The following is not meant to reflect the political views of BYU Independent Study, but instead to illustrate the principle of due process of law and the importance of the Bill of Rights.
The Salem Witch Trials occurred before the Bill of Rights existed. But even now, fear can sometimes cause people to bypass the Bill of Rights—or maybe just override it in certain cases or for certain groups. Fifty years ago, our country went through a time of fear and hysteria called the Red Scare. The American Communist Party was seen as a political threat. In 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, began investigations in Hollywood, believing that Communists might use films to spread propaganda and undermine democracy. Stars like Ronald Reagan, Gary Cooper, and Walt Disney were called in and asked to testify that they were not affiliated with the Communist Party, and then to name others who might be affiliated. Those suspected of Communist sympathies, or those who refused to cooperate, were blacklisted and could not work in Hollywood. You can see an illustration of this era in the 2001 film The Majestic.
At the same time, the playwright Arthur Miller was investigating the Salem Witch Trials and noticed the parallels in the environment around him. In 1952, he wrote The Crucible, which centered on the hysteria and subsequent loss of reason and justice in the town of Salem. Miller was called before the committee and asked to testify in 1956. He had attended some activities and conferences sponsored by the Communist Party but denied that he was a Communist. When asked to name others who might be members of Communist groups, Miller refused to do so. He was then charged with contempt of Congress.
Even when fear caused some to forget about the Bill of Rights and to lose faith in the system set up by the Founding Fathers, there were many who remembered. Because of their brave efforts, our rights were still intact when the panic cleared. Reading about cases like these can remind us that it is up to us, the citizens of the United States, to secure and maintain our freedoms. We can do this by upholding the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and never taking them for granted.
John Steinbeck wrote this essay in June of 1957 to defend Arthur Miller’s stand against Congress. Steinbeck was an influential novelist at the time of the Red Scare. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 and is best remembered for Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath.
The trial of Arthur Miller for contempt of Congress brings close to all of us one of the strangest and most frightening dilemmas that a people and a government has ever faced. It is not the first trial of its kind, nor will it in all probability be the last. What has happened to [Arthur Miller] could happen to any writer; could happen to me. We are face to face with a problem by no means easy of solution. . . .
No man knows what he might do in a given situation and surely many men must wonder how they would act if they were in Arthur Miller’s shoes. . . .
Let me suppose that I were going to trial for contempt of Congress as he is. I might be thinking somewhat as follows:
There is no doubt that Congress has the right, under the law, to ask me any question it wishes and to punish my refusal to answer with a contempt charge. The Congress has the right to do nearly anything conceivable. It has only to define a situation or an action as a “clear and present danger” to public safety, public morals, or public health. . . .
Surely, Congress has the right to ask me anything on any subject. The question is: Should Congress take advantage of that right?
Let us say that the Congressional Committee feels that the Communist Party and many groups which have been linked with it—sometimes arbitrarily—constitute a clear and present danger to the nation. . . . And suppose I have admitted my association with one or more of these groups posted as dangerous. As a writer, I must have been interested in everything, have felt it part of my profession to know and understand all kinds of people and groups. Having admitted these associations, I am now asked by the Committee to name individuals I have seen at meetings of such groups. I hope my reasoning then would go as follows:
The people I knew were not and are not, in my estimation, traitors to the nation. If they were, I would turn them in instantly. If I give names, it is reasonably certain that the persons named will be called up and questioned. In some cases they will lose their jobs, and in any case their reputations and standing in the community will suffer. And remember that these are persons who I honestly believe are innocent of any wrongdoing. Perhaps I do not feel that I have that right; that to name them would not only be disloyal but actually immoral. The Committee then is asking me to commit an immorality in the name of public virtue. . . .
Now suppose I have children, a little property, a stake in the community. The threat of the contempt charge jeopardizes everything I love. Suppose, from worry or cowardice, I agree to what is asked. My deep and wounding shame will be with me always. . . .
Which path am I to choose? Either way I am caught. It may occur to me that a man who is disloyal to his friends could not be expected to be loyal to his country. You can’t slice up morals. Our virtues begin at home. They do not change in a courtroom unless the pressure of fear is put upon us.
But if I am caught between two horrors, so is the Congress caught. Law, to survive, must be moral. To force personal immorality on a man, to wound his private virtue, undermines his public virtue. If the Committee frightens me enough, it is even possible that I may make up things to satisfy the questioners. This has been known to happen. A law which is immoral does not survive and a government which condones or fosters immorality is truly in a clear and present danger. . . .
The men in Congress must be conscious of their terrible choice. Their legal right is clearly established, but should they not think of their moral responsibility also? In their attempts to save the nation from attack, they could well undermine the deep personal morality which is the nation’s final defense. The Congress is truly on trial along with Arthur Miller.
Again let me change places with Arthur Miller. I have refused to name people. I am indicted, convicted, sent to prison. . . . If I am brave enough to suffer for my principle, rather than to save myself by hurting other people I believe to be innocent, it seems to me that the law suffers more than I, and that contempt of the law and of the Congress is a real contempt rather than a legalistic one.
Under the law, Arthur Miller is guilty. But he seems also to be brave. . . . Respect for the law can be kept high only if the law is respectable. There is a clear and present danger here, not to Arthur Miller, but to our changing and evolving way of life.
If I were in Arthur Miller’s shoes, I do not know what I would do, but I could wish. . . that I would be brave enough to fortify and defend my private morality as he has. I feel profoundly that our country is better served by individual courage and morals than by the safe and public patriotism which Dr. Johnson called “the last refuge of scoundrels.”
My father was a great man, as any lucky man’s father must be. He taught me rules I do not think are abrogated2 by our nervous and hysterical times. These laws have not been annulled;3 these rules of attitudes. He taught me—glory to God, honor to my family, loyalty to my friends, respect for the law, love of country and instant and open revolt against tyranny, whether it come from the bully in the schoolyard, the foreign dictator, or the local demagogue.4
And if this be treason, gentlemen, make the most of it.
1. Steinbeck, John. “The Trial of Arthur Miller.” Contemporary Moral Issues. Edited by Harry Girvetz. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1963, pp. 72–74.
2. abolished; treated as nonexistent
3. legally invalidated
4. a leader who uses popular prejudices, false claims, and false promises to gain power