tellectual group. The University of Florida, being a state institution, had no choice but to succumb to this finetooth comb, but the University of Miami, a private institution, was able to decline the "invitation" of the committee "to be of service." Needless to say, the committee did little besides create a climate in which a sturdy army of muck-rakers was able to conduct its smear campaigns; but the objective of the committee had been achieved: Americans had been properly notified that Florida was "cleaning house." Americans, who seem to have a perpetual "housewife's neurosis," are, think, under the impression that if we "clean house" often enough the rest of the world will see in us a spotless and shining civilization which cannot help but win the Cold War.

The recent wave of persecution of homosexuals seems definitely to be nation-wide in scope. I have read about crack-downs in practically every large city. Only Chicago (long noted for the inaction of its police) seems unchanged since the good old days before 1959. Moreover, homosexuals are not the only ones who are hurt by crack-down campaigns. Americans cannot live indefinitely under a Crack-down Regime without becoming permanently conditioned by it.

There were undercurrents of gossip going around New York in 1959 and 1960 that J. Edgar Hoover and the F.B.I. were behind the nationwide crack-down. This could not be proved (and still cannot); nevertheless, it is open to reflection that the F.B.I. does have some very real — if only spiritual — influence over local police departments, and it is common knowledge that Mr. Hoover has given strong support toward the increase in numbers of police throughout the United States, even going so far as to campaign for it publicly and to allow his signature to appear in full-page magazine ads which beg for more recruits for law enforcement.

The really serious threat is that the great increase in numbers of the police in American communities is occurring simultaneously with a growing political trend toward the Right, coupled with an intense anti-Communist campaign. There are certain marked similarities between what is now going on in the United States and what took place in Germany during the early 1930's. The Nazis, before they came to power, achieved great popularity by posing as the champions of national unity against the "dangers of Bolshevism" (Communism) from without, and against the "rot and decay" (Jews) from within. This same concept of the need for national unity is being fostered by governments and pressure groups in the United States at this time. It lacks a definite political party and it lacks a Führer, but these institutions are not long in coming once the basic ideology has been firmly established.

In the United States the average person is not aware of the creeping Nazification of American thought because he is barraged with a constant

stream

of paper-backed literature about "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," "The Death of Hitler's Germany," "The Last Days of Hitler," and countless others. The screen too has fostered the campaign of patting ourselves on the back for having defeated Hitler. We are given, for instance, lurid accounts of the Nüremberg Trials. Every time Rockwell's American Nazi Party (a lunatic group which is of little real danger) gets into trouble with a local police department the incident appears with the usual ballyhoo in the daily papers. Books, newspapers, and films scream at us constantly that we will not tolerate the Nazi way of thinking here. Unquestionably some of this anti-Nazi propaganda comes from Jewish interest groups, but most of it is not the result of Jewish influence, but rather of the woeful igno-

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