State Bill Seeks to End Red Scare Era at Long Last
In 1948, as the Cold War raged, no one in Washington state stirred the anti-communist fervor better than the stern-faced, humorless junior lawmaker from Spokane named Albert Canwell. It was Canwell's handiwork that led to the firing of three University of Washington professors. His red-hunting efforts also put the state's unions on guard, and forced the founders of the Seattle Repertory Playhouse to close down their theater.
As a reporter at the Seattte Post-Intelligencer, I interviewed Canwell in 1998, four years before he died at the age of 95. Still living in Spokane and still completely unrepentant about his zealous investigation of subversive activities, and for the lives he shattered, Canwell said, "Well, as far as I'm concerned, I'd do it again. I might have even been a little harsher on these individuals. I have no apologies."
It was Canwell, the knight of the Red Scare, who, as the House Republican heading up a committee looking to root out "un-American activities," laid the groundwork for a 1951 Washington statute -- a law that is still on the books. The statute imposes strict penalties on "subversive" people and organizations and was clearly a measure that sought to black list anyone with even the remotest communist leanings. With "reasonable" evidence, any state employee thought to be un-American could be fired.
The law was amended in 1955, which required state workers to pledge that they were not "subversive." The oath was struck down by the Earl Warren-led U.S. Supreme Court in 1964, following challenges by UW faculty and students.
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2012/01/state_bill_seeks_to_end_red_sc.php
2012 is the 60th anniversary of the rolling snowball of McCarthyism becoming a 100-ton boulder