. The Rees bill's board would act as prosecutor, judge and jury; furthermore, those accused would be denied the right to confront their accusers and would have no appeal to the courts if found guilty. To many people, these measures seemed to infringe civil rights. But all attempts to modify the bill failed; the House jammed it through, 319-to-61. A slightly cooler Senate was expected to lay it on the shelf.

In Washington last week, a federal judge whacked 16 members of the leftist Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee who were found guilty of contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over records to the House Un-American Activities Committee (TIME, July 7). The whacks: for Chairman Dr. Edward Barsky: six months in jail and $500 fine; for Novelist Howard Fast and nine others: three months in jail and $500 fines; for Theatrical Producer Herman Shumlin, Leverett Gleason (publisher of comic books) and three others: $500 fines and suspended three-month jail terms. The eleven sentenced to jail appealed and were freed on bail.

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