Even for No-Goods

The only immediate effects of the nation's new anti-Communist law were the indignant yelps from the Reds themselves. Manhattan's Daily Worker trumpeted their defiance: they would simply not comply with the McCarran law's provision that all Communists must register. They had 30 days from Sept. 23 to change their minds.* After that, under the law, the Department of Justice would have to get to work, start hauling non-registered Communists before a subversive activities board.

The convicted leaders of the Communist Party were also given at least a few more weeks to thrash around, untrammeled. Although Party Boss Eugene Dennis was already in jail for contempt of Congress, the other ten Reds convicted in Judge Medina's court of violating the Smith Act have been free on appeal bail for almost a year. Last week Supreme Court Justice Jackson turned down a Government request that the ten be jailed immediately as dangerous to the public welfare.

The nation's highest court still had to review their case, said Justice Jackson. He agreed that the public statements issued periodically by one or the other of the convicted Reds are "crudely intemperate . . . plainly designed to embroil different elements of our society . . . But the very essence of constitutional freedom of press and speech is to allow more liberty than the good citizen will take."

Sending the Communist bosses to jail before the Supreme Court settles their case, Justice Jackson thought, would have "a disastrous effect on the reputation of American justice." Communism must not be "hallowed and glorified by any semblance of martyrdom." Even no-good citizens, said Jackson in effect, are entitled to freedom under bail, which will be continued for the ten Reds.

*Under a local "little McCarran" law, Communists living in or passing through New Rochelle, N.Y. were ordered to register by midnight, Sept. 28. Midnight passed in suburban New Rochelle with only one registration: an elderly, civic-minded Republican who thought the regulation was for "commuters."

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