THE HISS CASE
493
idealism, as proof of the outrageousness of the accusations made against
him. They do not recognize that idealism is of the very nature of the
Communist commitment-perhaps a misdirected idea lism, perhaps an
idealism carried to undesirable length, but an idealism nonetheless.
This, however, is a minority of the Hiss defense. Most partisans
of Hiss take another ground. They admit that the Communist, even
the Communist spy, is motivated by idealism, although it is an idealism
different from that of the liberal. But reactionaries, they know, have a
way of making an amalgam of the idealisms and of calling every liberal
a Communist. And they believe that Hiss is an innocent liberal victim of
this kind of slander.
This latter group is the most passionate and personal in its loyalty
to Hiss. And the first thing we observe of its members is that they have
cerfain shared social and cultural characteristics. Apart from the known
fellow-travelers, most of Hiss's supporters are people of the middle and
upper middle-class, of education, breeding, professional solidity and dis–
tinction; people of great probity; thoughtful and conscientious citizens.
Judged by the conventional criteria of class, Hiss's defenders come off
rather better than his accusers. In contrast to the respectability of those
who are on the Hiss side, those who think him guilty have a taint of the
bohemian, of the unconnected.
(It
is the generalizing social distinction
one might make, say, between Hiss's H arvard and Chambers' Columbia.)
One wonders why the lines can be drawn in this curious fashion, by class.
For surely it cannot be only class loyalty, in the simple snobbish
sense, that has attracted such handsome support to the Hiss cause. In
dealing with people of this much probity and intelligence and social
conscience, it would be manifestly unfair to ascribe to them an in–
grained class-feeling which functions in despite of their educated
democratic principles. No, on the contrary: people of this sort do not
exist without their principles, and therefore it is to their principles
that we must look for an explanation of their feelings about Hiss.
What principles do they embody which are also incorporated in Hiss?
What moral identification do they make with Hiss which makes it so
imperative that Hiss not be condemned? Hiss's personal acquaintances
defend themselves, or at least their ability to judge people, when they
defend Hiss-that is obvious enough. But do not the men and women
who never knew him but yet stand by him so staunchly also defend
themselves in defending Hiss?
The Hiss principle is, of course, a configuration not only of ideas but
of social personality. Even the scantiest outline of the years between 1929
and the present must remind us of the new kind of figure which ap-
