First, so far as our national welfare and safety are involved, I am convinced that the actions of the committees are both futile and self-defeating. They are, also, tragically destructive of our national morale at home, and of the esteem and confidence of our friends abroad. They are, in fact, of use only to our enemies. As an American citizen, therefore, I must do everything I legitimately can to bring about their abolition.

Second, the investigations under com- pulsion, in so far as they inquire into political beliefs and associations, contravene the First and Fifth Amendments, as well as the intent of the Constitution as a whole. As one who has pledged, and who gives unqualified loyalty to that Constitution. I must, therefore, do everything in my power to bring about the abolition of those investigations.

For the explaining of this second reason, a brief listing of three supporting considerations may be useful.

1. No one can question the authority of Congress to "investigate." But, under the Constution, that power is a limited one, and the avowed activity of the committees as they seek to "drive" specified persons out of industry or out of the government service, is a direct legislative usurpation of executive and judicial functions.

2. The committee methods, which seek, by threats and pressures, to secure confession of unpopular beliefs and associations, are identical, in their own legislative field, with those of the "third degree," in the criminal field, as that practice was defined in 1931 by the Report of the President's National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement. In section 11 of that report, which studied Lawlessness in Law Enforcement, and for which Mr. Chafee had some responsibility as legal consultant, the practice is defined as follows.--

"The phrase 'third degree' as employed in this report is used to mean the employment of methods which inflict suffering, physical or mental, upon a person in order to obtain from that person information about a crime."

As we here apply the same principle of condemnation to legislative and to criminal investigations it should, perhaps, be noted that, while police officers who use the "third degree" find it advisable to do their illegal work in secret, the Congressional inquisitors flaunt their tortures before the public eye and ear as they try, in the words of the Report, "to win applause by producing a victim when popular clamor demands the solution of a crime."

3. We Americans, I am sure, are facing a bitter crisis. If we are to preserve, or to restore, the integrity of free and just institutions, we must recognize that these congressional committees, in the political field, are practically identical, in purpose and method, with the Ecclesiastical Courts which, in the religious field, England abolished three centuries ago. That abolition, the Report tells us, was England's first decisive step, preceding the reforms of the Civil Courts, along the long road toward political and religious freedom. The retrogressive action of an irresponsible Congress has, within a few years, taken us far back into the past. The damage has been quickly done. One hopes that, by decisive action of Courts and People, it may be quickly undone.

As we now turn away from the legal phase of the letter, it should be noted that the justification of the question I am asking does not depend upon the validity of the "reasons" which are given for my refusal to testify. They may be ill-founded. But all that is needed to justify my question is assurance that, at present, I find them true and cogent and, further, that they are offered as basis for a claim, not against self-incrimination, but for unqualified testimonial silence.

4.

Non-Legal Side

The non-legal advice of the letter discusses what it calls "a principle of wisdom and good citizenship." In this field persons act and, hence, must be advised, not as individuals protecting their own "rights" and "privileges," but as citizens seeking to do their "duty" to their country.

The advice given may be found in two statements. The first of these, already quoted, reads.--

"The underlying principle to remember in considering the subject is the duty of the citizen to cooperate in government."

The second says.--