SNIPPET: Katherine Ann PORTER was no fan of Communism, but she, like many writers and artists, was appalled by the "witch hunts" of the 1940s and 1950s led by Senator Joe McCARTHY and others determined to root out Communist sympathizers. When PORTER, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of poems, novels, biographies, screenplays, and librettos, was invited to teach at Colorado State College, she was asked to sign an "oath of allegiance" to the United States government (and against Communism). PORTER found the request offensive and sent the school's president, Dr. William ROSS, the following letter dated March 4, 1951: "Dear Dr. Ross, I cannot possibly sign the oath of allegiance you sent me, and I'm sorry I was not told in your first letter that this would be required of me, for a good deal of time and trouble would have been spared for both of us. This is the first time I've encountered this dangerous nonsense, but I have known from the beginning what my answer must be. My memory goes back easily thirty years to the time this law was passed in Colorado, in a time of war, fright, and public hysteria being whipped up by the same kind of people who are doing this work now. Only now we're worse for thirty years of world disaster. I believed then, and still do believe, that this requirement of an oath of allegiance was more of a device for embarrassing and humiliating honest persons than an effective trap for traitors and subversive people. We, all of us, do quite a lot of ceremonial oath-taking on many important occasions of life as an act of faith, a public testimony of honorable inten! tion, and it is the mere truth that an oath binds only those persons who meant to keep their promises, anyway, with or without an oath. The others cannot be touched or controlled in any such way. We all know this is so why assist at such a cynical fraud. I'm entirely hostile to the principle of Communism and to every form of totalitarian society, whether it calls itself Communism, Fascism, or whatever .... It is not the oath itself that troubles me. There is nothing in it I do not naturally and instinctively observe as I have and will. My people are the old stock. They helped to found colonies, to break new trails, and to survey wildernesses. They set up little log cabin academies, all the way from Virginia and Pennsylvania to Kentucky and clear into Texas. They have fought in all the wars, they have been governors of states, and military attaches, and at least one ambassador among us. We're not suspect, nor liable to the questionings of the kind of people we would! never have invited to our tables. You can see what the root of my resentment is. My many family branches helped make this country. My feeling about my country and its history is as tender and intimate as about my own parents, and I really suffer to have them violated by the irresponsible acts of cheap politicians who prey on public fears in times of trouble and force their betters into undignified positions ... Nothing really effective is being done here against either Communism or Fascism, at least not by the politicians because they do not want anything settled. Their occupation and careers would be gone. We're going to be made sorry very soon for our refusal to reject unconditionally the kind of evil that disguises itself as patriotism, as love of virtue, as religious faith, as the crusader against the internal enemy. These people themselves are the enemy. I do not propose to sit down quietly and be told by them my what my duty is to my country and my government.! My feelings and beliefs are nothing they could understand. I do not like being told that I must take an oath of allegiance to my government and flag under the threat of losing my employment if I do not. This is blackmail, and I have never been blackmailed successfully yet and do not intend to begin now. So please destroy the contract we have made, as it is no longer valid ... Dr. Ross, I thank you for your courteous letter and hope you will take my word that this letter has nothing personal in it. That towards you I intend nothing but human respect in the assurance that I believe I understand your situation which must he extremely difficult.... Any real study of great literature must take in the human life at every possible level and search out every dark corner. And its natural territory is the whole human experience, no less. It does not astonish me that young people love to hear about these things, love to talk about them, and think about them. It is sometimes s! urprising how gay my classes can be, as if we had found some spring of joy in the tragic state to which all of us are born. This is the service the arts do, and the totalitarian's first idea is to destroy exactly this. They can do great harm but not for long. I am not in the least afraid of them. With my sincere good wishes, and apologies for this overlong letter. Yours, Katherine Anne Porter." (See full letter, "Letters of a Nation," ed. Andrew Carroll (1997). Historical context -- Joseph Raymond McCARTHY (1908-1957), Republican U. S. senator from Grand Chute WI and a graduate of Marquette University was one of the most controversial figures in American politics. He gained worldwide attention in the early 1950s by charging that Communists had infiltrated the government. McCARTHY conducted several public investigations of Communist influence on U. S. foreign policy. Some persons praised him as a patriot, but others condemned him for publicly accusing people of disloyalty without sufficient evidence. His widely scattered charges gave rise to a new word, "McCarthyism." His four-year finger-pointing campaign struck fear throughout America - both fear that Communists might indeed have penetrated all parts of society and fear of being named as a "Red." A number of circumstances caused many Americans to believe his charges - frustrations of the Korean War, the Chinese Communist conquest of mainland China, and the arrest and convict! ion of several Americans as Russian spies. McCARTHY was ultimately severely censured after his nationally televised hearings in 1954. He wrote two books, "America's Retreat from Victory: The Story of George Catlett Marshall" (1951) and "McCarthyism: The Fight for America" (1952).