I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear.

From Letters of E. B. White by E. B. White

To the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE

New York, New York

November 29, 1947

To the New York Herald Tribune:

I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear. Nothing lately has unsettled my party and raised my fears so much as your editorial, on Thanksgiving Day, suggesting that employees should be required to state their beliefs in order to hold their jobs. The idea is inconsistent with our Constitutional theory and has been stubbornly opposed by watchful men since the early days of the Republic. It’s hard for me to believe that the Herald Tribune is backing away from the fight, and I can only assume that your editorial writer, in a hurry to get home for Thanksgiving, tripped over the First Amendment and thought it was the office cat.

The investigation of alleged Communists by the Thomas committee has been a confusing spectacle for all of us. I believe its implications are widely misunderstood and that the outcome is grave beyond exaggerating. The essence of our political theory in this country is that a man’s conscience shall be a private, not a public affair, and that only his deeds and and words shall be open to survey, censure and to punishment. The idea is a decent one, and it works. It is an idea that cannot safely be compromised with, lest it be utterly destroyed. It cannot be modified even under circumstances where, for security reasons, the temptation to modify it is great.

I think security in critical times takes care of itself if the people and the institutions take care of themselves. First in line is the press. Security, for me, took a tumble not when I read that there were Communists in Hollywood but when I read your editorial in praise of loyalty testing and thought control. If a man is in health, he doesn’t need to take anybody else’s temperature to know where he is going. If a newspaper or a motion picture company is in health, it can get rid of Communists and spies simply by reading proof and by watching previews.

I hold that it would be improper for any committee or any employer to examine my conscience. They wouldn’t know how to get into it, they wouldn’t know what to do when they got in there, and I wouldn’t let them in anyway. Like other Americans, my acts and my words are open to inspection—not my thoughts or my political affiliation. (As I pointed out, I am a member of a party of one.) Your editorialist said he hoped the companies in checking for loyalty would use their powers sparingly and wisely. That is a wistful idea. One need only watch totalitarians at work to see that once men gain power over other men’s minds, that power is never used sparingly and wisely, but lavishly and brutally and with unspeakable results. If I must declare today that I am not a Communist, tomorrow I shall have to testify that I am not a Unitarian. And the day after, that I never belonged to a dahlia club.

It is not a crime to believe anything at all in America. To date it has not been declared illegal to belong to the Communist party. Yet ten men have been convicted not of wrongdoing but of wrong believing. That is news in this country, and if I have not misread history, it is bad news.

E. B. White

We have the New York Times and Washington Post now siccing reporters on private citizens, doxxing them, and organizing internet mobs to de-platform them, silence them, and destroy their livelihoods.  All for the crime of wrong-think and variance from the hegemonic homogeneity of totalitarian thinking so popular among the chattering class.

I am accustomed to thinking of the press, ennobled by the reflected glow of the concept of freedom of the press and freedom of speech, as heroes against totalitarianism and defenders of civil liberties.  On the other hand, it is easy to view the current miserable heirs of press traditions as fallen angels.  White's letter is a useful reminder that the press, though necessary, is never necessarily heroic or defenders of freedoms.  

The New York Times and Washington Post are heirs not to a tradition of defending liberty but to a tradition of vented authoritarianism verging on totalitarianism.

The New York Herald Tribune was asking for loyalty oaths in 1947 and the New York Times and Washington Post have spent the past year and a half demanding mask mandates, vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, and compulsory lockdowns with a dash of ostracism for individuals refusing to bend to the might of the state.  Their Covid-19 fear mongering was just part of a larger effort to create a sustained fear and moral panic ranging from fear of Anthropogenic Global Warming to moral panic around Critical Race Theory to fear of a mythical far right nationalism.  There is a tradition there, just not the one we might wish for.