The Real Rock

Another Supreme Court decision saved Hawaii's "Reluctant 39" last week. Mostly members of Harry Bridges' longshoremen's union, the 39 had been indicted for contempt of Congress after they refused to tell a House Un-American Activities subcommittee whether they were, or ever had been, Communists. They took refuge in the Fifth Amendment, which provides that no one has to answer a question which might be self-incriminating.

The Court had already decided, in the similar case of Patricia Blau, that Mrs. Blau was within her rights in refusing to answer grand jury questions about Red activities. They agreed that she might lay herself open to prosecution under the Smith Act (TIME, Dec. 25). That was enough for Honolulu's Judge Delbert Metzger. To the Government's argument that there was a difference between defying a grand jury and defying a congressional committee, the judge replied: "In final analysis they are all the same thing . . . The Constitution stands there like a Rock of Gibraltar." He acquitted all 39.

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