Conant's speech aroused considerable nation-wide controversy last spring and drew comment from prominent clerics, notably Boston's Archbishop Cushing.

In replying to Flynn's contention Conant remarked that he did not use the word "divisive." "As a matter of fact," he said, " I never use it because I'm never quite sure how to pronounce it. This was one of these phrases that was picked up and used in the newspapers in attempting to summarize the contents of my speech. . . It is in no way an antireligious speech. It was a speech for something; it was a speech for the American public school. It was a speech urging that the people who are running the American public school improve those schools, and pointing out that if they did not have time, the competition with the private schools, both those which are non-denominational and those which are denominational would prove disastrous to them."

Disqualified

A major part of Flynn's attack on Conant concerned the President's recent remarks on education in his report to the Overseers last month. In the report Conant said, "There are no known Communists on the Harvard staff and I do not believe that there are any disguised Communists either. But even if there were, the damage that would be done to the spirit of this academic community by an investigation aimed at finding a crypto-Communist would be far greater than any conceivable harm such a person might do."

Flynn insists this statement "completely disqualifies Mr. Conant from holding so important a post abroad where the recognition of Communists and Communist objectives is absolutely almost the first need of an official in discharging his duties."

It disqualifies him, Flynn said, "because he says there are not any kind of Communists, no Communists or disguised Communists, and there are at least 15 or 20 of them.

"I take the case of Dr. Harlow Shapley. Dr. Shapley is a member of 20 different known Communist organizations. Now, a man could get into one or two or three of those by accident. I got into one myself one time. But here is a man who is a member of 20 Communist organizations. He is a very distinguished man and a very extraordinary man. He is probably one of the greatest living astronomers, but he shows up at Communist meetings; he has financed Communist meetings. A man can be fooled by that once or twice or maybe three times but he ought not to be fooled by it habitually over a course of many years."

Wiley: "Even if his head is in the stars?"

Shapley and Communists

Flunn: "Yes, that is right. Shapley organized the Communist Wold Peace Conference which was a notorious Communist operation. He says he sees no Reds in any of these fronts. Now it seems incredible to me that a man who can see so far in his profession cannot see a whole Madison Square Garden full of Reds all around him in an organization which he brought into existence, and when a man--he is playing with words."

Green: ". . . I do not see how this committee can go into the record of every Harvard professor who claims he is not a Communist, even if he were a Communist, and it may not effect our decision as to the qualifications of the nominee for the position to which he has been nominated."

Flynn: "Well Senator, may I reply to, that? To point I am making here is that we certainly do not want to send to Germany confronting that Communist crowd over there with hidden and crypto-Communists all over the place, a man who cannot recognize a Communist on his own campus, who is a member of 20 different Communist organizations. I think you cannot have a man over there who is going to be deluded and deceived . . . it is all right to be tolerant if you are the president of Harvard University and your institution stands for that, and you are perfectly willing to let Harlow Shapely and that crowd to around the country and organize young men into those fronts, but it is not all right for the United States Commissioner in Germany, standing out there in front of the troops facing the Russian political army."

Irish Ambassador

Smith: "If I might ask you this: Would you object to his being nominated a Ambassador to any part of the World?"

Flynn' "No; I would vote for him as Minister to Ireland."