rman of tho Committee
ss 3s become the Honorary Chai
ee ic oa oe following statement to Aid the Bloomington Students, and has made the
the Indiana "sedition" cases are : eh sees attempt to persecute inépendoent political thinking in the = United States is indicative of the extent to which those who are pus —. mankind towards nuclear annihilation are unprepared to allow independen and critical consideration of the alternatives. The persecution of the Bloomington Students is the most naked authoritarianism; it affects not only academic freedom, but the duty on the part of all 8 us to oppose the mad policies which governnents have followed. Tho Canger to pie val today is intimately related,to the inability to speak out effective 7 against governments, Bast and West. : I hope that there will bo an international demand for justice in the case of the Bloomington Students, whose example should inspire everyone who follows individual liberty."
most
The case of the Bloomington students is one of the drastic attacks on the constitutional rights of American citizens to take place in recent years, It is being brought by the state of Indiana against officers of the nation-wide Trotskyist youth group, the Young Socialist Alliance. Threo mens Tom Morgan, Jim Bingham and Ralph Levitt, ore teing charged with such offences as: boing Moscow-trained agents, being in oa running gun battle with the state of Kentucky (this is apparently because they organised aid to striking miners), and boing connected with Lee Oswald, Their real crimo was to organise a meeting at which Leroy McRae, -secretary of the YSA, spoke.
Indiana has a particularly bad record in being a centre of extreme right wing activities. It won world-renown, when certain officials wanted to ban the story of Robin Hood as boing “subversive.” In the 1920's Indiana was a seat of power of the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1930's the Silver Shirts, a fascist stormtrooper organisation, flourished there. More recently, the John Birch Society was founded in the state capital. The Indiana Anti-—Subversion Law states that it is public policy of the state of Indiana to “exterminate Communism, Communists and any or all teachings of the same."
; The Committee of which Bertrand Russell has become the Honorary Chairman is a national committee representing various schools of thought which are united on the one issue of opposing such flagrant witch—hunting. All expressions of international support are very welcome and useful. Thess should be sent tos Committee to Aid the Bloomington Students, P.O. Dox 213, Coopor Station, New York, U.S.A.