Silas Timberman by Howard Fast Page A

investigation, and characterized the work as an attack upon ‘Babbittry and the Chamber of Commerce mentality.’ The professor’s characterization was challenged in class as parallelism with subversive thinking—the challenge coming from one of the students. Subsequently, this student and two others went to the department head, where they accused the professor in question of deliberately furthering communist aims. We are informed that while the department head doubted the deliberate intention of the professor, he agreed in general with the criticism and promised to act.
    â€œHe kept his promise. The professor was confronted with his procedure and instructed to abandon it—in specific, to cease all mention and discussion of The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg . The obvious implications were attached to a refusal to comply.
    â€œWhich is precisely why we decided to go ahead with the publication of this editorial in this fashion—without interviewing or discussing said editorial with either of the two faculty members concerned, but with a scrupulous check and cross-check of facts. We felt that such a procedure, that of advice and consultation, would result in enough pressure to bury the incident completely. We were determined that it should not be buried.
    â€œIn our checking of details, we read The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg most carefully, and found it a rewarding and intelligent piece of satire—a bitter attack upon hypocrisy and false piousness. If this be communism, then we say, as an earlier American did of treason, make the most of it. We take our place with Mark Twain—to speak up and criticize without fear.
    â€œWe hold that the entire affair is compounded out of dangerous stupidity and even more dangerous panic, and we know of no better way of giving comfort to the enemy than to exhibit such arrant Philistinism. Unopposed, such tendencies mean the end of all free inquiry.”
    The second editorial, in the next column, was written by Frank Hoffenstein, managing editor, and was titled, “Another Point of View.” It ran to greater length than Morse’s editorial, beginning by stating.
    â€œIn deference to the long and hallowed traditions of Fulcrum , we accepted the editor’s procedure without agreeing with it. Nevertheless, we hold that a single point of view is not sufficient, and maintain the privilege of stating our own.
    â€œWe do not dispute the facts which the editor puts forth, for we have checked them with him; but we object vigorously to his interpretation of these facts. Unlike the editor, we have no fears about being the laughing stock of the nation, nor do we consider the incident shocking in the manner in which he does. Our own fear is the fear of falling into a trap which has in the past caught so many so called ‘principled’ and ‘liberal’ souls. Our own fear is the fear of being ‘used.’
    â€œLike the editor, we also read the story in question. This story might have been harmless half a century ago when Mark Twain wrote it. It might have had some relationship to the truth then, though we doubt it.
    â€œHowever, it is not harmless today. The proposition of this story, very cleverly put, is a simple one, to wit—that all men of substance, wealth and ambition are bad, and that the poor and the loafers are good. We believe that there are good poor and bad poor, good rich and bad rich. But the only group that deals with these ideas as generalizations today are the communists—to stir up what they call ‘class hatred’ as a prelude to overthrow of the government by force and violence.
    â€œOf course, Mark Twain was not a communist, and our colleague only muddies the water by placing such emphasis on that fact. What is more to the point—and we have no hesitation in saying so—is that the ideas of Mark Twain are extremely useful to the communists today—not only useful to them, but used by