158 JOINT RESOLUTIONS.

NO. 2
(Senate Joint Resolution No. 2)

Joint Resolution requesting and directing the Governor to
appoint a Commission to make a study of the laws of the
United States and other States and to formulate and pre-
pare a legislative program to be submitted to the General
Assembly of Maryland at its regular session in the year
1949 for the protection of democratic principles of govern-
ment and ideals in this State, and for the exposure and ex-
purgation of subversive activities in the State of Maryland.

WHEREAS, the system of government known as totalitarian
dictatorship is characterized by the existence of a single poli-
tical party, organized on a dictatorial rather than a demo-
cratic basis, and by an identity between such party and its
policies and the government and governmental policies of the
country in which it exists, such identity being so close that
the party and the government itself are for all practical pur-
poses indistinguishable; and

WHEREAS, the establishment of a totalitarian dictatorship
in any country results in the destruction of free democratic
institutions, the ruthless suppression of all opposition to the
party in power, the complete subordination of the rights of
individuals to the State, the denial of fundamental rights
and liberties which are characteristic of a democratic or
representative form of government, such as freedom of speech,
of the press, of assembly, and of religious worship, and
results in the maintenance of control over the people through
fear, terrorism and brutality; and

WHEREAS, there exists a world communist movement which,
in its origins, its development, and its present practice, is
a world-wide revolutionary political movement whose purpose
it is, by treachery, deceit, infiltration into other groups
(governmental and otherwise), espionage, sabotage, terrorism,
and any other means deemed necessary, to establish a com-
munist totalitarian dictatorship in all the countries of the
world through the medium of a single world-wide communist
political organization; and

WHEREAS, the direction and control of the world communist
movement is vested in and exercised by the communist dic-
tatorship of a foreign country; and

WHEREAS, the communist dictatorship of such foreign
country, in exercising such directions and control and in
furthering the purposes of the world communist movement,
establishes or causes the establishment of, and utilizes, in