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TAX-EXEMPT FOUNDATIONS
1
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industry and business
.
The third paragraph has political intention if
it means what it says
.
The fourth paragraph is more difficult tounderstand but seems political
.
The fifth paragraph contains some
admirable material, the significance of which in its context escapes us
.
A report of the President of
The Ford Foundation
of October, 1951,stating the purposes for which
The Fund for the
Republic is to
be
created, says the
Fund is
to take into account
: "The danger to the
national security arising from fear and mutual suspicion fomented byshort-sighted or irresponsible attempts to combat Communism throughmethods which impair the true sources of our strength
."
This lan-guage, taken in the general context of other statements by
The FordFoundation
and its off-shoot,
The Fund for the Republic,
cannot mean
anything else than that the
Fund
shall
attackthe Congressional inves-tigations
.
It is not wording whichindicates an objectivepoint of view
.
It does not indicate a fair
study
of
pros and cons and a sensibleweighing
•
evidence
.
It states its bias
in advance; it heraldsan attack
.
The
wording used is reminisces, t of much similar language used by thosewho claim that these investigations impair our freedom and thus fight
Communism with weapons which are destructive of our society
.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the President of
TheFord Foundation,in making this statement, had in mind a severely
critical study of Congressional investigations,
and that he starts
with the bias that the investigations are "short-sighted" and "irre-sponsible"
.
The purpose of
The Fund for the Republicbecomes clearer in theface of a recitation in a report signed by its Chairman, Mr. Hoffman,
and made to
The Ford Foundation
.
This report recites the "areasof action" which have been chosen for the
Fund
.
While it is statedthat these are free "from implications of political or legislative activityor propaganda", the list is
:
"1. restrictions and assaults upon academic freedom
;
"2. due process and equal protection of the laws
;
"3. the protection of the rights of minorities
;
"4
. censorship, boycotting and blacklisting activities of private
groups
;
"5
. principle and application of guilt by association
."
The report goes on to state
:
"The following subjects are also possible subjects for consideration
:
the scopeand procedure of Congressional investigations
;
investigation of the loyalty of
government employees
: * * * and national loyalty of international civil serv-ants
." [Emphasis ours
.]
The Fund for the Republicwas created for the purpose, among others,
•
investigating Congressional investigations
.
Whether this is a proper
field for the private
expenditure of publictrust funds is a question
we
submit to Congress andthe people
.
We conclude that it wasthe intention
•
those who were responsible
for the creation of the
Fund for the Republic
to use it, in part, to
launch an attack uponCongressional investigations
.
This strikes us as a wholly
unjustifiable
useof the public's money
:
If a "study" of Congressionalpractices could be madein an unbiasedfashion, it mightwell be of great usefulness,even to Congress
itself
.
But the power of great sums of money thrown into
political fields can
be
very dangerous, indeed. It would have to be administered
with the greatestcare and objectivity
;
those into whose hands
the expenditure of the
appro-
11
4
TAX-EXEMPTFOUNDATIONS
priated funds is thrown wouldhave to be selected for unquestionedlack
of
bias
.
The publicly expressed opinionsof Messrs. Ho fman, Hutchinsand Case on some of the subjectmatters within the expressedscope
of
activity
of
the Fund for the Republic,particularly in regard toCongres-sional investigations, are too well known to permit theconclusion that thepublic was to be assured
of
an objective study
.
The entry of
The Ford Foundation
into the area of "civil liberties"is, in the opinion of this Committee, highly regrettable
.
The "civilliberties" issue has been called "one of the great phonies of American
politics" by Harold Lord Varney in an
American Mercury
article,
entitledThe Egg-head Clutch on the Foundation
.
Mr
. Varney said that
The Ford Foundationshould have known that under the "high-flown
phrases" of the "civil rights" issue,
"pro-Communists, muddled
liberals and designing pressure groupists scheme constantly to main-tain a Left Wing balance of power in America
."
In closing this discussion of one Ford venture into politics, we mustnote this sentence in theFund for the Republic'srelease to the news-papers, dated February26, 1953
:
"We propose to help restore respectability to individual freedom
."
This astonishing sentenceis obviously a product of the"red herring"and "witch hunt" school o f political philosophy
.
It is an understatementto describe the quoted sentenceas arrogant, presumptuousand insulting
.
OTHER "CIVIL LIBERTIES" PROJECTS
Grants have been made by other foundations in the same general
area referred to loosely as "civil liberties"
.
The Rockefeller Foundation,for example, refers in its
1947
and
1948annual reports to a study byCornell University of loyalty measures, civil liberties, etc., which ithad financed. Statements such as this are to be found in the reports
:
"Nevertheless, it is an important task of political democracy to recon-cile, if possible, the claims of national security and civil liberties
."
Such statements seem to us pretty closely to follow theAnti-Anti-
Communist line
.
It is utterly surprising to us that so much greater
attention is given to attacks on those who attack Communism than
to the basic problem of subversion itself
.
The following quotation from an address made by J
. Edgar Hoover
to theDaughters of the AmericanRevolutionon April
22, 1954,
is aptin this connection
:
"In taking a stand for the preservation of the American way of life, your
organization became the target of vile and vicious attacks
.
So have all otherpatriotic organizations and, for that matter, every other person who has dared
to raise his voice against the threat of Communism
.
It is an established fact
that whenever one has dared to expose the Communist threat he has invited upon
himself the adroit and skilled talents of experts of character assassination
. The
Federal Bureau of investigation has stood year after year as taunts, insults and
destructive criticism have been thrown its way
.
"To me one of the most unbelievable and unexplainable phenomena in thefight on dommunism is the manner in which otherwise respectable, seemingly
intelligent persons, perhaps unknowingly, aid the Communist cause more effec-
tively than the Communists themselves
.
The pseudo liberal can be more destruc-tive than the known Communist because of the esteem which his cloak of respectability
.
invites
."
[Emphasis ours
.l
Mr
. Hoover might well agree that the danger of this pseudo-
liberalism is all the greater when the "cloak of respectability"
it
wears is eminent office in the foundation world
.
We regret to saythat this pseudo-liberalism is not uncommon among the executives
TAX-EXEMPTFOUNDATIONS
.
115
of the great foundations and their intermediary organizations
.
We
regard as unfortunately typical, the address made in 1953 by Mr
.
Pendleton Herring, now President of
The
SocialScienceResearchCouncil,toThe American Political Science Association,
of which hewas then President
.
After a discussion of the position and work ofthe political scientist in America, and after emphasizing the necessityof empirical approaches and of observing the cultural lag theory, helaunched into a tirade in the "civil rights" area
.
Let us re-quote for guidance, the words of Mr
. Hoover-"It is anestablished fact that whenever one has dared to expose the Com-munist threat he has invited upon himself the adroit and skilled
talents of experts in
.
character assassination
."
Let us then quote
from Mr
. Herring's address, made under the cloak of office in
two
tax-exempt organizations
supported heavily with the public's money
through foundation grace
.
He speaks of "political quacks" who ask"careers for themselves through exploitation of public concern with
the Communist contagion
."
He does not identify any one managainst whom he may have some special animus
.
His terminology,his selection of phrase, condemns as "quacks" whoever try to expose
Communists
.
He makes no exceptions
.
He does not exempt from
his excoriation any Congressional investigators or investigation
.
He
indicates that investigating Communists may, indeed, be worse than
Communism
.
He repeats the hysterical claim that books have been
"burned
."
How many and how often?
Is there truly danger inthe United States of "book burning?"He speaks of giving "cool,
intelligent treatment" to "the transmission of erroneous information
and propaganda"-is it not transmitting "erroneous information andpropaganda" to infer that there is widespread "book burning" in
this country!He uses the term "witchdoctors" to characterize the whole breed of
exposers of Communism
.
He speaks of "contrived excursions and
alarums"-implying that the Communist menace has been grossly
exaggerated for political reasons
.
He refers to the whole exposure
business as
"MALARKYISM",
putting it in capital letters
. He gives us
this profound comment upon our concern with the
Communist
menace
:
"We must go from symptoms to the causes
.
A deep cause, I think, is a failure
to understand the forces operating in the world around us
.
Why do so many
Americans feel threatened?It is the stubborn complexity of world problems and
the r
.ifficulties arising from ideological differences and international rivalries
that lead them to seek scapegoats among their fellow-countrymen
."
That is an astounding statement to come from one of the top rankof those who disburse the public money which foundations control
.
"You poor dumb Americans", he might well have said,
"you areafraid of the Russian-Communists only because you
,
do not under-
stand the dears
."
Mr
. Herring says
: "Why assume that the conspiracy of Communism
is best exposed where the limelight shines brightest?"
He forgets
that it has frequently taken a glaring limelight to induce government
officials to expose a Communist-witness, among many, the case of
Harry Dexter White
.
Another example of the "cloak of respectability" (to which Mr
. J
.
Edgar Hoover referred) through eminence in the foundation world, is
to be found in public utterances of Mr
. Paul Hoffman, formerly
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