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The campaign to awaken America to the danger of Communism last week had led Fred Schwarz to Oakland. There, for five days of sessions that began at 8:30 a.m. and, with coffee and mealtime breaks, ended at 10:30 p.m., Schwarz's catechumens filed into the auditorium, their number increasing as the week went on. They got their money's worth ($20 per person for the week's sessions, with half-price admittance for students, teachers, clergymen, servicemen, police and firemen). Seated on a high stool behind a lectern on a stage otherwise bare, except for an American flag, Schwarz put on a flashing performance.
Now he was schoolmasterly: "Why is it that the appeal of Communism is so strong to the student mind? Students are turned toward Communism by four things. The first thing is disenchantment with capitalism—capitalistic disenchantment. The second thing is materialistic philosophy. The third thing is intellectual pride. And the fourth is unfulfilled religious need."
Now he was forebearing of his critics: "I believe that there is an area of discussion, persuasion, argument; that this is legitimate; that out of this thoughtful, intelligent, moderate, tolerant discussion we will get nearer to the truth."
Now he was angry—as, for example, against Minnesota's Democratic Senator Hubert Humphrey, who recently stated his belief that Communists feared nothing from Schwarz's campaign. "How does he know?" asked Schwarz. "Is he psychic? Apparently. I'd like to think it's this way: that Hubert Humphrey just knows how the Communists think by a kind of intuition. I'd hate to think that he has such close contacts that he is right in the heart of their—and I wouldn't suggest it for a minute, you see."
Now, in blood-chilling tones, he was telling his rapt listeners what will happen to them after a Communist takeover: "They'll take a wide-bore revolver with a soft-nosed bullet and place it at the nape of your neck to blow your brain and your face into a bloody and chaotic oblivion."
By the Book. All this was in tried-and-true Schwarz style, perfected in hundreds of speeches and based mostly on the arguments in his book, published in 1960, You Can Trust the Communists (. . . To Do Exactly as They Say ).
Schwarz starts with the laudable premise that Americans should be informed about Communism; if they understand it, they will be better able to combat it. "In the battle against Communism, there is no substitute for accurate, specific knowledge. Ignorance is evil and paralytic." Schwarz therefore sets out to inform—and in some ways he succeeds admirably. In his book, his treatment of such a difficult subject as dialectical materialism is a model of instructive popularization.