Citizenship comes with a duty of allegiance

EDITOR’S NOTE: Morganton resident Joe Avery sent this March 4, 1954, column by Helen Jackson with the comment that he felt the content was appropriate for today and he suggested a reprint.

In the radio broadcast “Meet the Press” Sunday night, Martin Dies, Congressman from Texas, revealed that he has a bill pending before Congress to make belonging to the Communist Party a crime, punishable by imprisonment, and a stiff fine. Perhaps you heard it.

At first glance that seems pretty drastic. This is supposed to be a free country guaranteeing free speech, a free press, freedom to worship, and freedom to assemble. Why then is belonging to the Communist Party such a crime?

Actually, communism does not at all describe what the Russians have or are trying to accomplish, and we should stop labeling them with it. If we called it the Russian Party or the Soviet Party we would be closer to fact.

For communism is an idealistic state of affairs where nobody owns anything, but everybody owns everything they produce. Each works at what he is best suited for, and shares in the accumulated wealth. A communistic state would depend on each man doing what he should do, no one having a shred of individuality or ambition, and everybody having a deep sense of fairness so that no one took advantage of another.

The great big unknown quantity, and the reason communism will never work for long is the impossibility of finding somebody big enough and fair enough to administer such a perfect state.

The Russians do not practice communism. All the wealth in Russia is in the hands of the few men who head the USSR party, and all the others are simply slaves of the state. They do not even raise their own children, they do not own their own farms or homes or businesses. They do not keep what they want, or sell what they wish. They have nothing to say about anything, they just do what they are told.

The way the Russians make converts in other countries, this country included, is to promise to overthrow the government and divide up all the wealth among the “poor.”

Such a thought appeals to the greed of foolish men, and they join forces. They talk of freeing the world, but their eyes are on personal gain. The 24,000 who are known card-carrying Party members in the United State actually believe that when this government has been overthrown they will be in top positions and will get a big part of the wealth and power that has made this nation great.

I would go further than Dr. Dies. I feel that we who were born here take too lightly our gift of citizenship. I believe that we should all swear an oath of allegiance to this nation on our 21st birthday before a Federal judge, as naturalized citizens do, as soldiers who enter the Army do, and only then, should we have the right to vote and own property.

Having sworn to uphold this nation’s way of life, it would be treason to join a political party of a foreign nation without first giving up citizenship in the United States. Having given up the right to vote along with citizenship, a foreign political party could never become a force in our political life, as it has in unfortunate European and Asiatic nations.