These gag or thought-control laws are based upon President Truman's loyalty order. There is the Attorney-General's list of subversive organisations numbering 150, the Mundt-Ferguson Bill which creates again the offence of holding politically subversive thoughts, and other developments. They have been given a tremendous impetus by the trial of the eleven Communists. The trial was one of doctrines and ideas. All the defendants were sentenced to five years' imprisonment, with one exception, a war-decorated hero, who got only three years, because they were Communists.

These men were sentenced, not because of anything, they had done that was against the law, but for holding certain political opinions. And for good measure the lawyers for the defence were then given six months each for contempt of court by Judge Harold Medina, who conducted himself rather on the lines of the warning given by the pantomime policeman that, "Everything you say will be taken down, altered and used against you."