Letter from Harry S. Truman to Eleanor Roosevelt

To THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON sy November 26, 1947 Dear Mrs. Roosevelt: Your letter of November thirteenth was of great personal interest to nc, and I have read it with sympathetic reactions to the ideas you express. I can woll understand that you may be disturbed by some of the articles and summaries that have been published about the loyalty review of the present incumbents and new employees of the civil service posts. I have told the Civil Service Commission, the members of the Loyalty Review Board, and the Press that I did not wish this inquiry to becone a "witch hunt", but rather to establish what I think is the truth, that the overwhelming number of civil servants in the United States are not only faithful and loyal, but devoted patriots. It is, of course, contrary to American tradition to inquire into the political or philosophical views of anyono, and I think that is why all of us feel a certain repugnance to this program, but I became convinced that it was necessary, not because, as you say, "we were trying to repress anything we were afraid might not command public support", but because there were certain indications of a small infiltration of seriously disloyal people into certain sensitive parts of the Government. The disclosures of the Canadian Government, and in particular the report of the Canadian Civil Service Commission as to the way in which pre- viously quite innocent and simple people had been trapped and led into a situation of securing and revealing information to agents of another government -- contrary to all instructions and policies of Government service - were sufficient to convince me that we had to make some positive and constructive inquiry into the state of affairs in our own civil service. The Civil Service Commission, into whose hands I placed most of the development of the program, is cautious and fully aware of the Constitutional rights of human beings that need to be protected. We all must remind ourselves that no one has a Constitutional right to work for the Government. He has a Constitutional right to express him- self and his opinions any way he chooses, and to associate himself with organizations that are quite opposed to the Government, or even to attempt to alter the Constitution, but it is not appropriate that he should carry on such activities while working for the Government of the United States.