Ismism

A new menace faces America, a menace unearthed by the Saturday Evening Post, and exposed on that magazine's editorial page last week. Ensconced in their forts, built of books, book review pages, radio time alloted for news commentaries and the many sectors commanded by "other propagandists," the "McGeorge Bundyites" are injecting their poison into all sectors of American life.

The largest dose of poison, according to the Post, is embodied in the "myth of the Terrified Liberal," the message of which is that McCarthy has so terrified the intelligentsia--federal jobholders, scientists, writers, and professors--that they dare not utter a word.

Under the cloak of this artificial inferiority-complex, "Bundyism" is working to press all those who write or teach or research into its own image, and crusading against the few who, like William F. Buckley, Jr. of Yale fame, stand firm against it. Bundyism has been so successful that it has eclipsed even McCarthyism in repression of struggling young writers, instructors, and scientists.

Thus, the list of isms has swelled by one more, and to Communism, Socialism, McCarthyism, Neutralism, Liberalism, Hooverism, Syndicalism, Pacifism, Militarism, and so on must be added another, McGeorge Bundyism. Soon there may be no belief, attitude, or mode of expression that has not been fliply disposed of by its classification as an ism. Perhaps a similar fate may befall even that last outpost of good sense, the Saturday Evening Post itself.