After 37 years of skirmishing, the Federal Government last week padlocked the doors of the Communist Party in the U.S. The procedure was simple: agents of the Internal Revenue Service moved in and seized property and records in five U.S. cities because the party and agencies had failed to make due accounting on income taxes.
For its part, the Government possibly stood to collect a relatively insignificant sum in back taxes and penalties and some considerably more significant information about the party's inner workings. For theirs, the Communists immediately gained some impulsive sympathy and an important propaganda advantage.
The raids, carried...