The Fourth Freedom The conviction of eleven leaders of the
American Communist Party on a charge of criminal conspiracy restates in its simplest form the oldest dilemma of democratic government : to what extent can the right of free speech for nonconforming minorities be reconciled with the State's instinct of self-preservation ? The debate on this dilemma is one which will, of its nature, continue until it is put an end to by some force—Communism for example— which does not recognise the liberal conception of freedom. The major thesis of the trial, that Communists are prepared, if they get the chance, to usc force in overthrowing the government of the United States, is not one which requires elaborate proof ; the theoretical distinction between an evolutionary and a revolu- tionary approach to politics has been abundantly proved in recent practice. The real issue of the trial was whether, in the present state of the world, Ctimmunists can be accorded the full rights of democratic citizenship, and that issue, unfortunately, the trial has not settled. A large part of the nine months which the trial has occupied was wasted in the interpretation of Marxist literature ; more was wasted by the defendants themselves and their lawyers in a series of gambits designed to provoke the presiding judge into a loss of self-control. But the decision to be made by the jut). was the interpretation of an Act of 1940, passed under the shadow of war, which was intentionally comprehensive enough to outlaw the activities of all potentially subversive groups. Whether this Act is itself compatible with the Constitutional Amendment which guarantees freedom of speech has long been a matter of doubt, and this doubt is one which can only be resolved by the Supreme Court.
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