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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 14, No. 3. April 5, 1951
Other American Speakers
Other American Speakers
Having listened to Mr. West with great interest, we were surprised to learn from Dr. Spitzer personally that the N.S.A., though appealed to, had taken no action in his case. Dr. Spitzer and his wife proceeded to Holland where he took part in a Scientific Convention. We were later shocked to see a letter from his wife stating that on the 9th September,' as they were boarding the boat to go from Amsterdam to England, before returning to the U.S.A., he had been arrested by the Dutch police at the request of the American authorities and that the American Consul there had informed her that he would remain in goal there until the first available boat to America. The last we heard of him, some weeks later, he had been forcibly returned to the U.S.A. and his passport was there taken from him.
It appeared that again no action had been taken by the National Students' Association.
In light of these facts, we find ourselves able to give credence to the contentions made to the Congress by Mr. Chester Davies of the American Committee for International Student Cooperation (a body affiliated to the I.U.S.) when he claimed that the N.S.A. of America was not in practice carrying out a policy anything like Mr. West's speech would have us believe. He bluntly charged Mr. West and the N.S.A. with hypocrisy and insincerity, claiming that little or nothing had been done by the N.S.A. in the way of protests or action in the face of a whole series of aggravated encroachments on academic freedom, the political control and militarisation of education, serious racial discrimination, the wholesale dismissal of teachers for their political opinions or their refusal to sign "loyalty oaths," and so on. The N.S.A., he said, had refused to co-operate with other student bodies in their protests and actions against these things.
| 1. | The appointment of Army officers, businessmen, and persons of no academic standing as principals and trustees of public universities. |
| 2. | An increasing number of warlike statements from persons in influential positions in Universities, such as that of James Conant, President of Harvard, that the task of a University is "to prepare the student for the cold war." |
| 3. | The dismissal of University staff for expressing liberal opinions, and the demanding of "loyalty oaths" and the interrogation of staff and students on their political views. He cited the new celebrated case of the University of California, where a very substantial number of the staff were dismissed or resigned for refusing to subscribe to such a "loyalty oath." (N.B. A large number of such cases are dealt with in two I.U.S. pamphlets, "Whither Education in the U.S." published in July, 1949, and "U.S. Education in Crisis" published this year). See also Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, November, 1950. |
| 4. | The banning from University life of a number of young people's organisations such as the Labour Youth League and the American Veterans' Committee, and the victimisation of students for belonging to proscribed organisations. |
| 5. | Insensate actions, such as that of the Baltimore School Board of burning all books alleged to be sympathetic to the Soviet Union. |
| 6. | Censorship of student publications by University authorities. |
| 7. | The unhindered appearance, and sometimes even the encouragement by the authorities, of intolerance and race hatred, for example, in some places, against Jews, in others against Catholics, or the foreignborn, but particularly and almost universally against Negroes. |
| 1. | "In recent months the nation's press has reported an increase in military activity and influence in our American educational institutions. This activity, represented by military subsidy of science departments, expanded military training units, increased use of schools and colleges as recruiting grounds, and military propaganda directed towards students and faculty has serious implications both for the future of our nation and for world peace." |
| 2. | "Despite the fact that the purpose of education is not the promotion of nationalism or militarism, a considerable number of American colleges were prepared to make war their major raison d'etre as long as the government wanted." Citing estimates that the military would spend about $54 million in research in universities in 1950, the report (written before the beginning of the "Korean Affair") said "whenever military secrecy becomes important to a college, the political opinion of students and professors, and their associations, become important and may be the basis for their investigation and dismissal." |
| 3. | In addition to General Dwight Eisenhower, now President of Columbia University, the report names nine other top-flight military men who are running American colleges. |
| 4. | ". . . The Army is trying to sell itself to educators through the professional educational organisations, often indirectly suggesting to educators who are planning a convention that a certain top general would be available for an address. . . . Colonel Herman Beukema of the U.S. Military Academy used such an opportunity to say," . . there can be no question of returning the armed forces to the hole in the corner they occupied before the war. With understanding will come a greater concern for the selection and education of qualified military personnel to fill the niches where power and policy become one and inseparable."." |
| 5. | "Education has the choice of being used as a tool of the military in its effort to achieve power, or of being the servant of all the people. Only if education is free from militarism, can it really be the instrument through which democracy and peace may be achieved," concluded the report. |