Utopian immigration policies, it makesrnme wish that Mr. Wilhamson wouldrnspend a little less time outside on horsebackrnand a bit more time inside readingrnhis own publication.rn—Tom AndresrnSanta Barbara, CArnChilton WilliamsonrnReplies:rnCalifornia was a mess long before therncurrent invasion of immigrants, legal andrnillegal, completed the process of destruction.rnThat does not mean, however, thatrnI lack sympathy for Mr. Andres’ point ofrnview. In fact, a book of mine, The ImmigrationrnMystique: America’s False Conscience,rnwill be published in July byrnBasic Books. It was written entirely fromrnthe saddle, on the portable typewriter Irncarry along with the rest of my gear.rnCULTURAL REVOLUTIONSrnACCUSATIONS OF RACISM, unlikernprotestations of patriotism, are thernfirst, not the last, refuge of scoundrels.rnIn today’s world the charge is the ultimaternrhetorical weapon, the H-Bomb ofrnpublic discourse. Even without accuraternaim or effective delivery, it is guaranteedrnto destroy not only the intended targetrnbut associates and bystanders for milesrnaround, thus obviating the necessity forrnfollow-up precision strikes. Political andrnintellectual terrorists, gangsters, and assortedrnfellahin have not just learned tornlive with the bomb, they have grownrnto love it. And 50 years later, there willrnbe no one around to apologize to.rnWes Pruden, editor-in-chief of thernWashington Times, did not in so manyrnwords denounce Samuel Francis as arnracist when, late last September, he firedrnhim from his job as an editorial pagernwriter for the newspaper. Unlike in June,rnhowever, when he had informed Francisrnthat his staff column, always popularrnwith the Times’s readership, was beingrnkilled and his pay cut by 50 percent (arnportion of which was later restored), herndid give a specific reason. Several daysrnearlier the Washington Post had printed arnpiece by Dincsh D’Souza, adapted fromrnthe author’s recently published book ThernEnd of Racism, in which D’Souza, in therncourse of describing a meeting organizedrnby Jared Taylor, editor of American Renaissance,rnat the Hilton Hotel in Atlantarnin 1994, quoted Francis as telling an audiencernhe was addressing that whitesrnmust reassert their identity and solidarityrnin explicit racial terms by articulatingrntheir racial consciousness. “The civilizationrnthat we as whites created in Europernand America,” Francis said, “could notrnhave been developed apart from the geneticrnendowments of the creating people,rnnor is there any reason to believe thatrnthe civilization can be successfully transmittedrnto a different people.” Accordingrnto Pruden, D’Souza’s account of Francis’srnremarks clinched growing doubtsrnconcerning the possibility that irreconcilablerndifferences might exist betweenrnSam Francis and his colleagues at thernTimes.rnFrancis, an award-winning editorialrnwriter as well as the author of a nationallyrnsyndicated column, had worked forrnthe paper for nine years. During thatrntime, the editors had never killed one ofrnFrancis’s columns. On the contrary, theyrnhad consistently praised it; and the annualrnemployees’ assessment report had reguladyrngiven Francis’s work the highest, orrnnear-highest, ratings in every service eategor’.rnEarlier in the year, however, Prudenrnhad flinched at a column in whichrnFrancis, having criticized the SouthernrnBaptist Convention for publicly repentingrnof its support for slavery, denied thatrneither the Bible or orthodox Christianityrncondemns this far-froni-peculiar institution.rnNow, having read D’Souza’s piece,rnhe made the decision that Francis had torngo. Pruden asked for Francis’s “resignation,”rnand received it.rnThe dismissal of Sam Francis was acceptedrnphilosophically by admirers andrnby his colleagues elsewhere than at thernWashington Times, who had long sincernadapted to life in a wodd made safe forrndemocratist ideology by neo-Stalinistrntactics. But even before Francis left thernTimes, D’Souza himself was set on thernhot seat b’ two black conservative scholars,rnGlenn Loury and Robert L. Woodson,rnSr., when they resigned their positionsrnwith the American EnterprisernInstitute to protest the alleged racism ofrnThe End of Racism, which Woodsonrnclaimed to be “unworthy of an institutionrnlike AEI,” no matter that the bookrnhad been published b’ the Free Press inrnNew York. Apparently, Woodson andrnLoury consider themselves too pure,rnmorally and intellectually speaking, tornmaintain even the most casual associationrnwith a large organization includingrnon its staff a single individual with whomrnthey disagree. Be that as it may, the WallrnStreet journal on October 19 printed anrnarticle, “Two Black Conservatives ArernNow Searching for a New Home,” whichrnoffended Christopher DeMuth, AEI’srnpresident, by what he described in arnletter to the paper, published Novemberrn3, as its “juxtaposition of the deeplyrnthoughtful and anguished Messrs. Louryrnand Woodson on the one hand, and therninsensitive and incendiary Mr. D’Souzarnon the other.” DeMuth, having defendedrnThe End of Racism as a book that hadrnbeen praised or at least taken seriously byrn”serious intellectuals and politicians ofrnall races and political creeds,” noted thatrn”its most practical consequence so farrnhas been the firing of Washington Timesrncolumnist Samuel Francis over his remarksrnat a white supremacist gathering,rnchillingly documented in The End ofrnRacism.”rnDeMuth’s letter prompted an epistolaryrnflurry around D’Souza, DeMuth,rnand Francis, to which the journal devotedrnmuch of its Letters to the Editor departmentrnon November 13 and again onrnDecember 1. Among its correspondentsrnwas Jared Taylor, who claimed that whilernD’Souza’s description of the AmericanrnRenaissance conference as it appeared inrnhis book was humorously inaccurate, itrnwas nothing compared with what the authorrnhad originally written: an account sornfalsified and filled with errors that thernFree Press, under pressure from participantsrnin the conference who had readrnthe galley proofs, pulped the entire firstrnedition. More tellingly, Taylor suggestedrnthat the American Renaissance speakersrnhad expressed opinions “far too close tornMr. D’Souza’s for him plausibly to claimrnthat we were beyond the pale.” Hisrnpoint was seconded by Lawrence AusterrnMARCH 1996/5rnrnrn