THE CONGRESSIONAL INQUISITION
The three most pernicious Congressional committees of investi¬
gation are the House Committee on Un-American Activities, of
which Representative Francis E. Walter, Democrat, and co-
sponsor of the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act, is the present
chairman; the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security,* of
which Senators Patrick A. McCarran, Democrat, Wifliam E. Jen-
ner. Republican, and James O. Eastland, Democrat, have been
successive chairmen; and the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on
Investigations, of which Senators Joseph R. McCarthy, Repubh¬
can, and John L. McClellan, Democrat, have been the chairmen.
Another committee more limited in scope, but also sinister in its
functioning has been the Special Committee to Investigate Tax-
Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations, f of which
Representatives Eugene E. Cox, Democrat, and B. Carrofl Reece,
Republican, have been the chairmen.
Unconstitutional behavior on the part of Congressional commit¬
tees goes back at least as far as 1859 and i860, the years imme¬
diately preceding the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1859, after
John Brown had been tried, found guilty and hanged, the South¬
ern majority in the Senate set up a Select Committee to investigate
his assault on the town of Harpers Ferry and the extent to which
persons not present during the raid were implicated. It soon be-
* This is a subcommittee of the larger Senate Judiciary Committee.
f I defer discussion of this committee to Chapter g.