MEASURES TO CURB U.S. COMMUNISTS’ ACTIVITIES

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22891, 10 March 1949, Page 5

MEASURES TO CURB U.S. COMMUNISTS’ ACTIVITIES

(10 a.m.) WASHINGTON. Mar. 9. Two Bills introduced into Congress yesterday would force the United States Communists and Communist front organisations to register with the Government. Neither attempts to outlaw the Communist Party but both aim at spotlighting its members and activities. Senator Home Ferguson introduced one Bill in the Senate. It would set up a three-member board to be named by the President to determine in open hearings when an organisation must register with the Attorney-General, identify its members and explain its propaganda activities. Senator Karl Mundt and Mr. Richard Nixon introduced in both the Senate and the House a revised version of the Anti-Communist Bill they sponsored last year. This Bill also would force the registration of Communist organisations and their membership. It would also set up a three-member “subversive activities commission,” members of which would work with the Attorney-General in administering the provisions of the Bill. Mr. Mundt said that one section “outlaws peacetime espionage and requires the Communist Party to sever its umbilical cord with Russia or refrain from acts designed to establish totalitarianism in this country.” The Mundt-Nixon Bill, like the Ferguson Bill, would deny Government employment and passports to members of organisations listed as. subversive by the three-member hoard.