ABSTRACT
Mere membership of the officer in the Communist Party disqualified the union. This is an instance of a loyalty oath that is widely used today, especially by states with respect to teachers and other public employees. It is an inquiry into objective facts, overt acts—membership in the Communist Party or in some other subversive organization. The loyalty oath of this type involves the problem of guilt by association—guilt by mere membership. American experience with loyalty oaths goes back to the days of the Revolution. The Supreme Court held the test oath unconstitutional. Unless or until the oath requirement is made general, teachers will continue to object to laws that make teaching into a suspect profession. The period that generated the teachers' loyalty oaths expressed a 'cult of loyalty' which found expression in "hollow rituals of affirmation", in patriotic societies that were "censors of other people's public virtue".
