On Sat, 22 Dec 2007, Chip Berlet wrote:
> This was part of what is called the "Brown Scare," which set up the
> precedent for the "Red Scare."
> http://hnn.us/blogs/comments/9623.html
Did it set a precedent? Or did it simply come first? The Smith Act that was used against these guys in 1944, accusing them of aiding Nazis, was passed in 1940 for the purpose of getting commies. It wasn't used for that purpose after we entered the war and allied with the Soviet Union. And while it was lying around unused, ambitious prosecutors applied it to something else, as it their wont. But it's original purpose was exactly what it was mostly used for: "jugging Reds" as the contemporary journalist George Schuyler puts it.
BTW, although this review doesn't mention it, Schuyler was all for jugging Reds. While, a black reporter, he was good on race, he was an extremist right winger on the subject of communism even by the extreme standards of that time.
Michael