AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONSERVATIVE WRITING

So ultra-super-duper-conservative is this anthology in its politics that much of its language is hardly ""conservative"" at all. Rabidly anti-Roosevelt, violently against high Federal taxes and most projects those taxes are spent on, vituperative in the extreme on the subject of insufficient investigation of Communist infiltration of wide areas of American life, the writings collected here are a chilling representation of extreme right-wing elements in industry, labor, education, publishing, and government. The contributions of Barry Goldwater and Russell Kirk are, quite naturally, somewhat calmer than the others, but the rest of the pages burn with the white heat of reactionary rage. Charles B. Shuman, President of the American Farm Bureau Federation: ""Socialism is more than a nasty word."" Westbrook Pegler, columnist and radio commentator: ""The only Mafia in the U.S. are union, a cabal of privileged henchman of both political parties with terroristic criminal power..."" Dr. V. Raymond Edman's essay appears under the heading ""No Federal Scholarships, Thank You."" Heinsohn, ostensibly the mere editor but in fact a major contributor of whole sections as well as running commentary, refers to himself as the ""operator of a couple of pintsized cotton mills"" and a member of the Tennessee Independents, an organization apparently devoted to the extermination of TVA, which Thurman Sensing of the Southern States Industrial Council herein refers to as ""Socialism's pride and showplace"". Heinsohn has constructed a symposium that contains a great many elements of truth, yet the forms of expression used to communicate that truth are so volatile that the total effect is one of only borderline wisdom. Properly stable Conservatives are likely to feel impugned, and the Liberals will have a field day.