The Supreme Court and McCarthy-Era Repression by Robert M. Lichtman

Author:Robert M. Lichtman [Lichtman, Robert M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, United States, 20th Century, Political Science, Political Ideologies, Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, History & Theory
ISBN: 9780252094125
Google: UcrzPVAVb1MC
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: 2012-08-15T16:03:00+00:00

More Contempt Cases—Wilkinson, Braden, et al.

Committee-contempt cases flooded the Court. It issued five signed decisions in contempt cases, two involving successive witnesses at the same HUAC hearing in Atlanta.6

Frank Wilkinson, a forty-three-year-old political activist from California who had been an “unfriendly” witness at earlier HUAC hearings, came to Atlanta as the representative of a group advocating HUAC’s abolition. Arriving at his hotel, he was served with a HUAC subpoena ordering him to appear as a witness. At the hearing, Wilkinson declined to answer questions, invoking the First Amendment, and was indicted for contempt for refusing to answer the question, “Are you now a member of the Communist Party?” He argued that he was not subpoenaed for a valid legislative purpose but rather to expose him to public censure because of his anti-HUAC activities.7

The Court’s usual five-justice majority, in an opinion by Stewart, affirmed Wilkinson’s conviction and one-year prison sentence. As to his claim that he was subpoenaed for advocating HUAC’s abolition, the Court found “nothing to indicate that it was the intent of Congress to immunize from interrogation all those (and there are many) who are opposed to the existence of [HUAC].” “Moreover,” it said, “it is not for us to speculate as to the motivations that may have prompted the decision of individual members of the subcommittee to summon [Wilkinson].” Rejecting Wilkinson’s First Amendment contentions as having been “throughly canvassed by us in Barenblatt,” the Court stated that “it is the nature of the Communist activities involved . . . that establishes the Government’s overbalancing interest.”8

Black’s dissent, joined by Warren and Douglas, argued that the case “involves nothing more nor less than an attempt by [HUAC] to use the contempt power of the House of Representatives as a weapon against those who dare to criticize it.” Turning again to Barenblatt’s balancing test, he said that where First Amendment freedoms “are left to depend upon a balance to be struck by this Court in each particular case, liberty cannot survive. For under such a rule, there are no constitutional rights that cannot be ‘balanced’ away.” Brennan wrote that HUAC’s “dominant purpose” was to harass Wilkinson and “expose him for the sake of exposure.9

Carl Braden preceded Wilkinson to the witness stand at HUAC’s hearing. Several years earlier, Braden, then a copyeditor at the Louisville Courier-Journal, and his wife Anne, both pro-integration activists, were nominal purchasers of a home in a whites-only neighborhood, which they then conveyed to a black family. After the home was destroyed by dynamite, the Bradens were made defendants in a Kentucky sedition case—prosecutors charged the bombing was a Communist plot intended to aggravate racial tensions. Carl was convicted and received a fifteen-year prison sentence—set aside, however, following the Court’s Nelson decision.10

Prior to the hearing, Braden helped circulate petitions in opposition to state sedition laws and to HUAC’s hearing. Summoned as a witness, he refused to answer six questions concerning his political associations—one asked whether he was a CPUSA member when he signed a letter urging opposition to bills in Congress to overrule Nelson—and was convicted of contempt.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.