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DAVID CAUTE
publicans and desperate Dixiecrat racists detemined to catch the New
Deal by the tail, so Cedric Belfrage persists in describing the inquisition
as a confrontation between the forces of war and the forces of peace,
the forces of capitalism and the forces of socialism.
Such a thesis is necessary but not sufficient to provide a coherent
explanation of why the witch-hunts took place
in America
on a scale un–
matched by any other Western nation. The British, after all, were soon
up to their necks in the Cold War, and the Tories of the Churchill era
were no friends of socialism. Why, then, were the three British elections of
1945-51 remarkably free of smear tactics, why were genuine Communists
within the British Civil Service merely moved to nonsensitive posts, why
did the acting profession, the universities, the schools, and the libraries
remain unpurged? Were the British, as some American critics heatedly
insisted, simply lazy, smug, and myopic? While I cannot pretend to
answer such questions satisfactorily, I do feel convinced that the clue
to the American inquisition(s) can be found in a comparative study
not only of the political institutions and habits of the two countries,
but also, more fundamentally, of typical popular reflexes to anxiety.
In Britain, complacency is the twin brother of sanity. Deferential
toward their rulers, assured that their community is held together by
strongs bonds it would be impious to examine, and convinced that no
Englishman, whatever his ideological conceits, could really love another
country more than his own, the British citizen tends to withhold his vote
from the politician who accuses his opponents of treason or even bad
faith. Whereas American politicians, like the barons of the bastard-feudal
era, sometimes wage anarchic war from the separate citadels provided by
the Constitution, their British counterparts, whether in government or
opposition, know themselves to be members of a common club where
the rules are strict and the least infraction warrants instant resignation.
And whereas so many Americans apparently define liberty as the sup–
pression of views they do not themselves hold, the Englishman prefers
to censor his own television set with finger and thumb. Any attempt to
usurp this prerogative strikes him as an aspersion on his own good sense.
sense.
I am simplifying and so exaggerating. So infectious is the American
way of life to us that even the periodic inquisition may prove hard to
resist. Meanwhile, closing Mr. Belfrage's chronicle of persecution, one
continues to prefer government by composure to government by exposure.
David Caute
