The Press: The Price of Silence

Robert Shelton, 30, the New York Times copy editor who was found guilty of contempt of Congress for refusing to tell a Senate subcommittee if he was a Communist (TIME, Jan. 28), returned last week to Washington’s Federal Courthouse for sentencing. Pleading against a jail term for his client, Attorney Joseph L. Rauh, chairman of Americans for Democratic Action, made probably the least effective legal argument of the week, contending that “there can be no question” of Shelton’s loyalty, since he had “made a clean breast of his past to his employers” and remained on the payroll at the Times, which has declared that it “would not retain a Communist on the news or editorial staff.” Federal Judge Ross Rizley dryly observed that Shelton, “if the same circumstances should arise tomorrow, would still want to defy the Congress,” sentenced him to six months in jail and a $500 fine.