TESTIMONY OF EDWIN B. BURGUM
The CHAIRMAN - Mr. Burgum, will you raise your right hand and be sworn, please? Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give in the matter now in hearing shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mr. BURGUM - I do.
Mr. COHN - May we have your full name?
Mr. BURGUM Edwin Berry Burgum.
Mr. COHN - B-u-r-g-u-m?
Mr. BURGUM - Yes.
Mr. COHN - What is your occupation?
Mr. BURGUM - I am a literary critic.
Mr. COHN - For what publisher?
Mr. BURGUM - Freelance.
Mr. COHN - What publications publish your articles?
Mr. BURGUM - Well, in the past there have been a great many.
Mr. COHN - Could you name some of them?
Mr. BURGUM - The Virginia Quarterly Review; the Antioch Review; the Kenyon Review; Rocky Mountain Review; the Suwannee Review; Science and Society. Those are the chief ones.
Mr. COHN - Did you ever do any work on a newspaper reviewing books?
Mr. BURGUM - Yes, I reviewed about a year for the New York Times.
Mr. COHN - What year was that?
Mr. BURGUM - I don’t recall.
Mr. COHN - Were you a member of the Communist party at the time you were reviewing books for the New York Times?
Mr. BURGUM - I would like to invoke the First Amendment.
Mr. COHN - You mean the Fifth Amendment.
Mr. BURGUM - Personally, I would like to invoke the First, but I know your committee doesn’t recognize that, so I will also invoke the Fifth on the ground that I don’t wish to be a witness against myself.
The CHAIRMAN - On the ground you feel a truthful answer might tend to incriminate you?
Mr. BURGUM - No, as I follow the interpretation of the Fifth Amendment, in my understanding, established by the decision of the Supreme Court and by tradition and reaffirmed by authorities on constitutional law such as Osman Franco, and that is that the use of the Fifth Amendment applies to the innocent and the guilty alike and that there is no assumption of either when a person invokes the Fifth Amendment.
The CHAIRMAN - May I say that unless you feel a truthful answer would tend to incriminate you, you are ordered to answer the question.
Mr. BURGUM - I think in these times any answer, and I would certainly make a truthful answer, would tend to incriminate me. The word ‘‘incriminate’’ has been defined by the courts, that is to say broadly, and not in its proper definition and implication of guilt.
Mr. COHN - Mr. Burgum, have you done any teaching?
Mr. BURGUM - Oh, yes. I have been a teacher most of my life.
Mr. COHN - For how long a period of time did you teach at New York University?
Mr. BURGUM - Twenty-eight years.
Mr. COHN - When were your teaching activities there terminated?
Mr. BURGUM - I think the accurate date is 30th of March of this year.
Mr. COHN - Until March of this year?
Mr. BURGUM - I think it is the 30th of March.
Mr. COHN - Are you a member of the Communist party today?
Mr. BURGUM - I have already invoked the Fifth Amendment on that question as well as the First.
Mr. COHN - While teaching at New York University did you attend any Communist meetings with other members of the faculty?
Mr. BURGUM - I invoke the Fifth Amendment.
Mr. COHN - While teaching there did you attempt to indoctrinate students into the Communist party?
Mr. BURGUM - I can assure you my relations with my students were always correct. In fact, I leaned over backwards. I neither recruited them into the Communist party or any other organization.
The CHAIRMAN - The question was, I think, did you ever attempt to get them to join the Communist party?
Mr. BURGUM - I did not attempt to get them to join the Communist party or any other organization.
The CHAIRMAN - Did you teach them what you considered the Communist philosophy?
Mr. BURGUM - Certainly not. My field was in fiction and aesthetics and I followed in all my teachings very rigid principles that nothing should enter the course that was not stated in the announcement of the course in the catalog and that was not germane to the contents of the course.
The CHAIRMAN - It has been testified by a former member of the Communist party, a teacher, that a member of the party is under Communist discipline and has the instructions and has the duty to attempt to indoctrinate his students with the Communist philosophy at all times. Would you agree with that or disagree with that?
Mr. BURGUM - I am not in a position to pass upon the truth of that statement at all. I think it is a very common opinion.
The CHAIRMAN - Did you ever discuss with members of the Communist party the question of whether or not teachers had a duty to teach the Communist, if you call it philosophy, to their students?
Mr. BURGUM - No, I have never discussed it with any member of the Communist party.
The CHAIRMAN - Did you ever attend any Communist meetings?
Mr. BURGUM - I will invoke the Fifth Amendment, if you please.
The CHAIRMAN - Was that question ever discussed at any Communist meetings to your knowledge. I am not asking you to admit anything, but to your knowledge, at any Communist meetings was that discussed?
Mr. BURGUM - Well, I, of course, heard of the Rapp-Coudert committee many years ago and am aware of the statement to this effect made in the course of that report.
The CHAIRMAN - Let me ask you this. Did you ever hear that discussed in any Communist party meetings?
Mr. BURGUM - I invoke the Fifth Amendment for that question.
Mr. COHN - Are you the author of The Novel and the World’s Dilemma? {Edwin Berry Burgum, The Novel and the World’s Dilemma (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947)}.
Mr. BURGUM - Yes.
Mr. COHN - Does this book follow the Communist line in any respect?
Mr. BURGUM - I would say, in my opinion, the question is not germane. In writing the book I followed principles of literary criticism.
Mr. COHN - Does the book follow the Communist line?
Mr. BURGUM - Well, my own principles of literary criticism are such that it is inconceivable that anything well-written could be said to follow the Communist line.
Mr. COHN - Now, you devote a great majority of space to authors that are Communists?
Mr. BURGUM - I don’t think so.
Mr. COHN - Let’s take Richard Wright. You devote more space.....
Mr. BURGUM - I beg to differ. There is one article of length on Richard Wright’s Native Son. There is a somewhat shorter article on some of his short stories.
Mr. COHN - How many other authors out of the nineteen have more than one?
Mr. BURGUM - Proust, I have two. On Wolfe, I have two. They are certainly not Communists.
Mr. COHN - Did you know Wright was a Communist?
Mr. BURGUM - At the time I wrote the articles I knew only what any well-informed citizen knows, that he had the reputation of being a Communist.
The CHAIRMAN - You mean you did not get any information through Communist channels, - you didn’t hear about it at a Communist meeting?
Mr. BURGUM - I have never met Richard Wright and the answer that I gave is based entirely upon my own observation.
The CHAIRMAN - I would like to have you answer the question. You did not hear that he was a Communist from any other Communists. You did not get any information to that effect at any Communist meetings. Is that correct?
Mr. BURGUM - Well, it is correct that I didn’t. I would like, however, to make my answer a part of the whole attitude that I had in literary criticism and that is that the one discussed, the author, was on the basis of what he has written. It is true that an author’s political opinions sometimes have certain effects on what he has written and a critic may feel that that effect in some cases is a significant one with the quality of literature and in other cases it may be of no particular significance at all.
The CHAIRMAN - Did you ever belong to an organization which advocated the overthrow of the government of the United States by force and violence.
Mr. BURGUM - I never belonged to any organization which, to my knowledge, advocated the overthrow of the government of the United States by force and violence.
The CHAIRMAN - Do you know the Communist party advocates its overthrow?
Mr. BURGUM - I would like to invoke the Fifth Amendment on that question.
Mr. COHN - Have you ever contributed any money to the Communist party?
Mr. BURGUM - I would like to invoke the Fifth Amendment.
Mr. COHN - Have you ever contributed any royalties you received from your writings to the Communist party?
Mr. BURGUM - I would like to invoke the Fifth Amendment.
Mr. COHN - Did you receive royalties from the sale of this book?
Mr. BURGUM - Yes.
Mr. COHN - Did you contribute any of them to the Communist party?
Mr. BURGUM - I will invoke the Fifth Amendment on that question.
Mr. COHN - Would you agree that you have praise for Hegelian and Marxist dialectics and condemnation for everything else along those lines?
Mr. BURGUM - No, I wouldn’t. I doubt if you will find Hegel’s name in the index, and as I remember when I made up the index myself the word Marx occurs in the text only once.
Mr. COHN - You are quite wrong about Hegel. I read the book myself last night and I found a number of references to Hegel.
Mr. BURGUM - Hegel is in the index.
The CHAIRMAN - Do you know Owen Lattimore?
Mr. BURGUM - No.
The CHAIRMAN - Reed Harris?
Mr. BURGUM - No.
The CHAIRMAN - Richard Wright?
Mr. BURGUM - No.
The CHAIRMAN - You have never met him?
Mr. BURGUM - No.
Mr. COHN - Did you ever consult with any Communists in connection with any of your writings?
Mr. BURGUM - I have never consulted with any Communists in connection with my writings.
Mr. COHN - Have you ever shown your manuscripts to any Communists?
Mr. BURGUM - I have never shown my manuscripts to any Communists.
Mr. COHN - On page 67 of the book you are talking about Thomas Mann and I quote: ‘‘Such a philosophy is dialectic, to be sure, but it is not the dynamic progressive dialectic of either Marx or Hegel.’’ Wouldn’t you say that is support of the question I asked you above?
Mr. BURGUM - It is a question of definition. I don’t recall the context of the answer but it is a question of definition, and it is true that there are two forms of dialectics in the history of philosophy. One is the dialectic that goes back to Socrates and Plato and the other dialectic of Hegel and Marx. Hegel and Marx share this dialectical conception that the movement of history is a progressive one, whereas the dialectic of Plato and Socrates was associated with a statistical conception of the universe and, therefore, was couched in the terms, what we now call Aristotelian logic.
Mr. COHN - Do you consider Marxism forward and progressive?
Mr. BURGUM - I didn’t make any statement to that effect. I simply said....
Mr. COHN - Do you or do you not?
Mr. BURGUM - I would claim the Fifth Amendment on that question.
The CHAIRMAN - In other words, you think it might incriminate you to answer that?
Mr. BURGUM - Well, in the present association, certainly, where these things can scarcely be discussed with philosophical calm.
The CHAIRMAN Under our present criminal laws?
Mr. BURGUM - I am not in a position to act as the authority on our present criminal laws and I would like, therefore, to invoke the Fifth Amendment on that question.
The CHAIRMAN - You are entitled to.
Mr. COHN - This book was published in 1947. Is that right?
Mr. BURGUM - Yes.
Mr. COHN - Were you a member of the Communist party at that time?
Mr. BURGUM - I will invoke the Fifth Amendment again, if you please.
Mr. COHN - How old are you now?
Mr. BURGUM - Fifty-nine. I was born in 1894.
Mr. COHN - Where did you go to college?
Mr. BURGUM - I got my AB degree at Dartmouth in 1915; I got my AM in history at Harvard in 1917; and then after teaching four years at the University of Pittsburgh, I got a Ph.D. four years later at the University of Illinois.
Mr. COHN - When you entered Dartmouth as a freshman, were you a Communist?
Mr. BURGUM - I should like to invoke the Fifth Amendment about that question, if you please.
Mr. COHN - Do you know William Remington?
Mr. BURGUM - No.
Mr. COHN - During the time you attended Harvard, were you a member of the Communist party?
Mr. BURGUM - I should like to invoke the Fifth Amendment on that.
Mr. COHN - Did you pay dues to the Communist party while you were at Harvard?
Mr. BURGUM - Fifth Amendment, if you please.
The CHAIRMAN - Do you know any professors at Dartmouth who were Communists?
Mr. BURGUM - I will invoke the Fifth Amendment.
The CHAIRMAN - How about Harvard?
Mr. BURGUM - The same, if you please.
The CHAIRMAN - It is now 10:20. I wonder if we could ask you gentlemen to be over in room 318 at 10:25.
STATE DEPARTMENT INFORMATION SERVICE - INFORMATION CENTERS
[NOTES MADE BY EDITOR (Not by me!): Senator McCarthy opened the public hearing on July 1, 1953, by explaining that it was calling more authors whose works had been used in the U.S. information libraries to ‘‘perhaps clarify some of the confusion in regard to what the objectives of the information program are, and also to give the American people a better picture of the type of authors whose works were being used to fight communism allegedly.’’ That morning, the subcommittee had heard testimony from five authors in executive session. It excused Joseph Freeman and George Seldes from public testimony. Richard Boyer, Edwin Burgum, and Rockwell Kent testified at the public hearing that immediately followed the executive session; while Doxey Wilkerson testified in public the following day and again on September 8, 1953.
Richard O. Boyer (1903-1973) formerly a newspaper reporter for the New York Herald Tribune and foreign correspondent for the New York tabloid PM, had published twenty-four biographical profiles in the New Yorker magazine between 1931 and 1950. One of these profiles of National Maritime Union leader James Curran he expanded into a book, The Dark Ship. Before various congressional committees, Boyer persistently invoked the Fifth Amendment. In his obituary, the New York Times noted that he had privately admitted to membership in the Communist party from the 1930s until 1956. Rockwell Kent (1882–1971), the landscape painter, wood engraver and lithographer, was also a writer, lecturer, and political activist. In 1948 he ran unsuccessfully for Congress on the American Labor party ticket. As a result of the publicity from his televised appearance before the subcommittee, the trustees of a museum in Rockland, Maine, to which he had planned to donate his unsold paintings and prints, rejected the collection in August 1953. Having fallen into disfavor in the United States for both his politics and anti-modernist artistic style, Kent eventually donated his artwork to the Soviet Union.
Edwin B. Burgum (1894-1979), president of the College Teachers Union from 1936 to 1938, was a literary critic and associate professor of English at New York University. He was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee on October 13, 1952, and invoked the Fifth Amendment when questioned about Communist affiliation. Suspended immediately from NYU, he was removed from the faculty in March 1953.
Joseph Freeman (1897–1965) a muckraking journalist turned literary critic, poet and novelist, had served as European correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, publicity director for the American Civil Liberties Union, and New York correspondent for the Soviet news service TASS, during the 1920s. He became an editor of two radical magazines, The Liberator and The New Masses, experiences which he described in an autobiography, An American Testament; A Narrative of Rebels and Romantics (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1936). Communist critics denounced that book as ‘‘romantic’’ and branded Freeman ‘‘an enemy of the people.’’ Freeman further distanced himself from the Communist party at the time of the Hitler-Stalin Pact, and later described himself to the House Un-American Activities Committee as a ‘‘man out of politics.’’ George Seldes (1890-1995), as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune during the 1920s, had been expelled from both the Soviet Union and Italy for writings critical of the Communist and Fascist regimes. He also covered the Spanish Civil War for the New York Post, and published a newsletter, In Fact. One of his many books was Witch Hunt: The Technique and Profits of Redbaiting (New York: Modern Age Books, 1940). Doxey Wilkerson (1905–1993) an African American with a doctorate from New York University, had taught at Virginia State College, Howard University and Bishop College and was faculty and curriculum director for the Jefferson School of Social Science. He served for a dozen years on the national committee of the U.S. Communist party, edited the People’s Voice in Harlem and wrote a column for the Daily Worker, before resigning from the party in 1957. From 1963 to 1973 he chaired the Education Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Yeshiva University.]
Return to the article Edwin Berry Burgum (1894-1979)
Berry's Editorial of "The Contemporary Reader" (Full Text).
Policy statement by The National Council of the Arts, Sciences and Professions.
Kafka and the Bankruptcy of Faith, by Edwin Berry Burgum.