Powers of the President during crisesSmith, J. Malcolm (John Malcolm)
History
Powers of the President during crises
Smith, J. Malcolm (John Malcolm)
Constitutional history -- United States; Executive power -- United States
The Communist Control Act of 1954 amplified the Internal Security
Act. It purports to be an Act to outlaw the Communist Party and to
prohibit members of communist organizations from serving in certain
representative capacities, and for other purposes. Despite its title,
the Act does not outlaw the Communist Party in the sense of making
membership in it illegal and proscribing its existence. It simply
deprives the Communist Party of certain rights, privileges and
immunities attendant upon legal bodies created under the jurisdiction
of the laws of the United States or any political subdivision
thereof.[236] The Act then defines a new species within the genus
communist organization.[237] In effect it amends the Internal Security
Act by setting up the trilogy; communist-action, communist-front,
and communist-infiltrated organizations. And communist-infiltrated
organizations--a euphemism for communist dominated trade unions must
register.[238] Such organizations are ineligible to act as collective
bargaining representatives and are deprived of access to the National
Labor Relations Board.[239]
The Act makes it illegal for any member of a communist organization,
which either has registered with the Attorney General or been ordered
to register by the Subversive Activities Control Board, “to hold office
or employment with any labor organization, ... or to represent any
employer in any matter proceeding arising or pending under the National
Labor Relations Act.”[240]
_Freedom of Association_: The Communist Control Act of 1954 and the
registration provisions of the Internal Security Act might well have
been subsumed under the classification freedom of association. Both
have grave implications for the freedom of individuals to associate at
will and according to conscience with political and economic groups.
And similarly far-reaching in implication for this traditional freedom
are those provisions which, going one step further than stipulating
disqualifications for office-holding in representative associations,
prohibit the creation of an employer-employee relationship, or
facilitate the disruption of such relationships where they already
exist.
The wheel has taken a full turn since the American Congress in 1937
repealed a District of Columbia Appropriation Act provision that no
part of any appropriation for the public schools would be available
for the payment of the salary of any person teaching or advocating
communism.[241] Today, of course, the trend is toward maximizing
the political disqualifications for public and private employment.
This trend can be traced from the pre-war efforts of the Congress to
prevent penetration of defense industries and government agencies by
subversives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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