"It is a sad commentary on our world today that coolies and Harvard professors are the people most susceptible to Red propaganda." Thus speaks "The Freeman," a fortnightly "journal of opinion" that started publication early this fall. Originally, "The Freeman" circulated only by private subscription; last week it appeared on newstands for the first time.

In its inaugural issue on October 2, this new magazine dedicated itself to "the cause of traditional liberalism and individual freedom" and promised to defend our precious heritage against "the encroachments of alleged progress." As the next eleven issues rolled out, these bold words took on rather unusual meanings.

In "Where the Home Front is Soft," for instance, "The Freeman" tells us that our weak point "is close to the top of American society. It consists of non-Communist and even anti-Communist liberals, mostly middle and upper class business and professional people. . .the same strata in which Benedict Arnold moved so freely during the American Revolution." In the February 12 issue, one writer defines liberalism as "a potpourri of indiscriminant do-goodism trending into statism and blending indistinguishably into treason." In a later issue an article titled "The Red Mole" states that there is no non-Communist Left, "just a Left with Socialists, Communists, Liberals, Humanitarians, and Idealists. . . all mixed together."

When this treasonable-potpourri view is applied to the arts, the results are amazing. In the article "Social Significance Catches Up," we learn that "artists have been, at least since the Renaissance, almost professional rebels and malcontents." The same author also suggests that modern art is due to a deeply laid Communist plot to accelerate the corruption of the "decadent capitalist system." In a later issue, a Freeman writer reveals that "Art is a colossal swindle anyhow, the poet says one thing and like as not he means another."

Not even President Conant's U.M.S. plan escaped. The Freeman's watchful eye. "Those who are familiar with his (Conant's) political attitudes, his scandalous tolerance of fellow-traveling professors, his enthusiasm for raising the already confiscatory rates of the inheritence tax, his desire to put our universities under federal control by grants of federal tax monies, and his repetitions of the Communist slogan of a 'classless society,' will not be astonished at his desire to regiment even those physically handicapped." (From the February 26 issue.)

In the sphere of foreign policy, The Freeman promised to "favor the constant growth of cooperation between free peoples" with an emphasis on "the development of mutual goodwill." Just what type of goodwill and cooperation the magazine wanted to promote was clarified in "Why Europe Resents Us" (October 2). According to its author, William Schlamm, "our long and costly attempt to save the Old World" has produced an unexpected reaction among the Europeans. "Today the exasperating European contempt for America is no longer the mere pastime of arrogant and more or less discountable British and Continental snobs." As Mr. Schlamm sees it, this contempt is a partial result of our Marshall Plan, to which the Europeans attributed "hideous and unspeakably sinister motives." Continental newspapers are unable to present the facts about American life because, in Schlamm's opinion, "the womens clubs of Walla Walla know considerably more about Europe than leading European editors know about the United States."

England is described in later issues as "unrecognizably neurotic Britain, disloyal to the West" and "uncertain friend clawing at a lost liberty of action, and repeating the mentality of Munich." France is the land where "isms in painting grow like hydra heads from the withering body of dollar greed and frustration." The United Nations is depicted as "a typically frivolous 'liberal' improvisation, a pretentious and. . . dangerous instrumentality of world order."

Chiang Kai-Shek's "Free China" (Formosa) continuously gets applause from "The Freeman." In "Can Chiang Trust America?" by Alfred Kohlberg, the exiled dictator is pictured as "simple and direct. . . a deeply religious Christian." Mr. Kohlberg, Treasurer of The Freeman, made his fortune in export trade with Nationalist China and was registered as a representative for the Kuomintang government. Grand Strategy articles in the magazine call for an active war against Communist China through arming Chiang. Thus, while America keeps her troops at home, we can "free Eurasia without expending a single American soldier in battle." Europe is written off as a "sector of containment" in this scheme, presumably just a sponge for Russian armies.

Some people might not agree with these opinions, but technically, The Freeman is well-written and consistent. It sees itself as presenting not capsulated thought, but stimuli to independent thinking.