Marxists’ Internet Archive: ETOL Home Page: Trotskyist Writers Section: Farrel Dobbs
Source: The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 40, 4 October 1948, pp. 1 & 3.
Transcription & Mark-up: Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
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(The following letter was sent by SWP presidential candidate Farrell Dobbs to President Harry S. Truman on Sept. 29.) |
White House, Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. President:
On Sept. 25 your Attorney General, Mr. Tom Clark, made public an expanded list of so-called, “subversive” organizations. For the second time, the Socialist Workers Party has been included on this political blacklist.
Your listing of the Socialist Workers Party as a “subversive” organization, in the midst of the election campaign in which I am running as a Presidential candidate of this party, is a gross abuse of administrative powers for partisan political ends. It is clearly designed to intimidate and prejudice voters against my candidacy.
As on the previous occasion, our organization was not even directly notified of this action. We learned of it through the public press. We were never given a hearing on the very serious charges implied by inclusion on the “subversive” list; nor have we even been informed upon what specific acts the listing was based.
As Presidential candidate of the Socialist Workers Party, I wrote you on Aug. 26 to request an open hearing on the charges made by your Department of Justice. I informed you that members and supporters of our organization were being victimized on their jobs as a consequence of the subversive list.
I also informed you that in response to my written request for a hearing, I received a reply on Aug. 16, signed by Assistant Attorney General Alex Campbell, which said:
“In the absence of provision therefor in the Executive Order, the Department [of Justice] does not contemplate holding hearings in such matters, with or without specifications or charges.”
This reply also made clear that the “subversive” list was drafted on your express order as President and that this order, in violation of all democratic precedent and the Bill of Rights, denies a fair and open trial to members of organizations publicly condemned of what, by implication, are criminal actions.
The list printed in the Sept. 26 N.Y. Times names the Socialist Workers Party three times under three different headings. We are listed under “Communist,” “Subversives” and “Organizations which ‘seek to alter the form of Government of the United States by unconstitutional means.’”
I state categorically that this listing is false in every particular and criminally slanders my party and its members.
I do not propose to enter upon a discussion of Marxist doctrine and theory with the Department of Justice. It suffices to point out the ignorance or malicious intent displayed when such diametrically opposed organizations as the Socialist Workers Party and the Communist Party are lumped together under the general listing of “Communist.” You cannot be unaware that our party has fought Stalinist totalitarianism from its inception; that we have opposed its methods, practices and ideology in the socialist and labor movement. This lumping together of opposing political organizations makes completely suspect the very meaning you attach to the word “communist.”
The listing of the Socialist Workers Party as “subversive” is equally malicious. In what sense are we “subversive”? What does this word even mean in law? It is a vague term of abuse, which can be applied to anyone or any group with whom the Attorney General disagrees. You yourself have repeatedly protested when associates of your administration have been publicly pilloried and smeared as “subversive” by your political opponents on the House Un-American Activities and other Congressional committees.
The third designation accuses us of “seeking to alter the form of Government of the United States by unconstitutional means.” This is a frame-up and a lie cut out of the whole cloth.
The proof that this is a lie is the present election campaign in which I am running for the same high public office as you. Just as you, I am publicly campaigning to win the popular majority vote. We do not now seek, and never have sought, to secure the adoption of our program other than by the expressed will and consent of the majority.
These are the facts, Mr. President; and we contend that your Department of Justice, acting on your orders, is subverting the truth and denying us even the most elementary of civil rights: The right to confront our accusers; the right to a fair and open hearing; the right to be presented with specific charges and to answer them with evidence and witnesses.
How do you square this with your present campaign pledges regarding civil rights ? How can you reconcile Mr. Tom Clark’s illegal and unconstitutional “subversive” political blacklist – a practice borrowed directly from the arsenal of the totalitarians – with your recent praise of Mr. Clark as a man “who is working all the time for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”
I am again protesting the inclusion of the Socialist Workers Party on your “subversive” list and requesting that you use your powers to accord us an open hearing on the false charges made against us. I am again denouncing the whole practice of “subversive” political blacklists as alien to the democratic traditions of this country.
I call on you, Mr. President, to immediately rectify the wrong you have perpetrated in this case. To that extent, at least, you will be paying the cause of civil rights more than lip service.
I await your early reply.
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Yours truly, |
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Last updated: 26 March 2023