Two-Edged Weapon

Few congressional investigations have proved to be quite such a fiasco as the House Special Committee's inquiry into tax-free foundations. Right from the start, through quotations out of context and broad innuendo, the committee's research staff tried to prove that the foundations have been vaguely unAmerican. Then, just as the foundations began their own defense, Chairman Brazilla Carroll Reece of Tennessee joined his fellow Republicans in abruptly voting to end public hearings; the foundations were invited to reply in written statements.

This week President Charles Dollard of the $178 million Carnegie Corporation of New York obliged with a statement that was a basic lesson on the spirit of free inquiry.

Enterprise or Ideas. "Philanthropy is an American habit," he wrote, "and the modern foundation is an American invention." Its aims: "To make human beings healthier, happier, wiser, more conscious of the rich possibilities of human existence and more capable of realizing them . . ." It is true that a foundation must exercise careful judgment in selecting the studies and scholars it wishes to support. But having done so, it must treat the doctrine of the free enterprise of ideas as inviolate. In its 43 years, Dollard continued, the Carnegie Corporation (which has spent $253 million to improve public libraries, educational standards, etc.) has never wavered from that principle. "It is extremely important for the American tradition of free inquiry that this principle of non-interference be maintained," wrote Dollard. "At the same time, it must be recognized that such noninterference involves consequences for the foundation ... It means that things occasionally will be done and said under foundation grants which are repugnant to the foundation itself. But, always and everywhere, this is the price one pays for freedom ... If you leave a scholar . . . free to find the right answer, you have also left him free to find the wrong answer. The history of our nation provides abundant evidence that free men will find right answers more often than wrong . . . Nobody yet has discovered a better way of insuring the victory of truth over error than free speech."

Suggested Caution. Indeed, said Dollard, the Congress itself would do well to follow the foundations' lead. "Just as the foundations must be extremely scrupulous, so also must be the Government in not telling the scholar what to think . . . We must be exceedingly careful not to formulate the doctrine that . . . tax exemption permits either the executive or the legislative branch of the Government to control the thinking of [our] institutions.

"Although medical schools and teaching hospitals are taxexempt, surely no one would think it his right to tell the cancer specialist how he should go about curing cancer ... In short, the doctrine that tax exemption justifies a political judgment as to the soundness of ideas can be a very dangerous two-edged weapon. Indeed it can be the most devastating weapon ever invented for invading the private life of this nation ..."

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