In
The Vital Center (1949), author
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. describes the attack on Tarshis: {{blockquote|The most recent textbook witch-hunt provides an edifying example. In August 1947, on the letterhead of an organization calling itself the National Economic Council, Inc., a man named
Merwin K. Hart wrote to every member of the boards of trustees of colleges using
Elements of Economics, an economic text written by Professor Lorie Tarshis of Stanford University. An enclosed review denounced the book for its exposition of the doctrines of Lord
Keynes and identified Keynesianism as a form of
Marxism. Hart's letter had an immediate effect. Organizations of small businessmen passed resolutions in his support. Trustees and alumni wrote outraged letters to college presidents. Yet who was Merwin K. Hart? His record had been long known to students of the American proto-fascist demimonde... Fortunately enough college presidents knew Hart's record to stand up courageously to the uproar... The
American Economic Association eventually appointed a special committee to deal with the attacks on the Tarshis book and on other economic texts. {{cite book == Death ==