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THI IODTBUN 1SBAIL1II
Friday, January 28, 1N«
As We Were Saying
By ROBERT SEGAL
If you feel that the New York
Welfare Department waa justified
in firing an employee who turned
out to be a kleagle in the Ku
Klux Klan, do you also feel that
the Los Angeles police trial
board was justified in suspend
ing a police officer who organized
a public demonstration opposing
U. S. participation in the Dom
inican Republic unpleasantness?
What to do about governmental
employes who get active In con
troversial causes is a problem
apt to be with us for years. And
we seem to have a rash of such
cases at a time when many peo
ple old enough to remember the
old McCarthyism are getting
nervous about the emergence of
a new McCarthyism.
The cases of the governmental
employees have tentatively been
resolved. How wise were the de
Dniservices, Inc.
formerly One-Hour Valet
Forrest Life Ins. Co.
American Agency Life
Insurance Co.
American Heritage Life
Insurance Co.
Northwestern National
Life Insurance Co.
cisions, time will bring out. In
the New York case, Frank W.
Rotella Jr., 28, bachelor, proved
not only to be a Klan leader (he
was present October 31 in Reading
Pa., when the Jewish Klansman,
Danny Burros, killed himself)
but also a member of the Amer
ican Nazi Party. By acting as an
officer of a political party, he
• violated State Welfare Board
regulations and was judged un
qualified to continue as a case
worker for the Welfare Depart
ment. His job was to investigate
claims for relief made by poor
Negroes; and as he went about
that job, he was on record as
claiming that “uppity” Negroes
are a major menace to America
and that all Negroes are Infer
ior.
The west coast police officer
who was suspended and denied
a re-hearing is Michael B. Han
Atlanta Gas Light Co.
Georgia International
Life Insurance Co.
Foundation Life
Insurance Co.
Gulf Life Ins. Co.
United Family
Rich’s
Nation-Wide Corp.
United Trust Life Ins. Co.
LAHMAN
non, a member of the Los An
geles force seven years. In ad
dition to taking part in the Dom
inican protest, he is active in
CORE and the Socialist Party.
And the police trial board found
he called an American Nazi
Party picket a “swine.”
When Officer Hannon was
suspended, partially for political
views, apparently nobody made
an issue of the fact that Los An
geles Police Chief William H.
Parker had appeared on the
Manion Forum program, a series
of broadcasts conducted by the
same Clarence Manion who is a
member of the John Birch So
ciety’s National Council.
How clear of political en
tanglements should our police be;
and just how do we define pol
itical entanglements? We may
not have to resolve that issue;
but if we recall that it hasn’t
been so long ago that a score or
so of police officers in Santa Ana,
California, comprising a cell of
the John Birch Society, worked
like beavers to undermine the
authority of Police Chief Edward
J. Allen there, we may conclude
that the issue is going to be with
us for a long, long time.
Are we more sensitive to the
dangers inherent in such mat
ters now because of the back
wash created by the steaming
controversy over protests against
and rallies for American policy
regarding Vietnam? Have we
known a period since Senator
McCarthy rode recklessly over
reputations when we had more
reason to wonder how strong our
nation’s determination is to tol
erate unpopular views and to up
hold the traditional right of dis
sent?
Why do high Roman Catholic
authorities in effect banish to
South America two priests ac
tive in raising protests against
the handling of the Vietnamese
issue? Was it really a part of
justice for the Church thus to
penalize Father Daniel Berrigan,
S.J., associate editor of Jesuit
Missions and Father Daniel Kil-
HARRY
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foyle, S.J., of St. Peter’s College
in Jersey City? And this at a
time when Father Francis E.
Fenton, pastor of the Blessed
Sacrament Church in Bridgeport,
Conn., remains free to continue
on the governing board of the
John Birch Society and to use
his church bulletin to promote
that mischief-making body?
Are we secure in our liberties
when we learn belatedly that a
former Army intelligence agent
has testified that one of his assign
ments was to tap the telephone
of Eleanor Roosevelt during
World War II. Are we secure in
our persons when Lon David
Shaw 30, an electronics engineer,
takes it upon himself to rent a
plane and drop firebombs on five
Miami homes because he feels
he has an obligation thus to warn
people he has concluded are
“Communist agitators and Negro '
rioters?" (“Shaw’s against every- \
body,” the arresting detective in !
this case said, “against Commun
ists, the Jews, the Negroes.” Try
unscrambling that one!)
Well, maybe it is just another
silly season. But we can’t pass it
off that lightly. We believe it is
a season for giving increased
scrutiny to the history of the
Bill of Rights, to the meaning
of that great American charter
of freedom, and to the need for
the exercise of sound judgment
and constant vigilance in the pro
tection of our liberties and for
the preservation of the sanity
of the nation’s people. We have
a huge spectrum of diversity to
accommodate. That’s exciting,
but it can be trying, too.
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