The Recalcitrant Librarian

The Recalcitrant Librarian Of all the U.S. citizens who have refused to tell congressional committees about their possible past Communist activities, few have stirred quite such a flurry of controversy as Mrs. Mary Knowles, 46. The Knowles case began in 1953 when FBI Counterspy Herbert Philbrick charged that she and her husband had once been employed by Boston's Communist-front Samuel Adams School. When a Senate Internal Security subcommittee questioned her about her past, Mary Knowles ducked behind the Fifth Amendment. Though .the Senate took no action against her at the time, the Norwood, Mass, library fired her from the job she then held as branch librarian.

She quickly landed on her feet again. But no sooner had she taken over her new job as librarian of the William Jeanes Memorial Library, owned by the Quaker monthly meeting of Plymouth Meeting, Pa., than she kicked up another uproar by refusing to take the Pennsylvania state loyalty oath. Though she was not legally required to take it, there were storms of protest, but her employers decided to keep her on. Then the Fund for the Republic rushed in and offered the meeting $5,000 for its "courageous and effective defense of democratic principles." That put the case of Mary Knowles back in the headlines, and reawakened the Senate's interest in her.

In July and September of 1955 the Internal Security subcommittee called her in for more questioning. With advice of counsel, Mary Knowles invoked the First Amendment, refused to answer such questions as: "Did you, or do you, know Herbert Philbrick?" on the further grounds that they pried into her private thoughts and were meant, not to elicit pertinent information, but only to humiliate her. Last fall Mary Knowles was indicted for contempt of Congress.

Last week, having waived a jury trial, Librarian Knowles appeared in the court of Federal Judge Ross Rizley, sitting in Washington, D.C.. for a one-day session in which she did not take the stand. The judge's decision: since the Senate subcommittee was performing its legal duty in seeking information on Communist infiltration, the witness had no right to withhold such information or to invoke the First Amendment. Found guilty on 52 out of 58 counts, Mary Knowles now faces a maximum possible sentence of a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

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