If you are going to penalize disloyalty, you must first determine what loyalty is; if you are going to silence nonconformity, you must determine what conformity is — and to what it conforms. If you are going to accept J. Edgar Hoover’s “easy test” of an organization: “Does it have a consistent record of support to the American viewpoint?” — you must determine what is the American viewpoint. If you are going to dismiss men from office or from teaching posts for membership in subversive organizations, you must eventually draw up a list not only of those that are subversive but of those that are patriotic. If you are going to silence dangerous ideas you must establish what ideas are safe.
To whom shall we entrust these great and delicate tasks?

Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) American historian, writer, activist

Essay (1954), “The Necessity of Freedom,” Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent
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An earlier version of the essay was given as "The Pragmatic Necessity for Freedom," Cooper Lecture, Swarthmore College (1951), and a lecture of this name at Cornell University (1953-10).