Reinstated Reds

Minnesota's Secretary of State Joseph L. Donovan was not about to accept petitions nominating Mrs. Charlene Mitchell, a 38-year-old Negro, and Youth Leader Mike Zagarell, 23, for President and Vice President of the U.S. The fact that Zagarell is twelve years too young to meet the legal requirements for Vice President was the least of Donovan's objections. Mrs. Mitchell and Zagarell are Communists, and the Communist Control Act of 1954 says that their party "should be outlawed" as the agent of a foreign power. Under the law, said the Minnesota Attorney General, the Communists do not have "the rights, privileges and immunities" of ordinary political parties.

In an appeal to the courts, the American Civil Liberties Union called the law an unparalleled affront to the constitutional right to vote. It was, said the A.C.L.U. attorney, "repressive of the most fundamental freedoms of speech and assembly"; it attempts to punish by legislation without giving its intended victims "a modicum of procedures to defend themselves." In an amicus curiae memorandum, the Justice Department indirectly supported the A.C.L.U.'s case. It said that the Communist Control Act barred the party but not individual Communists from the ballot.

Two of the three federal judges who heard the case in St. Paul concluded that the Control Act "jabs at the very core of our traditional freedoms." The third judge did not go quite that far. But in a concurring opinion, he said that since so little time was left before the election, there would be less harm in letting the Communists appear on the ballot now than in denying them a right they might win in the future. The court's decision confirms a growing view among constitutional lawyers that the Communist Party is indeed a legal political organization. As a result, its national ticket will be placed before the Minnesota electorate--the first time it has appeared anywhere in the U.S. since Earl Browder ran for President in more than a dozen states in 1940 and collected nearly 50,000 votes. It is probably too late for the Communist candidates to be listed in more than one or two other states.

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