Lamont, Corliss, Freedom is as freedom does

(New York :  Horizon Press,  1956.)

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THE DRIVE AGAINST CULTURAL FREEDOM                                                                      207

How to Spot a Communist, a manual prepared by the Fhst Army
and chculated by the Watertown (Massachusetts) Arsenal and
the Continental Air Command. The study stated: "While a cer¬
tain heaviness in style and preference for long sentences is com¬
mon to most Communist writings, a distinct vocabulary provides
the second and more easily recognized feature of the 'Communist
Language.'

"Even a superficial reading of an article written by a Com¬
munist or a conversation with one wfll probably reveal the use of
some of the following expressions: integrative thinking, vanguard,
comrade, hootenanny, chauvinism, book-burning, syncretistic
faith, bourgeois-nationalism, jingoism, colonialism, hooliganism,
ruling class, demagogy, dialectical, witch-hunt, reactionary, ex¬
ploitation, oppressive, materiaUst, progressive." ^"'^

The Army pamphlet also asserted that another good clue to
spotting a Communist was to see ff a person kept raising sueh
contioversial issues as McCarthyism, violation of civil rights,
police brutality, racial or religious discrimination, immigration
laws, anti-subversive statutes, any legislation concerning labor
unions, the fluoridation of water, the Federal military budget or
peace.

After a scornful column by Murray Kempton in the New York
Post and a biting editorial in The New York Times, the Fhst Army
beat a hasty retieat and withdrew How to Spot a Communist.
Fhst Army headquarters announced that the booklet "was not
appropriate for the purpose for which it was intended when orig¬
inally issued by Intefligence personnel." ^"^

Magazines and newspapers published within the United States
have long been subject to various sorts of proscription. Here again
a serious problem is censorship by the Post Office, which often
refuses to deliver periodicals that it considers obscene or sub¬
versive, and which sometimes brings a criminal action against the
pubHsher. In addition, pubhc libraries here and there have re¬
fused to receive magazines regarded as subversive, such as The
Nation, The New Republic, Negro Digest and Soviet Russia To¬
day. Worst of aU is the fact that in 1948 the public schools of
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