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For all that, freedom of dissent has made steady progress, particularly since the Supreme Court extended the First Amendment to the states in 1925. The right to criticize public officials in print, in speech and in the streets is now firmly rooted throughout U.S. law. The draft cannot be used to conscript critics; a conscientious objector can rely on any God he chooses. The civil rights movement has taught Americans to accept nonviolent demonstrations in pursuit of constitutional rights. The rejection of McCarthyism, the civilizing of U.S. criminal justice—such milestones have moved America ever closer to its professed ideals. Few today would cheer the jingoism of World War I, when a pacifist was likely to find his house painted yellow. Most would cheer what Justice Holmes called "free trade in ideas—that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted."
There is always a chance, of course, that this state of affairs may change as Viet Nam casualties mount and a remote war comes closer and closer to more and more homes.
For the present, though, the nation's tolerance puts the war's managers in a bind. While firmly endorsing free speech, Secretary of State Rusk points out that "Hanoi is undoubtedly watching the debate and drawing some conclusions from it. If we were to see 100,000 people marching in Hanoi calling for peace, we would think that the war was over." To Rusk, as to many others, the inescapable conclusion is that U.S. dissenters are helping to prolong the very war they decry.
Such logic is not new, and it is not stifling dissent now any more than it did in the past. Rusk's words could have been used by President McKinley during the so-called Philippine Insurrection at the turn of the century, when 70,000 U.S. troops sought to "Christianize" Aguinaldo's guerrillas, and safeguard U.S.-Asian commerce in the process. Home-front critics of that war included Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, and ex-Presidents Harrison and Cleveland. A Negro editor called it "a sinful extravagance to waste our civilizing influence upon the unappreciative Filipinos when it is so badly needed right here in Arkansas." A few simple name changes and he could have been Martin Luther King blaming the cost of warfare in Viet Nam for starving the Great Society at home. Aguinaldo himself seemed to be little different from Ho Chi Minh as he pinned his hopes on the dissenters' pressure. "The continuance of the fighting," protested General Henry Lawton before the guerrillas killed him, "is chiefly due to reports that are sent out from America." Had Senator Fulbright been around he would have found reason to worry. McKinley's Cabinet actually debated whether to prosecute the Nation and three U.S. newspapers for treason.
Candor Shortage
At this sophisticated stage of U.S. law and politics, such extreme measures are unlikely. But while President Johnson bows to no man in vocal defense of dissent, he obviously takes a dim view of it in practice. He has called his critics "Nervous Nellies," and implied that all dissenters—even men of reason—are killing American boys. Clearly, he would like it a lot better if his critics would simply shut up.