"A time-honored concept of Anglo-Saxon justice declares that a man is innocent until proven guilty. I believe that in a democratic society a man is similarly loyal until proven disloyal. No testaments of faith, no protestations of affection for his native load, and no amount of signatures will prove a bloody thing—one way or the other as to a man’s patriotism or lack thereof. The concept of the loyalty oath is a new one in the United States—in its present form it dates back less than twenty years. It’s been around for a number of decades in different countries under decidedly different forms of government. It was a requirement in Nazi Germany and in Fascist Italy, and is currently a prerequisite for the status of citizenship in the Soviet Union. Under dictators, the so-called loyalty oath is a necessary adjunct to a relationship between man and his government. Both the Fascists and the Communists have a pathological distrust of their own people. To require a signature under an oath of allegiance seems to me or presume guilt and an attendant disloyalty. I simply can’t honor that kind of premise—and I won’t honor it. And it’s for that reason that I did not sign the oath required of me to speak here for pay. But parenthetically it might be noted that if indeed, I were hell bent to subvert the government of the United States, I would certainly have no qualms about signing anything."