State Senator Calls Cornell University “Center of Revolutionary Propaganda”
New York State Senator John J. McNaboe on this day charged that Cornell University was “a center or revolutionary Communistic propaganda.” Upon hearing the charge, Cornell President Dr. Livingston Farrand chuckled, according to the New York Times.
Senator McNaboe was Chair of the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Communism and Subversive Activities in the Public Schools and Colleges in the state. He also charged that the ACLU was “closely affiliated with the Communist movement” in the U.S.
It is widely believed that the anti-communist Cold War began in the late 1940s, following World War II. In fact, however, the anti-communist movement was very strong in the pre-war years, from about 1935 to 1941. It was interrupted by World War II because the Soviet Union was an essential ally in the war against Hitler.
Learn more about the Cold War: Ellen Schrecker, Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America (1998)
Read: Larry Ceplair, Anti-Communism in the Twentieth Century America: A Critical History (2011)