COMMUNISTS NOT WANTED IN USSTATE POSITIONS

Wanganui Chronicle, 20 March 1947, Page 5

COMMUNISTS NOT WANTED IN USSTATE POSITIONS

Washington, March 17. The Supreme Court to-day, by refusing to review the Lower Court's decision, upheld the right of the Civil Service Commission to dismiss a Federal Government employee on the ground that he is a Communist sympathiser. Morton Friedman, a former employee of the War Manpower Commisison, was dismissed in 1944 after a commission finding that there was reasonable doubt of his loyalty to the United States, Friedman appealed, but both tlie Federal District Court and the Federal Court of Appeals refused to order his reinstatement. Friedman had contended that loyalty tests used by the commission to determine which employees or applicants for a position were Communist Party line adherents were a direct violation of statutory and constitutional protections. The Justice Department said during the hearings that Friedman had admitted that he was a prominent leader of "American Peace Mobilisation,” a recognised Coixnunist front organisation. Friendman had opposed America entering the war until Germany invaded Russia, and this change of attitude was one of the tests recognised by the commission in determining Communistic sympathies.