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(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer, will names be withheld. Only letters under 400 words can be printed because of space limitations.)
To the Editor of the Crimson:
The report in this morning's Crimson of yesterday's session of the State House hearing does not come up to your usual standard of accuracy. Part of the account was so far removed from what happened that I really wonder if a Crimson reporter was present at the hearing. For example, with regard to Professor McLaughlin's speech, your story declared: "McLaughlin claimed that the only purpose of the bill was to 'bulldoze' 'ignorant professors'."
That is not true. The Boston Herald reported him as saying "This bill is a device to bulldoze ignorant people. The university professors will pay no attention to it." That is what McLaughlin said, and anyone who attended the hearing can vouch for it.
I think the correction is really important because Professor McLaughlin yesterday made the feeling of the other opponents practically effective. Certain members of the hearing committee are so ignorant and yet so conceited that implications mean nothing to them. They must be told in the blunt language that Professor McLaughlin used what educated folk think of them. When, for instance, the professor said of heckler McDermott, "I am not accustomed to speaking to people who do not know what I am talking about," the applause of the audience was universal and prolonged. In the face of this response, how can you say that fear was expressed as to the effectiveness of McLaughlin's speech? From what quarter did fear come? How many expressed it? Certainly yesterday's audience of Massachusetts educators thundered their approval of the speech.
The fight that we have at Harvard is not against enemies of communism, but against a machine of cheap, uneducated politicians. some of them have never gone beyond high school, yet they will stop at nothing to gain control of our whole educational system. Yesterday one of the committee members openly threatened Harvard and other universities with taxation. I thank God that we have a man on our faculty like James A. McLaughlin, who is familiar enough with Boston to expose this ruthless opposition. Exposure is what it needs. Once its real purpose is apparent, all our good little people will be glad to join the fight. Norman Hunt '38
Ed. Note: Thanks are due Mr. Hunt for rectifying our misquote of Mr. McLaughlin.
Erratum--Mr. Ripley O. Jones denies authorship of the letter which was published over his signature yesterday. The Crimson regrets the occurrence; it cannot, however, investigate the signature of all communications which it receives.
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