CIVIL LIBERTIES: Red’s Knight

Lawyer Wendell Willkie, who has never been accused of lacking courage, last week agreed to defend a well-known Communist, and for nothing.

The Communist, Russian-born, 36-year-old William Schneiderman, secretary of the California Communist Party, was in danger of losing his U.S. citizenship. Two courts have held that Schneiderman should be deprived of citizenship because his oath of allegiance to the U.S., 14 years ago, was a fraud, since Communists’ first allegiance is to the U.S.S.R. Schneiderman’s appeal has reached the Supreme Court, will be argued there next month.

Mr. Willkie’s reasons for taking the case: the rights of all naturalized U.S. citizens are at stake; only Congress—not the courts—has the right to determine whether an alien or naturalized citizen should be disqualified from citizenship on account of his political beliefs.