U.S. At War: Ordeal of a Bard

When a plain U.S. citizen faces a U.S. Congressional quiz, the ensuing scene is apt to resemble a medieval inquisition. When a poet undergoes the same ordeal, it is more likely to resemble murder. Last week, lank, sallow, liberal Poet Archibald MacLeish, Librarian of Congress and one of Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius' new team of assistants, was almost bumped off by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

MacLeish's inquisitor was Missouri's lame duck Bennett Champ Clark. MacLeish's offenses were the sins of liberal pamphleteering and rhetorical poetry. In the marble-pillared Senate Caucus Room,...

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