Remembering John Patrick Hunter

Thanks to Jody for this e-mail:

REMEMBERING JOHN PATRICK HUNTER
By Katrina Vanden Heuvel - © The Nation
December 22, 2003 Issue

John Nichols writes: In the summer of 1951, John Patrick Hunter, a reporter for the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, was stuck for a Fourth of July feature story. Then he typed the preamble of the Declaration of Independence, six amendments from the Constitution's Bill of Rights and the Fifteenth Amendment giving ex-slaves the right to vote into the form of a petition and headed to a park where families were celebrating the Fourth. Of the 112 people he asked to sign, twenty accused him of being a Communist. Many more agreed with the sentiments expressed but were afraid that signing the document might get them in trouble with Senator Joe McCarthy, who said signers of petitions for civil rights, civil liberties or economic justice were either active Communists or fellow travelers. Only one man recognized the historic words and signed the petition.

Hunter's petition drive became a national sensation. Time, the Washington Post and, of course, The Nation cited it as evidence of the damage done by McCarthyism to democratic discourse. Until his death on November 26, at age 87, Hunter maintained that it was the job of journalists to defend democracy and the liberties that underpin it. He despised the Patriot Act, the internment of immigrants and other assaults on liberty by John Ashcroft and his ilk in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack.

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Well, what about the ignorance of the American public? Isn't that also a factor? Go door to door with the same petition today and see how many doorbells you will have to ring before the FBI is called reporting your "subversive" activity.

Submitted by Herbert Siegel
Publisher, "All the News That's Fit to Remember"©