 Support for the prosecutions was not universal , however . During the proceedings , there were days when several thousand picketers protested in Foley Square outside the courthouse , chanting slogans like " Adolf Hitler never died / He 's sitting at Medina 's side " . In response , the US House of Representatives passed a bill in August to outlaw picketing near federal courthouses , but the Senate did not vote on it before the end of the trial . Journalist William L. Shirer was skeptical of the trial , writing " no overt act of trying to forcibly overthrow our government is charged ... The government 's case is simply that by being members and leaders of the Communist Party , its doctrines and tactics being what they are , the accused are guilty of conspiracy " . The Washington Post wrote that the purpose of the government 's legal attack on the CPUSA was " not so much the protection and security of the state as the exploitation of justice for the purpose of propaganda . " Third @-@ party presidential candidate Henry A. Wallace claimed that the trial was an effort by the Truman administration to create an atmosphere of fear , writing " we Americans have far more to fear from those actions which are intended to suppress political freedom than from the teaching of ideas with which we are in disagreement . " Farrell Dobbs of the SWP wrote – despite the fact that the CPUSA had supported Dobbs ' prosecution under the Smith Act in 1941 – " I want to state in no uncertain terms that I as well as the Socialist Workers Party support their struggle against the obnoxious Smith Act , as well as against the indictments under that act " . 
