Bright & early on the Fourth of July, the Madison (Wis.) Capital Times began a journalistic stunt calculated to prove that Red-baiting and loyalty investigations have cowed the American public. A reporter set out with a petition composed of excerpts from the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights—addressed to no one in particular—and began trying to get picnickers and strollers to sign it. By dusk, after approaching 112 people, he had only one signer.
The stunt made a fine headline in the determinedly liberal Capital Times. But that was not the end of it. A fortnight ago in Detroit, President...
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