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''SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
HEARINGS
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE
ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY
ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
EIGHTY-THIRD CONGRESS
FIRST AND SECOND SESSIONS ON
S. 23, S. 1254, and S. 1606
LEGISLATION DESIGNED TO CURB COMMUNIST PENETRATION AND DOMINATION OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
DECEMBER 21, 1953, JANUARY 14, 15, 22, FEBRUARY 18, 19, 26, MARCH 3, 4, AND 25, 1954
Printed for the Committee on the Judiciary
SOBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
HEARINGS
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE
ADMINISTEATION OF THE INTEENAL SECUEITY
ACT AND OTHER INTEENAL SECURITY LAWS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY UNITED STATES SENATE
EIGHTY-THIRD CONGRESS
FIRST AND SECOND SESSIONS ON
S. 23, S. 1254, and S. 1606
LEGISLATION DESIGNED TO CURB COMMUNIST PENETRATION AND DOMINATION OF LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
DECEMBER 21, 1953, JANUARY 14, 15, 22, FEBRUARY 18, 19, 26, MARCH 3, 4, AND 25, 1954
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 43903 WASHINGTON : 1954
Boston Public Library Superintendent of Documents
JUN16 1954
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY WILLIAM LANGER, North Dakota, Chairman
ALEXANDER WILEY, Wisconsin
WILLIAM E. JENNER, Indiana
ARTHUR V. WATKINS. Utah
ROBERT C. HENDRICKSOX, New Jersey
EVERETT Mckinley DIRKSEN, Illinois
HERMAN WELKER, Idaho
JOHN MARSHALL BUTLER, Maryland
PAT McCARRAN, Nevada HARLEY M. KILGORE, West Virginia JAMES O. EASTLAND, Mississippi ESTES KEFAUVER, Tennessee OLIN D. JOHNSTON, South Carolina THOMAS C. HENNINGS, Jr., Missouri JOHN L. McCLELLAN, Arkansas
Subcommittee To Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Securitt Laws
WILLIAM E. JENNER, Indiana, Chairman
ARTHUR V. WATKINS, Utah PAT McCARRAN, Nevada
ROBERT C. HENDRICKSON, New Jersey JAMES O. EASTLAND, Mississippi HERMAN W^ELKER, Idaho OLIN D. JOHNSTON, South Carolina
JOHN MARSHALL BUTLER, Maryland JOHN L. McCLELLAN, Arkansas
Charles P. Grimes. Counsel
Task Force Investigating Communist Domination of Certain Labor
Organizations
JOHN MARSHALL BUTLER, Maryland, Chairman HERMAN WELKER, Idaho PAT McCARRAN, Nevada
Richard Arbxs, Special Counsel II
CONTENTS
Statement or testimoiiv of — Page
Kader, George Edward 145-150, 170-174
Parron, William J 307-319
Bouhvare, Lemuel R 287-319
Communications 439-453
Coimtrvman, Veru 327-409
Denham. Robert N 85-107
Drummond, Harold 197-212
Fitzgerald. Albert J 212-229,238-275
Frank, Nelson 109-133
Goldwater, Hon. Barrj^_. 45-84
Mahon, Don . __ 276-286
McDowell. Arthur G 1-44
Miller, William W 175-187
Nixon, Russ . 229-256
O'Brien, Daniel 1 410, 424^38
Sears, Barnabas F 151-169
Selly, Joseph P 320-376
Stone, Adm. Fllery W ^ _ 188-196
Witt, Nathan 410,418^25,429-439
Index 455
in
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR
ORGANIZATIONS
MONDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1953
United States Senate, Subcommittee To Investigate the Administration
or the Internal Security Act and Other Internal
Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington^ D. C.
executive session — confidential
The task force of the subcommittee met at 10 : 15 a. m., pursuant to call, in the office of Senator Butler, Senate Office Building, Senator Jolm M. Butler presiding.
Present : Senator Butler.
Present also : Richard Arens, special counsel ; Frank W. Schroeder, professional staff member ; and Edward R. Duffy, investigator.
Senator Butler. The subcommittee will be in order.
Will you hold up your right hand? In the presence of Almighty God, do you solemnly promise and declare the evidence you will give to this task force of the Internal Security Committee of the United States Senate will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God ?
Mr. McDowell. I do.
TESTIMONY OF ARTHUR G. McDOWELL, UPHOLSTERERS INTERNA- TIONAL UNION or NORTH AMERICA, A. E. OF L., PHILADELPHIA, PA.
Senator Butler. Will you state your full name, address, and occupation ?
Mr. McDowell. I am Arthur G. McDowell, director of the depart- ment of civic education and governmental affairs of the Upholsterers International Union of North America, A. F. of L. My office address is 1500 North Broad Street, Philadelphia.
Mr. Arens. You are testifying here under subpena that has been served upon you ?
Mr. McDowell. Yes.
Mr. Arens. How long have you been engaged in your present occupation ?
Mr. McDowell. I have been engaged in this and other staff posi- tions with the Upholsterers International Union since June of 1945.
Mr. Arens. Will you kindly give us a thumbnail sketch of the Up- holsterers International Union, A. F. of L., what is it, what is its
2 SUBVERSrV'E INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
membership, where is it located, and a word about the organization, if you please ?
th'. McDowell. The Upholsterers International Union is a union founded at the beginning of its first continuous existence in Chicago in 1892. Yet it is at present composed of between fifty-fiTe and sixty thousand members in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. That membership is primarily engaged in the related trades of up- holstered furniture, wood furniture, burial caskets, mattress and bedding, and canvas products.
Senator Butler. Could you break it down as to membership in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico?
Mr. McDowell. The membership in the United States is somewhat in excess of 50,000; the membership in Canada and Puerto Rico is marginal.
Mr. Arens. Mr. McDowell, is the Upholsterers International cer- tified under the NLRB?
Mr. IMcDowELL. Yes, it has been from the very beginning of the act.
Mr. Arexs. Now will you kindly give us a personal sketch of your own life, Mr. McDowell, Avith particular reference to your professional activities in the trade-union movement ?
INIr. McDowell. I have been engaged professionally in activities directly connected with the trade-union movement since 1929.
Mr. Arens. May I interrupt you. If you would just give us a little brief personal history of where and when you were born and a little bit of your education, and a thumbnail sketch of your life, if you please.
Mr. McDowell. I was born in Pittsburgh in 1909, of a family which has been in western Pennsylvania for quite a few generations. I graduated from high school in the town of Butler, Pa., and I was active at that time in civic and other affairs. I was the recipient of the DAR award in American history, for example. Throughout that high-school period I Avas very active in organizational aff'iirs. That included the YMCA, Acting scoutmaster of the county's No. 1 Scout troo]:). I Avas at that time president of the Epworth League or the Methodist's young people's society of the church in Butler, Pa.
But in 1927, upon graduation from high school, I became person- ally interested in one of the historic radical causes of that year, namely, the controversial Sacco-Vanzetti case. I started employment as an office worker with the Gulf Refining Co.. in March 1027, and, as a re- sult of my very intense expression on the question of this controversial case, which became somewhat a cause celebre in labor circles across the world, I was dismissed by the Gulf Refining Co. in October of that year. I had no organizational connections of any kind at that time. That was purely an individual expression of views and resentment at injustice.
HoAA'ever, in 1928, although not yet a voter, I became interested in the Social ist Party. Although I did not vote that year, I would proba- bly have voted for Norman Thomas had I been able to do so.
Prior to this time, because of my interest in the field of labor and social justice, in the town in which I had graduated from school, Butler, the Methodist pastor had enrolled me in the Methodist Federa- tion for Social Service. This organization was actually only the first
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 6
affiliation prior to my contact with the Socialist Party with any radi- cal organization. I did not identify it as a radical organization, be- cause I was enrolled in it by my pastor, who thought it would be a good thing.
By 1928, I was identified with but not a member of the Socialist Party. In the fall of 1928 I organized and became the ]iresident of a student League for Industrial Democracy chapter at the University of Pittsburgh, the League for Industrial Democracy being a Socialist student organization, not affiliated with the party but in general allied with it.
In the fall of 1928, I entered the University of Pittsburgh, having previouslv had a year at night school in the downtown university, 1927-28. *
On the camj)us I joined the Liberal Club, organized approximately 2 years previously, following a meeting by Norman Thomas on the campus. But in this Liberal Club I had my first contacts with actual Connnunists. This occurred in the late fall or early spring of 1928 or 1929. Although not yet a full sophomore, I was nominated for presidency of this club. It was understood that there was no opposi- tion, but at the last moment a chap who was identified in the club as a Conununist was not only nominated but was elected by what was ob- viously a premeeting caucus determination. This individual who defeated me was a person going by the name of William Albertson, A-1-b-e-r-t-s-o-n, living with his mother in Pittsburgh. His father was the superintendent of a Soviet textile factory in Leningrad, and this was common knowledge among his fellow students. Albertson was subsequently, in 1952, indicted under the Smith Act, so he is cur- rent.
In the spring of 1929, I became interested through the American Civil Liberties Union in the Mooney-Billings case as a labor cause, and the Liberal Club, with my consent as a board member, arranged a meeting on the Universitj' of Pittsburgh campus on the Mooney- Billings case. The meeting was subsequently disallowed by the author- ities, and a clash resulted with the University of Pittsburgh author- ities, the consequence of which was that William Albertson, myself, and a graduate assistant who was not directly connected, by the name of Frederick Woltman, now employed by the New York World- Tele- gram, and so forth, were expelled. This case involved me in fairly close collaboration in the courts in the course of legal proceedings with William Albertson and others who either at the time or subsequently I have identified as Communists or Communist sympathizers.
However, 2 weeks after the climax of events at the University of Pittsburgh, I was employed by the Teamsters International Union to prepare a study for them of a strike they were conducting in the dairy industry in the city of Pittsburgh, and in the course of conduct- ing some meetings to publicize this study, public meetings, I found my erstwhile associate, Mr. Albertson, trying to break up said meetings and trying to disrupt the relationship between the unionmen on strike and their officers from the international union. This was my first in- sight into the actual nature of Communist interest in industrial dis- turbance. Their sole interest in this concern was to inject themselves into the situation, and the person who headed up their injection was this chap who 2 weeks before I had been fighting shoulder to shoulder with in our dispute with the University of Pittsburgh authorities.
4 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
I might say that 1 year later tlie University of Pittsburgh offered me unconditional reinstatement in the university, but due to surviving loyalty to the other associates, who were not included in the offer, I declined and did not accept this offer.
This was extended to me by Mr. J. Steele Gough, who was the execu- tive secretary of the university, on behalf of the board of trustees at the time. Mr. Gough is now head of the Falk Foundation in Pitts- burgh.
Just prior to this incident at the University of Pittsburgh, I was in the city of New York, in the spring of 1929, for the first time. I visited the headquarters of the Methodist Federation for Social Service. There I met the secretary, a little old woman by the name of Winifred Chappell. To my rather intense surprise, she began to re- late an incident which she was personally a witness to a few days before, when she had attended a Communist Party meeting in New York City, at which there had been violence involving the stabbing of an alleged Trotskyite. This whole incident, somewhat shockingly, was related in the gayest of spirits as if it were just part of an eve- ning's entertainment. There was no concern about potential murders in a political meeting. As far as I know, that finished me up with the Methodist Federation for Social Service. I never renewed my mem- bership after the beginning of 1930, although I did see this Winifred Chappel again in the summer of 1929 in one of the summer camps or institutes arranged by the Metliodist Church, where she was teaching classes, and at that time she further sought to interest me specifically in the concern of various people with the allegedly inspiring events taking place in Soviet Russia. I did not see her after that summer.
In the summer of 1929, I did work for the Finnish Social Demo- cratic Federation directing a young people's labor college for their children in Ashtabula, Ohio, and Daisytown, Pa. In August of 1929, after the conduct of this series of labor college sessions, I was called on the telephone by one Horace B. Davis, who at that time represented himself and was quite possibly a sort of radical Quaker liberal, but who either was at that time or has subsequently become a Communist Party person to my knowledge, operating in various unions, having been shoved out of Cumberland, Md., on the insistence of the CIO Textile Workers for his Communist activities; most recently, I be- lieve, at the University of Kansas City. Professor Davis, as he was known, called me on the telephone and asked if I would act as an observer for the Civil Liberties Union local committee in Pittsburgh at a series of Communist meetings on the north side of Pittsburgh where there was alleged to be danger of police violence. In accord- ance with this request I did attend this meeting, seeing a demonstra- tion in one of the north side parks, which then adjourned to a mass meeting in the International Labor and Socialist Lyceum, which has since disappeared. At that time it was well known and was the head- quarters of the Communist Party in Pittsburgh.
On the way from that meeting, I spoke to one officer whom I knew from the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union, the waiters' local, a man by the name of Zeno. This individual was a professional labor spy, as we now identify them. He worked for private detective agen- cies engaged in industrial espionage.
My attendance at that meeting was reported to the Gulf Refining Co.. with whom I was at that time on leave of absence in their service
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 5
station division, and I was blacklisted in the city of Pittsburgh for the balance of that year.
In tlie spring of 1930 I was engaged as an organizer by the So- cialist Party, by the Pennsylvania State committee. I was not ac- tually, to show the looseness of this particular organization, a member of the Socialist Party until after I was employed as a full-time or- ganizer. At that time it was suggested to me that I also join the party, which I did. That membership continued continuously from that time until March of 1941, when I publicly resigned from the Socialist movement.
I functioned as an organizer for the Socialist Party, and my next establishment of contact with the Communist, William Albertson, was as a result of an incident that occurred at the State convention of the Socialist Party in May of 1930. At this time T personally sponsored a resolution condemning the British Labor Party Govern- ment for the use of troops against Gandhi in India. The issue was very bitter because of the pride which all Socialists took in the British Labor Government, and the resolution caused a considerable division and could not have been defeated. There was publicity on this dispute.
A few weeks later in Pittsburgh, on a downtown street, for the first time since I had seen him trying to break up my meeting for the teamsters union in 1929, I saw this William Albertson, who then gave me an index into the psychology of this particular group by asking why, when I had so many supporters at this State convention, did I not organize them and lead them out of that organization and split and form an organization of my own.
Beginning in 1931, 1 was engaged jointly as newspaper correspond- ent and publicity director for the two Socialist members of the house of representatives in the Pennsylvania State Legislature and, as such, I was a member of the Legislative Correspondents Associa- tion in my capacity as a correspondent, of course, not as a publicity man. I served in that capacity during the regular session of 1931, the special session of 1931, the special session of 1932, and regular session of 1933, during the period that that legislature was in session.
In the early summer of 1931, upon the adjournment of the legisla- ture, I returned to Pittsburgh to find a demonstration or starvation strike of miners being waged in western Pennsylvania counties. This strike was not an industrial dispute in the normal sense, inasmuch as the majority of the so-called strikers were actually unemployed miners, but the unemployment and food situation was actually so acute that these miners, having no organization, expressed their re- sentment in terms of a strike, although they had no jobs for the most part. This was an ideal place for the Communists to operate, and they had moved in under the heading of their National Miners Union, because of the sympathy for the miners which is very strong in all sections of the labor movement as such, and because of the general community sympathy for the plight of the miners who, living in their small towns, had none of the even minor charity that a small city affords because there was nobody in their town except miners, and they were all unemployed and pretty hungry.
It was an ideal situation from the Communist point of view, but the Socialist Party office, after consulting with some of the members
6 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
of the American Federation of Labor in the Pittsburo;h Central Labor Union, decided that in spite of the Communist leadership, we could not let the miners <ro unaided. We therefore orfranized the labor and Socialist minei-s relief fund, and we shipped hundreds of tons of food and clothing into this so-called strike area, which was actually not a strike area at all. However, I place emphasis upon this because it is a pattern of Communist activity which could enable me in 1946, which was 15 years later, in discussing the experience in Communist coun- tries with the UNRRA, the ITnited Nations Relief and Rehabilitation, and the political use of relief, I found there was not a single instance that they experienced that was not duplicated in the Communist rela- tionship in this relief field in Pittsburgh in 1931. The pattern was so absolute and mechanical.
For example, we discovered — we liappened to rent offices iii the same building in Pittsburgh, and one day, first in the Communist press and then in a release in the daily press, there was a charge that we were, as a labor and Socialist relief committee, using the alleged similarity of names, cashing checks and contributions actually aimed at their miners relief committee.
We had some experienced old hands wlio had fought the Commu- nists in 1919, who immediately said, "This is an evidence, from all past experience with the Connnunists. that they are doing precisely this because they only charge you with doing a discreditable thing if they themselves are already engaged in it.*' We therefore got hold of a postal inspector and moved in on tlieir office and found that they had been doing precisely this. Checks had forged endorsements, using the similarity of names, and had been cashed and were being cashed and were in their office at that time, and we forced them to make restitution.
Throughout the miners' area, going out on our relief trucks, we found, for example, that on 1 or 2 occasions the relief stations scat- tered through the western Penns^dvania mining area did not get aid from the Communist ti'ucks some mornings. The shipments didn't come in or the money ran low. On those morninjxs they were crude enough to go through with their trucks and leave large bimdles of Daily Workers in empty relief stations where the potato barrel was empty. They left Daily Workers. This is an example of the type of callousness Avhich is possible in their type of operation.
At this time we had a rather interesting experience also with the attitude of the liberal magazines in a contest involving Communists as against some other type of labor organization in this area. The Nation magazine sent a correspondent iiito Pittsburgh, and he pro- ceeded to consult the Communist office and wrote an article completely false, alleging that the labor and Socialist relief fund was giving relief only to Socialist miners. We had at that time exactly six members of the Socialist Party in that entire Pittsburgh mining area, and we were shipping tons of food. But we did discover as part of the Communist pattern that this was exactly what was being done to recruit members to the Communist Party irom this trade-union front, the National Miners Union, in the course of this strike. Thev were told if they signed a party card, they would be sure to get these relief shipments which were being raised by private solicitation across the country.
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 7
In the late fall of 1931 and beginning in the winter of 1932, we were still shipping relief as we were making arrangements with authorities for the gradual transfer of these miners' relief kitchens to public responsibility because the fiction of a strike had disappeared, but the people's needs still remained and public authorities were beginning to take on this responsibility, and we arranged that transition. Before that transition occurred, we were repeatedly, particularly in Washing- ton County, in several meetings of this miners union, from which all the Communists and their various relief and other functionaries had disappeared for some 2 or 3 months before, but these same locals were in receipt of appeals for the West Virginia-Ohio Miners Relief Com- mittee, these hungry miners, because the Communists had started a new operation in the West Virginia -Ohio area stimulating the same sort of strike. But they were sending to these hungry miners — whom they left without leadership, help, assistance at all — appeals to con- tribute to their new scene of operations.
This was extremely interesting, because all the details, the charges of falsification, diversion of funds, and so forth, which actually repre- sented what the Communists themselves engaged in. were typical. The story in the Nation magazine was protested by Norman Thomas at the time. An individual at the University of Pittsburgh was as- signed by the Nation to investigate and get a correction. That indi- vidual's name was Colston E. Warne at the University of Pittsburgh. Colston E. Warne, subsequently transferring to Amherst College, had been one of our advisers during our student conflict with the university authorities in 1929, but we had found that he did not deal with us aboveboard. He consulted ostensibly with myself and the other stu- dent who was known to be a Communist, but we found out later that he met privately with the said Communist student and there was where the decisions were actually made as to the strategy in the fight on the alleged civil-liberties issue in the ITniversity of Pittsburgh. However, we did not know this until a few years subsequently.
This time, Colston Warne was assigned bv the Nation to investigate this allegedly false story that they had printed on this miners' relief situation. He investigated Init, strangely enough, at the time no report was ever made by the Nation as a result of his investigation, although the facts were clearly false. As we know now, the reason was that Colston Warne made no recommendations for any correx?tion. It was purely a coverup operation, because his political sympathies were already known.
It was at the end of that year, in 1933, that he transferred to Am- hei-st College, boasting to me at the time that he thought this was a pretty safe haven because the president of Amherst in 19;>2 was a man who was primarily interested in classical things and was a bug, as he said, on academic freedom. He found his berth. He is still there.
My first experience with actual Communist violence had actvuilly occurred in the course of the political campaign of 1930. We will cut back just for this point, because I want to bring it up later in 1933.
In 1930, 1 had helped organize a meeting in support of the Socialist candidate for governor, which was addressed by Mayor Stumpf of Reading, Pa. The meeting was held in a theater on a Sunday after- noon. You must remember that I was very much a neop'hj^te in
8 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
these things. I assumed that political meetings were political meet- ings ; that you organized, that you had your hall, your speech, and that it was yours. But a half hour before the meeting, a corps of Com- munists pushed their way through the doors at the lobby with their arms full of Communist literature under leadership of one Carl Hacker, H-a-c-k-e-r, subsequently an important leader of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union in Pittsburgh. These people served us with a demand that they had the right to sell their literature and dispense it in the lobby of our meeting on the grounds of free speech, although all of their literature which they proposed for sale contained attacks upon the organization, ourselves, that was spon- soring the meeting. They were politely refused, and we explained the situation to them. But the meeting was an open meeting. Scarcely had the meeting started than people planted in the balcony started rising and showering the audience below with mimeographed leaflets attacking in false and slanderous fashion the speaker of the day.
We then saw when that incident was over the tactic, which was an exact duplicate of the Nazi tactic in dealing with other people's meetings, as we will subsequently discover. Before the speaker could get well started on his speech, individuals would start popping up and standing on their chairs in the middle of the audience, "to ask a question" at the top of their voice. To ask a question, of course, is in quotes. The only difference here is that we found that when we put an usher beside each person that they subsided immediately. They were easily intimidated. No violence was necessary. But their own expression of it was very significant in their approach to this meeting.
This was my first experience with the approach of Communists into violence and breaking up other people's meetings. Two years later I recognized the tactic, because I attended a meeting of the Ger- man Democratic Society's in New York City at Town Hall just prior to the last Nazi election of 1932. Here I saw the young Nazi Bund sympathizers do the exact duplicate of this tactic, that is, the tactic of rising, standing on the chair, and shouting at the top of their voice, only of course they shouted in German because the meeting was pre- dominantly German in its composition, although it was held in Town Hall, New York. It was a sympathy meeting with the democratic forces going down for the count in Germany.
In 1933, while at Harrisburg as a correspondent, I was called in my capacity as editor of the Young People's Socialist League paper^ after 2 years in the Socialist Party I had joined the Young People's Socialist League in 1932. I had been elected its industrial secretary. That corresponds to trade-union secretary, and editor of its paper, the Challenge of Youth, which did not appear until some time early in 1933. But while in Harrisburg I received a telephone call from the chairman of the Socialist Party in Cook County, 111., announcing to me that the Young People's Socialist League organization had been substantially infiltrated by Communists, and that I had better get in and clean the organization out or they would simply throw the whole young people's organization into the middle of the street. The lan- guage was perliaps — he was a college professor, but he was fairly forcible about it.
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE EST CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 9
I left Harrisbiirg and proceeded to Chicago, and on behalf of the national executive committee of the Young People's Socialist League started an investigation, and I found that there had indeed been an infiltration. They had even gone so far as to picket for a Communist cause a Socialist-Jewish newspaper in Chicago, the Jewish Daily For- ward, although they were still ostensibly members of the Socialist organization.
My investigation developed that the infiltration had gone so far that it included the national secretary of the organization itself, an individual who subsequently appears in the furniture workers' ref- erence to which I am directing my current testimony. This indi- vidual's name was George Smerkin. He was not a Communist, but a very weak youngster. He had committed a breach of confidence; this is an interesting example of the way this individual has been attached to them. He is now the office manager of the United Fur- niture Workers Union in New York. He was permitted to attend an executive session of the Socialist Party Convention in Ohio, at which certain confidential facts were related, relating to the circumstances under which Tom Mooney, of California, had been expelled from the Socialist Party in 1911 or 1912. In violation of the confidence and in a surge of enthusiasm, he communicated these facts to Com- munist friends, and even wrote them in letters. These people then came to him with these letters and said to him, "You are not a Com- munist, but we have these letters. We think you belong with us. Join with us, because if you don't we will reveal these letters to your board, and they of course will fire you and you will be no further use to us and that will be the end of your career in this organi- zation." So he became their stooge within the organization.
I discovered one morning he had rifled all his mail, abstracted it from the office, and left the office before the rest of the staff came in in the morning. Inasmuch as this had happened somewhat analogously three times in the Young People's Socialist League from its found- ing in approximately 1918 on, the pattern was complete.
I merely convened a meeting of the subcommittee of the office, and when he came back he was already removed as secretary. The key to the door had been changed, and he was up for trial.
But because of his key position, this necessitated an investigation and a series of expulsions throughout the Young People's Socialist League. I j ourneyed to various places in the Midwest.
In the city of Milwaukee, I identified the leader of the Communist infiltrators as a young student in the Milwaukee Industrial Trade School by the name of Harold Christoffel. In all cases except this individual, I was permitted under the authority of the Young People's Socialist League, of which I that year became national chairman, to expel these people after presentation of evidence as to their identifi- cation with this Communist infiltration effort. However, in Mil- waukee the affairs of the young people's organization, instead of being in their own hands, were in the hands of a welfare committee made up mostly of Socialist Party people, no trade unionists among them, as it happened, with whom I was familiar, but mostly business people and lawyers. These people assured me that this individual was just a misled young man. I presented to them evidence that he was a hardened Communist operative, although only in the equivalent of high school at the time.
10 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
I was finally denied authority or any jurisdiction over him. He was permitted to remain in the organization from 1933 to 1938, at which time, after he had had 5 years' use of Socialist Party member- ship as a badge of respectability, as it was in Milwaukee because it was in the city administration for many years, they finally expelled him 5 years later for having been a secret Communist within the Socialist Party for those 5 years. Christoffel was my only failure.
However, because of the interest, there was one other person over whom I had no jurisdiction whom I did identify as a Communist, sympathizer at this time. This was a man and his wife, known as George S. Wheeler. George S. Wlieeler at that time I had met slightly in 1932, in the brief time I was in Chicago. He was secretary- treasurer of the Jackson Park branch of the Socialist Party. How- ever, when I returned in 1933 to engage in the cleanout of the Comnni- nist infiltration of the young people's organization, he was a sympa- thizer of these young people. I had no jurisdiction over him because the party organization was very loose in any kind of discipline, and nothino-'was done about Wlieeler because his views were confined to an expression of his views.
Inasmuch as in subsequent years up to the time I left the Socialist Party in 1941, in March 194i, I was customarily called upon when it was a question of dealing with Communist infiltration, I kept track of people of this sort. I checked in subsequent years, in 1938, when I was through Washington in the fall of 1938, a^ain in 1940, again in 1941, 1942, and 1943, each time inquiring about George S. Wlieeler's sentiments, because I knew of his location in Washington. On each occasion I was assured that everybody who knew him well understood that he was a bitter and vindictive Stalinist, as we used the term, as the term is used in the radical movement to indicate not just a Communist but specifically a strong, clear-cut, oriented, official Communist.
Senator Butler. What we call hard-core Communists ?
Mr. McDowell. Now, yes. There were other versions of the Com- munists. I subsequently had experience with that, because in 1937 I was in charge of the expulsion throughout the United States from the Socialist Party of the Trotskyist Communists who had infiltrated the whole Socialist organization and had to be expelled in that year, and I was in charge of that particular rather nasty operation.
It is not exactly the same kind of Communist. There are variations among individuals, but the operation is the same. It is a Bolshevik operation. It is a conspiratorial secret operation.
At this time I picked up the trail of one George Smerkin, whom I removed from office and subsequently expelled from the Young Peo- ple's Socialist League in that year.
My next contact with George Smerkin was 2 years later, when I was State secretary of the Socialist Party of Illinois, and my organizer came in to report that he had been in Kockf ord, 111., in the labor temple, and he had seen George Smerkin, but as soon as Smerkin saw him coming he immediately hailed him and took him aside and said, "Please be careful and don't let me down here. I am not known as George Smerkin here. I am known as George Stewart." This was the first time I picked up the trail. He was there at that time working in the Rockford union organizing campaign of the Rockford furniture workers.
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 11
In 1934, 1 might point out, we had further experience with the pat- tern of Communist civil violence, the outstanding example of which was the forcible raid on the Madison Square Garden meeting of the Socialist Party in 1934, protesting over the Dollfuss dictatorship in Austria, which was invaded by Communists carrying lead pipe wrap- ped up in newspaper and which was forcibly broken up by the use of gangster tactics from all over the hall, concerted. This was probably one of the earliest scandals in the labor movement, and a source of considerable disillusionment.
In 1933 and 1934, 1 became active in the Chicago Workers Commit- tee on Unemployment. The Chicago Workers Committee on Unem- ployment was inspired largely by the settlement house and social workers group in Chicago as a balance to the agitational power being organized by the Communist Party in the so-called unemployed coun- cils. The Chicago Workers Committee for the most part met in settle- ment houses and committees.
Mr. Duffy. Has that any relation to the Workers Alliance?
Mr. McDowell. This was the predecessor of the Workers Alliance. This was organized in the community by people concerned to prevent the complete mobilization of the unemployed and relief-client group by the Communists through the unemployment councils. There were bitter exchanges back and forth from the very beginning. Because of the lack of organizational experience with this sort of thing and the difficulty of detecting Communists, the collaboration of the Socialists, largely through the League for Industrial Democracy chapter in Chi- cago, was solicited, and we did furnish a great deal of the practical organization effort, and I became active in that work, speaking and organizing these groups.
In approximately 1934, this movement, the Chicago Workers Com- mittee on Unemployment, spread out through the State of Illinois, largely in the mining sections, lead by Socialists, who formed the Illi- nois Workers Alliance. This is IWA. This group was completely Socialist led, and clearcutly protected from Communist domination anywhere throughout the State. However, rapidly, by the end of the first year, groups elsewhere, because of the success of the Illinois or- ganization which ac(i[uired probably the largest single membership, began to spring up elsewliere, some of them using similar names. But most of them, again in the nature of this thing, being organized by Socialists, because the Communists had the unemployed councils and the Socialists entered into competitive work with them.
I worked with this group, was an officer of the Chicago organization throughout, from approximately — my first entry into Chicago in 1932, for any consistent period of time, from that time forward.
But in the election of 1936 we began to find out a considerable in- filtration of the Socialist elements in the Workers Alliance. This was not a serious matter. It could be dealt with and controlled. I might say that our disaster came when, in 1935, some of the Socialists in the Workers Alliance received the patronage of prominent people, includ- ing Mrs. Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins, and we did not see very much of these people who had originally been Socialist Party members. They became more and more New Dealish and less and less officially Socialist Party members.
Finally, in t-he spring of 1936, while the Socialist Party was having a lot of difficulties within its own ranks over the question as to whether
12 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
they should continue to be an independent organization or whether they should just all be New Dealers like the others, a program was developed by two people in the Workers Alliance, its secretary and its chairman, one David Lasser, who had become the national chairman oi the National Workers Alliance which had been formed, and the other, Paul A. Rasmussen, R-a-s-m-u-s-s-e-n. Rasmussen was still amenable to Social counsel, but Lasser had become a constant visitant at the White House, and it was no use talking to him any more. He had got the blessing from on high. He was sure that the only thing to do was to amalgamate all of this organization built over the previous 3 years under independent or Socialist leadership among the unem- ployed and relief workers, to get a United movement, because the Communist movement's policy had changecl the popular front tactic in 1935. They bid for it this first year, not Rfismussen but Lasser. They informed the national executive committee of the Socialist Party, of which I was an alternate member at that time, of their intention. They were advised against it. They were advised that it would be fatal.
But the Socialist organization did not have any disciplinary control actually over its members, except the appeal of loyalty, and the merger did go through. It was discovered afterward, the Socialists informed us, that the Communist unem]:)loyed councils were purely a paper organization. Their membership had been completely dissipated and all they brought in were their officers and the paper and a few hard- core Communists assigned to unemployment work. Their mass fol- lowing, which through 1931, 1932, and 1933, had actually enabled them to put on mass demonstrations, and so forth, had completely disappeared in the course of these early days. They had no following. The Communist movement actually was at one of its weakest points along about 1937. I am not speaking about votes, or anything of the sort. I am speaking about the movement, its membership, its appa- ratus.
In 1936, the Workers Alliance — over our opposition, the Socialist Party called a conference of its people to determine what should be the ])olicy. Many of the Workers Alliance chapters which were under Socialist leadership, such as Milwaukee, began to make arrange- ments to pull out of the Workers Alliance because they refused to accept the Communist acceptance, the Communist infiltration, not being based on membership, but being based on an amalgamation which enabled them to take over office, but ostensibly not a majority.
We found later they had a few sleepers on the board. Ostensibly it was a union between a Communist organization giving them minor- ity representation on the board, but we found there were some sleepers on the board who had been planted there in the early stages to be anti- Communists for a while and then to switch over at the last moment. But the stumbling block was a young man by the name of Paul A. Rasmussen, who was the secretary of the united organization.
Senator Butler. Do you know what became of him in later years?
Mr. McDowell. He is now working, I think, for the Chemical Workers of the A. F. of L.
Senator Butler. Was he ever in Government office?
Mr. McDowell, I don't think so.
(Discussion off the record.)
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 13
Mr. McDowell. This Paul Rasmussen was the obstacle to complete Communist takeover. Therefore, the way the Communists arranged it was that they shipped Lasser, the chairman, to Spain on a trip to the Spanish civil war front, and while he was away they brought up charges against Rasmussen and pushed him out as secretary and put in the Communist, Herbert Benjamin, as secretary. And of course when he came back from his little jaunt through Spain and in to Moscow, it was an accomplished fact and he, of course, accepted it as an accomplished fact.
Senator Butler. Who is Herbert Benjamin?
Mr. ]\IcDowELL. Herbert Benjamin is the professional Communist in the unemployed field in the years between 1931 and 1936 when he moved into this united organization, when they persuaded them to amalgamate.
Senator Butler. Where was he, in New York ?
Mr. McDowell. He was here in Washington. Benjamin then be- came the secretary and ran the organization right down the middle of the street from then on.
In 1938 we had had our stomachs full of it. I consulted with the leading person we had in Illinois, who had stayed on in tolerance to try to make the thing work, thinking maybe a united front might still work. He was now completely convinced that he had had his experience, too.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. McDowell. One David Lasser, whom I knew from the years 1933 to the present, was, in my firm opinion, never a member of the Communist Party. He was a very muddleheaded collaborator with the Communist Party throughout the years 1936, 1937, 1938, and finally got his fill and broke away, but only as late as the early part of 1940.
The most depressing thing about his record was that he had stayed on even after the Soviet-Nazi Pact for a few months, primarily at- tracted by office.
I would say that in the fall of 1937 I had completed an assignment which involved expulsion of a Trotskyist-Communist infiltration of the membership of the Socialist Party. Some very prominent peo- ple— I might say James Burnham was one of the prominent people I expelled.
Senator Butler. Who is he ?
Mr. McDo\\t:ll. He is fairly well known around Washington these days.
Senator Butler. Is he in the present administration?
Mr. McDowell. No. He is a very conservative man now. I only pass it incidentally because it is one of those interesting things in history. He once formulated the classical Communist theory to me in the front room of Norman Thomas' house in October 1937. He explained to me that "You are a democrat in your procedure and philosophy. Therefore, you cannot interfere with me, who does not have a democratic philosophy and belief and procedure, in the things that I am proposing to do to your organization."
I said, "If you will give me 30 minutes to write a resolution for expulsion and trial, I will see what I can do under democratic proce- dure," and I did. I produced the resolution in 30 minutes and I
43903 — 54 2
14 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
produced the expulsion, all witliin 30 days. That included a very powerful faction in Minneapolis, the Dimne brothers.
To get back to Lasser and to explain the type of thing we are dealing with here, Lasser came in to Chicago and said, "You haven't approved my policy of joining, but you have agreed to let the Socialists stay within the Workers Alliance after the unemployed councils came in. Therefore, will you now go to Milwaukee with me and we will jointly plead with the Socialist-led groups there to come back into the Workers Alliance," from which they had resigned over Communist domination over this Communist union. I had no choice under the policy at the time but to go up and make whatever formal presentation to advise them what the policy was ; that while we did not approve the merger, we felt that people should stay within and fight for their principles, and so forth.
On the way up on the train Lasser turned to me and said, "Do you implicitly trust Franklin Roosevelt to fight at all times for democ- racy?"
I said, "Not by a damned sight."
He said, "Well, then, that means tliat you and I therefore can never agree politically, because I trust Roosevelt implicitly on all these questions."
Therefore, I say on the basis of knowledge of the man over these years, lie was never a Connnunist, l)ut that he was led into this thing by the fact that he believed on the basis of what he was told that this w\as the thing that his idol, Roosevelt, wanted to be done. I am not so sure that he was right, because he wasn't getting it from the horse's mouth. He was getting it from a collateral source in the family. Nevertheless, that is what he thought, and that is the basis on which he acted.
This is my estimate. I have been very careful and painstaking about this matter of Lasser, because he was the person that we had the most bitter clashes with. Personally, I have more reason to be aggrieved at him than against any other person, because in the fall of 19.38, Se])tember of 1938, they held a convention in Cleveland of the Workers Alliance. I went down as an observer. I could not go in any other capacity. I frequently, as labor secretary of the Socialist Party, covered conventions, and as a newspaperman also for the press, A. F. of L. and CIO conventions in subsequent years. At this affair I couldn't find any of my — the Socialist remnants which had once founded and led an organization of considerable numbers were no- where to be found. On one side of the hall were all Communists, and on the other side were all New Dealers from the WPA, and so forth. It was already being used for political purposes.
We were having complaints by that time that in a certain campaign in Kentucky for Ignited States Senate, there was a cut in relief that fall. Nevertheless, the Workers Alliance, according to this political decision, were marched out to cheer the candidate of the administra- tion that had just cut relief. They did it, by gosh. It is amazing, but that is the type of purpose the thing was being used for by that time.
To finish up the Workers Alliance — having finished up the year 1937, now we will work a little bit faster — I might say that in the summer of 1937 we had the first beginning of knowledge of the prob- lem of Communist operations in the CIO, which was then just taking
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 15
shape. Part of this year of 1937 I was the labor secretary, but this was only after October, and the rest of it I dealt with in the office as an assistant to the man who was then labor secretary.
Mr. Arens. Labor secretary of what'^
Mr. McDowell. Of the Socialist Party.
We found out in that year that a deal had been made beteen John L. Lewis and the Communists in relation to the new unions that were being set up under the CIO. The deal included what apparently ap- pealed to Lewis as not essential at that moment, although he did permit the infiltration of the steelworkers' campaign in the summer of 1936.
The political nature of the steelworkers staff was so evident that while people who were members of the Socialist Party were on the official staff, from the reorganization people like Leo Krzycki — K-r-z-y-c-k-i — former national chairman of the Socialist Party, as a matter of fact, in 1936, was assigned to this staff, by the next 9 months after July of 1936 it was impossible for him to have any- thing to do or to get any assignment to work on the steelworkers staff because the Communists had taken over so completely in the Chicago area. They reached their high point, of course, at the time of the Chicago May Day massacre of 1937, at which time I have fhe statement from one of the organizers of the Upholsterers Inter- national Union, Mike Martin, who at that time was still in the Communist Party, who has since broken, that either 31 or 32 out of 33 members on the staff of the steelworkers organizing campaign in Chicago were attending the Communist Party caucus. People who were not of that disposition were literally driven out of the campaign.
This included people whose names are fairly well known now. One of the people who was driven off the steelworkers staff by this Communist domination that summer was a man by the name of Melvin Pitzeley, now the labor editor of Business Week. He was forced off, and Leo Krzycki, vice president of the Amalgamated, assigned to it.
Actually, out on the prairie the afternoon of the May Day massacre of 1937 — Krzycki told me this personally — he pleaded and pleaded with Joseph Weber, who had become the staff member of the steelworkers in charge, a long-time Communist in Chicago, for- merly head of the unemployed council, and an old antagonist whom he had fought bitterly across the years during the formation of the Chicago Workers Committees on Unemployed — we knew him like any antagonist with whom you fought for nearly three-quarters of a decade. He was in charge that afternoon, and Krzycki at that time was still a Socialist. He subsequently was led down the garden path by his Polish connections after 1944, but at that time a very sincere person. He pleaded with Weber not to carry out his plan for a picket because the people in charge knew that the police captain in charge of the detail out there had a reputation as a sadist and would probably welcome a clash, and Krzycki warned him that he was leading people into a hail of death that was almost inevitable, knowing the police captain in charge and his peculiar disposition. But it was deliberate to order those people across the prairie that afternoon, knowing what the situation was. They were deliberately
16 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
ordered. Joseph Weber, this organizer, according to the account given me by Leo Krzycki, who, of course, told me this story per- fectly freely, because in my capacity with the Socialist Party it was perfectly natural that he should discuss trade-union affairs with me. The peo])le remaining were told to start leading the picket line across the prairie into the police line, into the armed police line, and Weber said he would be upstairs and the organizers were to keep in touch with him. He went upstairs in safety in headquarters a mile away, and from there directed the march of the picket line into that ambush, because that is what it amounted to, in 1937.
This is an example of what was going on in steel. I speak as if I were still in the Socialist Party, because I was then. We were very disheartened and discouraged, because we found it impossible any longer to work. Our efforts and our contracts, particularly among Yugoslavs and other groups in the steel industry, had languished and good, sympathetic people toward any union movement had been used. We had furnished them, and then that was the last we heard from the people in the steel workers, because even people whom we recom- mended for jobs, for example an individual who I had been very friendly with in the Chicago Federation of Labor, Meyer Adelman, of the pastry cooks union, was forced out of his business agentship in the summer of 1936 by racketeers at the gunpoint, literally. He either resigned his post and got out of the local that he built, or else it was curtains.
A big fat man, he had no desire to be a hero, because he couldn't get support of any significant sort in the local. We recommended a job with the steel workers for this Meyer Adelman, not knowing too much of his character except that he had shown courage in combating racketeers in his own local union. We found he had no political cour- age, because right after he had taken his post he came to us and asked for aid in Waukegan, 111., where there was a strong Yugoslav social democratic group. These people pitched in on our recommendation and helped him, and as soon as he got to be secretary of the town, he immediately joined up with the Communist caucus, because that was the only way to preferment at that time in the fall of 1936 and the beginning of 1937.
Our concern was with the outfits which were being handed over at top and bottom to the Communists. These we discovered by the end of 1947 were as follows : First, the white-collar workers, that is to say, the organization to which they were handed over was an organization which became known as the United Office and Professional Workers Union. We had many Socialists active in this group, because there were a lot of white-collar workers among them, including the largest A. F. of L. local in New York, headed by Sam Baron, who has lost more jobs in the trade union movement for being anti-Communist than any other man I know of. He broke some of the inside story on the Spanish civil war by testifying before the House Un-American Activi- ties Committee, I think in 1938. Sam Baron and others.
We found when these gatherings convoked by the CIO for the pur- pose of forming a union were met, the representatives of the CIO in all cases were two people, one of whom was a personal friend of mine and the other was an acquaintance, though no friend. One was a sort of Socialist, John Brophy, and the other was a person whom I had known as a Communist since 1929, Len De Caux. The reason I knew
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 17
liim as a Communist was that he tried to take me to Communist meet- ings. His wife and he both in their home tokl me that they were Com- munists in every sense of the word. He at that time had the strategic post as the actual editor of the Locomotive Engineers Journal in the city of Cleveland, when I first knew him in 1929.
This post, incidentally, in a very conservative, ultra-conservative labor organization, was held from 1921 or 1922 on to the end of De Caux's position in 1932 or 1933, by a Communist at all times. The predecessor was Coyle. This is an example of Communist operation in the labor union of a completely unscrupulous sort.
This is one of the standard stories. Mr. Coyle, as editor and there- fore the adviser to the grand engineer of the locomotive engineers in .1926, when the United Mine Workers was battling for its life against the unorganized competition of the cheap coal from West Virginia in the Pennsylvania fields and the central competitive fields in the ApjDalachians, the locomotive engineers as a union purchased coal mines in the center of the nonunion field in West Virginia. The mine workers immediately proposed that as one union to another they should give them a foothold by recognizing them as a union. But the secre- tary to the grand engineer was a Communist, and the policies' of the Communist Party at that time, under the influence of William Z. Foster, was to prevent the A. F. of L.'s getting any sort of recovery, and the Mine Workers were part of the A. F. of L. So the Commu- nists there persuaded the grand engineer of the Brotherhood of Loco- motive Engineers to operate Union-owned mines nonunion. This is an example of wheels within wdieels when you get into Communist intrigue.
Len De Caux, in the summer of 1937, as a Socialist Party official discovered on each occasion as conventions were convoked of the United Office and Professional Workers Union, where most of the word was passed by Len De Caux, assisted by John Brophy, being director of organization, and as the United Cannery, Agriculture, Packing and Allied Workers, into which the agricultural workers were to be regimented, was formed, also under the supervision of John Brophy, it was an understood thing that Communists should head these unions fi-om the beginning. That was the deal made by John L. Lewis with the Communists.
Mr. Arens. I wonder if you could clarify the record on that. What unions specifically were involved?
Mr. McDowell. The ones involved in the deal ?
Mr. Arens. Is that the office workers, the predecessor union to Flaxer's present union ?
Mr. McDowell. No. That is a separate outfit entirely. These were unions which the Communists were to head from the beginning. In the case of the office workers, I might say naturally the mine work- ers looked upon this as a contemptible part of the deal, because why give away the office workers ? It never occurred to them until many years later that an office workers union with a closed-shop contract can supply all the secretaries to all the trade-union officers in any organization, because they have to recognize their own union. There was nothing more strategic than this group of ordinarily ineffective white-collar workers. So the Communists, like the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, "Just call me boss." That was suffi-
18 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
cient title for them. They wanted the office workers. They wanted the one group of people, and they got them, where there is the greatest amount of exploitation and unease in America, namely, the migratory farmworker. That is where America falls shortest in its economic rewards, the migratory farmer, and here is a great source, as they thought, of agitation.
The reason we knew was that we had
Mr. Arens. Excuse me a second, Mr. McDowell. You were enumer ating the unions.
Mr. McDowell. They were, respectively, the ones which the Com- munists were to head.
Mr. Arens. Yes, let's get those.
Mr. McDowell. The United Office and Professional Workers, cov- ering the office employees ; the United Cannery, Agriculture, Packing and Allied Workers, which were to cover the agricultural workers, cannery, and miscellaneous. These were handed over directly, with the definite provision that designated Communists were to become presidents in the key offices.
Donald Henderson, Columbia University farmer, was to be the head of the agricultural workers. Lewis Merrill, L-e-w-i-s M-e-r-r-i-1-1, was made head of the office workers.
The deal also affected certain other organizations which were to be manipulated by the Communists, although they preferred non-Com- munists as the heads.
iSIr. Arens. This deal, so the record is perfectly clear, was between vrhom ?
Mr. McDowell. It was between Lewis and the Communists, a per- fectly cold-blooded proposition. Le^vis thought he wasn't giving anything away.
Senator Butler. Do you later get into the purpose of the deal ?
Mr. McDowell. The purpose of the deal was to get the CIO organ- ized quick and to get Lewis a tremendous membership. The Com- munists were known to be tremendously active people, devoted workers, and they had footholds in this field; particularly they had been con- centrating on the white-collar workers since 1934. Mary Van Kleek, of the Russell Sage Foundation, was their ace-in-the-hole, and the reason I know iSIary Van Kleek is a Communist is that in the ordinary course of conversation — the secretary of the Socialist Party in Illinois, Ina White, is a New England spinster, and she was a member of this very exclusive organization known as the Colonial Dames, which is so much more exclusive than the DAR because to be a member of the Colonial Dames you must have your lineal ancestors mentioned in Colonial official documents. That makes it even more exclusive. Mary Van Kleek is also a member of the Colonial Dames.
There was a social workers conference which was the big concentra- tion, l)ecause the Communists hoped to move in from the unemployed at one end and the relief workei-s, social workers' set-up on the other, and you couldn't beat that combination, because the social workers would administer the relief, they would give it only to the Communists, and one hand Avould wash the other. It worked ver}' admirably, as a matter of fact, up until a very few years ago.
Mary Van Kleek sat down with Miss Ina White, and they talked it ovei', and Mary Van Kleek, one old New Englancler to another, said.
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 19
"I am a member of the Communist Party. What about you?" She says, "Everybody knows I am a member. I am an officer of the Socialist Party."
Ina White came back to Chicago and quite obviously reported it to nie. So the argument went on for years subsequently as to whether Mary Van Kleek, who led the Communist effort in this field from a vantage point in the Russell Sage Foundation, was a Communist. She admitted it where there was no pressure at all in a private conversation in 1934.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. McDowell. In June of 1940 I visited the convention of the United Steel Workers meeting in the INIorrison Hotel. There in the lobby I met John Brophy, an old acquaintance and friend since 1929. Brophy at this time was still working under Lewis, but very indignant over Lewis' two policies, one of isolation from the European conflict, his isolationist policy, and his collaboration with the Communists in connection with his isolation policy.
Brophy therefore told me how this was handled in a specific case. He said to me, "Do you know how that so-and-so," referring to Presi- dent Lewis, then of the CIO, "made me handle the west coast situa- tion ? He called me in privately and told me" — this was in 1937 also — "I want you to go to the west coast and to hand over the management of the CIO on the west coast to Harry Bridges, and I want you to make clear," Brophy said Lewis told him, "at the time that you do it that you are doing it entirely on your own responsibility and that I have nothing whatsoever to do with it."
This is the end of the account of John Brophy as to how the thing was handled.
At no time did Lewis deal with the boys directly. It was always through subalterns who were instructed exactly what to do and how to misrepresent it. That was the way the thing was handled.
Tlie reason that we came into contact with this first was that, as part of the agricultural workers that was invited in the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, which now is part of the A. F. of L., loiown as the Agricultural Workers L^nion. The Southern Tenant Farmers Union had been organized in 1933-34 when the Wallace policy on cash subsidies for restrictions had put an immense cash bonus on evictions by southern plantation owners to avoid any claim of the sharecroppers to any i)ortion of the casli. This was protested at the time, by the way, to Wallace, and he refused either to answer letters or even to see close personal friends who called his attention to it. He was abso- lutely incommunicado.
The people making the protests were able to see the President of the United States, but the Secretary of Agriculture was inaccessible as this policy worked out. Thousands of sharecroppers were evicted en masse and piled with their goods along the roads of the Southern States, Arkansas, Tennessee, and the other sharecropping States.
As a result of a policy that was enriching the plantation owners, these people were having the slightest earth that was around their economic roots just simply ruthlessly shovelled away. The Southern Tenant Farmers Union emerged as a tenant and sharecrop})er organi- zation then during that period, largely subsidized and aided, because it never paid its own dues — these people were poverty-stricken beyond
20 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
belief — it was largely sup])orted by Norman Thomas and a group of Socialist and liberal friends. That is how it was financed.
From the first this group was in conflict with various Communist operations in the agricultural field, so the feeling was very sharp and intense between them. Wlien H. L. Mitchell, still president of the Agricultural Workers Union of A. F. of L., got to the convention, he found that Brophy had changed the stakes. It was originally to be a federation which w^ould allow their organization to carry on its particular kind of work. When he got there he found that Brophy was telling him. no nonsense about this, you just come in and you are part of Donald Henderson's organization. He consulted with us about it, and we tried to intervene with John Brophy, as an old friend, as a Socialist sympathizer of years past, and got at that time a curt reply that if he wanted to continue in existence as an organization, he had better get in and accept the terms on which he would get in.
As a result, an uneasy relationship persisted until 19?>8, at which time this H. L. Mitchell led the first breakaway from the CIO organi- zations on the issue of the Communist domination. This was the breakaway of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union locals in Arkansas, Tennessee, and IMississippi, from Donald Henderson's outfit, which subsequently changed its name and became the Food and Agricultural Workers Organization, food and tobacco, and I think survives as one of the Communist organizations. That, however, is an example.
It came to our attention that another type of deal was on. This did not involve anything the Communists, the presidency, or the chief position in the union, as in the case of the office workers and the agri- cultural workers. It involved in the case of the United Federal Workers appointing a very respected and honorable man, Jacob Baker, as president, but appointing a Communist as secretary-treasurer, a girl by the name Eleanor Nelson.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. McDowell. I believe we were summarizing the situation as it existed in the fall of 1937 in relationship to two unions already enumerated which were understood to be handed over to Communist complete operation. There were then, in addition to the United Federal Workers, which was to organize obviously Federal employees, which was headed by a very respected and honest citizen, who 2 years later said that he had to resign because he couldn't even read his own mail.
The second that occurs to me immediately is the State, County, and Municipal Workers Union, and the third was a new furniture workers union of the CIO which was to be formed by taking advantage of difficulties of the Upholsterers International Union on jurisdictional questions within the A. F. of L. and which, as the others, was to be headed by a non-Communist. In this case the understanding was that the president would be Sal B. Hoffman, newly elected president of the Upholsterers International Union. This was the second place at which this agreement went astray. The first occasion of course actually was that wliich led to the departure the following year of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union from the Agricultural Workers setup. That was the first split-off which revealed the Communist control and the revolt against it.
Now came the case of the Furniture Workers Union. This union, because of the failure of that original deal, has at all times been one
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 21
of the places where the policy of the Communists within the CIO end of it has leaked most perceptibly because they have not been able since the upset of their plans in 1937 to give an account completely of their control of this outfit.
There always has been a yeasty situation within the organization as a result of the open warfare carried on by the Upholsterers Interna- tional Union when they evaded the trap and weren't dragged into it.
]\Iy research when I assumed the post of director of organization of the Upholsterers International Union, that being my first capacity, in June of 1945, was to make an investigation into the specific history of this, as I had some personal contact with it. This personal contact came at the A. F. of L. convention in 1937 in Denver. I covered this convention as a newspaperman, and at one session a man by the name of Boris Muster, a delegate from the Upholsterers International Union arose to make a speech. The first part of his speech was a bitter complaint of the grievances of the upholsterers in terms of their juris- dictional problems relating to woodworkers and was in a sense hostile to the convention.
The individual concerned, finding the convention's expression very hostile, began to shift and wound up his speech with a pledge of un- dying loyalty to the A. F. of L. under any and all circumstances.
At this point Louis Budenz, who at that time was a very active Com- munist and was there at the press desk representing the Daily Worker, called me and Lou Stark, of the New York Times, and several other newspapermen together to reassure us and tell us that we should dis- regard Muster's speech, that it had no foundation in fact, because actually Sal B. Hoffman in Philadelphia was going to lead the whole outfit into the CIO after this convention was over.
Budenz was giving the dope as he had it straight from the party's mouth at that time. He called us together and told us this was part of the scheme. This is where the edge of the thing shows to the open world what was going on.
Actually a deal had been worked out, the terms of it had been worked out between Sidney Hillman and the Conmiunist group within the Upholsterers International Union in Xew York in that year 1937, under which the Upholsterers International Union was to secede and around it would be grouped a lot of other independent local unions, including Federal unions that could be pried loose from the American Federation of Labor and this would be the foundation for a new fur- niture workers union, a new setup within the CIO.
This also was handled by John Brophy.
In the course of my research, my appetite was, of course, Avhetted by that contact I had with it, because within a few days after the adjourn- ment of that convention m Denver the newspapers carried the story that there had been an upset and instead of the upholsterers going out of the A. F. of L. and becoming part of a new CIO union, they had repudiated the whole set up, and a mere segment had seceded and formed a CIO union which received a charter late that year, but only a rump section.
Plaving this first handling when I came into the Upholsterers Inter- national Union in 191:5, I made an intensive research into it because negotiations at that time for a no-raiding or peace pact between the Upholsterers International Union and the Furniture Workers Union
! P n R T . I C !
22 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
Avere proceeding, the purpose being not to amalgamate the organiza- tions but to avoid, if possible, outright competition in various sectors.
The political basis was that JSIuster, the man who at Denver had under the pressure of the audience switched from a hostile, anti- A. F. of L. position in the same speech to a very pro-A. F. of L. posi- tion, was now the head of the furniture Avorkers. He was what Sal Hoffman was intended to be, the stooge head of a Communist-domi- nated union.
So I went back over the circumstances, and this is essentially in brief outline the story of Communist operations in the furniture industry, an industry which does not attract attention because it is scattered throughout all the United States. It has no significance in the normal course as a war industry, although in periods of con- version the bigger plants in the industry do fidfill war contracts. But in which there always has been a bitter struggle over this Communist issue within the furniture industry and which continues to this day.
Tliis was evident, so far as I believe, the first record of it was fonnd in my research in the August 1922 issue.
This union did not publish a journal until May of 1922. after hav- ing been in existence theretofore for ^0 years, but in the August 1922 issue there is a lead editorial by the union president who declares, "The issue is, shall they, the Communists, scuttle the ship of the Amer- ican labor movement, or will labor make them walk the plank?"
This contest with Communists in the union, of which there appear to be always a scattering, ranged through the twenties.
Mr. Arens. Identify the union again, please.
Mr. McDowell. This is the Upholsterers International Union.
In 1929. in a series of articles in various Communist and near- Commnnist publications, William Z. Foster called for a new policy of dual unionism, abandoning the policy pursued from 1922, the first open activity of the Communist Party of America, to 1929, for (he most part, of boring from within the existing unions. This was a policy of dual imionism. The Trade Union Educational League, a Communist-front organization of Foster's, was now converted into the Trade Union Unity League, which became the trade-union center in accordance Avith instructions received that year from Moscow.
The furniture field was considered snbsidiarv to the needle-trade field, in which the Communists because of the breakup of the work- ing gronp believed they Avoidd have the maxinuun chance to fiet their base, and from this base to make a bridgehead into the rest of the labor moA'ement.
The organization that came into existence in various forms was known as the Furniture Workers Industrial Union, the National Furniture Workers Industrial Union, and vaiHous variants of this name. One of the new people to appear in the furniture trade at this time was a garment sewer by the name of Mon-is Pizer, a garment- industry sewer, who because of a mistaken belief that there was a similar tie between something in the upholstery trade, which is palm and needle, and something in the garment trades, was transferred bv the Communist Party because of their weakness of leadership into the furniture industry, and he began to appear somewhere after 19o0. He is definitely what is known as a colonizer.
When an organization is too weak to a great extent, thev transfer from one trade to another. He came into the Upholsterers I'''nion, not
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 23
into the Upholsterers Union but into the new Fnrnituie Workers In- dustrial Union, which was very nuich weaker than the needle-trades industrial union, which was their dual union in the needle trades. However, their tactics were the same attempts at raid, backdoor agree- ments, anything under heaven in order to get themselves a foothold.
They were not very successful, but in the city of New York they did succeed in organizing by 1934 and 1935 a woodworkers union, a fur- niture woodworkers union, mostly in the shops making frames origin- ally for upholstered furniture. Tliis was under the Furniture AVorkers Industrial Union organization. Some time in 1935 when the Com- munist Party line changed and abandoned dualism and the instruc- tions were to come back into the A. F. of L.. all of the names of the people who had been active in trying to break up the upholsterers in order to form the Furniture Workers Industrial Union came back, and at that time as j^art of A. F. of L. unions, including fur workers, they were accepted on the ground of a declaration of past offenses and their intention in the future to be devotedly loyal to the A. F. of L. Of course their devoted loyalty lasted 2 years.
This group of people represented very little addition. The grou])s they brought in were primarily as folloAvs : Their members, who had gone out and formed a competitive union, came back into the Up- holsterers Local 76 of New York, which they had completely lost in- fluence in during the period of their dual-union tactics. They brought in this new organization under a man by the name of Max Perlow. This 76-B, it was called, linked with the old upholsterers local. They also brought in and with it George Smerkin, alias Stewart, of Rock- ford, 111., the Rockford Furniture Workers local. They brought in also a group in Los Angeles of some importance. These were the 3 centers of Communist strength — New York, Illinois outside of Chicago, that is. and Los Angeles.
By 1937 there had been an increase in membership in the union, and in the spring of 1937 an argument that had been going on for some years was settled, the argument being the question of inclustrial organ- ization of the whole upholstered furniture industry. The union elected a new president in the spring of 1937. Sal B. Hoffman of Phila- delphia, with a long history of local union ex})erience and an organ- izer for the international union many times in the past.
The immediate problem of a new president was a long-standing con- flictwith the Carpenters Union of the A. F. of L. back to 19li over the jurisdiction over the woodworkers within furniture plants, where the upholsterers were already organized in most cases. This was an old story and also there was a problem relating to building trades- men, linoleinn layers, carpet layers, and so forth.
These problems resulted in some tension with the American Federa- tion of Labor over its failure to act on jurisdictional problems.
The Communist group by this time had become very active and had taken office. In 2 years' time they had moved into a considerable num- ber of offices in the shifting situation. They were unified as far as the support of Hoffman is concerned. There was no opposition to that. He w^as elected unanimously by the convention. Then on the board appeared certain names, including Morris Pizer. who is identifiecl as having come over from the needle trades first to found the TUUL in the furniture industry and then transferred into the upholsterers when the party line changed in 1935.
24 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
Now in 1937 this group of people came to the general executive board of the upholsterers and suggested that they join the CIO and solve this whole problem of jurisdiction by going out and organizing whom- ever they pleased by joining the CIC). At this time not only were there people who were loyal as such to the A. F. of L. in the union but there were people who were dependent for their jobs because of their build- ing-trades cards being honored in the building trades, such as the linoleum layers. Therefore the new international president said he was perfectly willing to consider a solution of the problem by a change of affiliation, but he was not going to go along with it unless the tran- sition was approved by the overwhelming proportion of the members. He therefore suggested that a new union affiliation could only be taken by a referendum in which 70 percent of the vote was in favor because there should be no 51 -percent votes because in the nature of union ref- erendum it would be unrepresentative and the organization would merely split itself into parts and not move anyplace.
This was unanimously agreed to by the general executive board, by the persons including those subsequently identified as the Communist caucus. That included, first, Max Perlow, from 76-B ; second, Morris Pizer; third. Jack Hochstadt.
All of these people were party to the agreement for a 70-percent ref- erendum in case of any change in affiliation. Agreement was worked out with John Brophy, representing the CIO, and Hofiman, represent- ing the upholsterers, to summon a conference to confer as to what should be done. Inasmuch as the upholsterers were bound to move only in case of this special referendum, a specified number of votes, it was understood clearly with Brophy that this conference was to be a con- ference to consider furniture union and industry problems but no union was to be formed. However, in specific abrogation of the agree- ment for this conference which was to be held in Washington, D. C, the weekend following Thanksgiving in 1937, Brophy sent out a letter the last sentence of which stated to consider the formation of a new union. This was a specific violation of the agreement which he made with Sal Hoffman, but it was in specific compliance with the deal which had been made througli Hillman for the CIO and Lewis with the Com- munist group of the furniture workers in New York.
The experience with Brophy in 1937 as related in the record is ex- actly the same as the experience of H. L. Mitchell, of the Agricultural Workers Union in trying to get assurance out of Brophy in his case in 1937.
It was more abrupt in the case of Mitchell because he was finally told he had no choice in the matter. In the case of Hoffman and the upholsterers, an old-established union, the arrangement was that Brophy for 30 daj's was unavailable. He could not be reached to be questioned about this violation of the agreement in the call of this Thanksgiving Day conference. However, toward the end of Novem- ber a delegation appeared in the office of the Upholsterers International Union, then in New York, headed by Pizer and Muster, who appears here for the first time in this situation. Pizer, Perlow, Hochstadt, Magliacano, all known, with the exception of Muster, as the members of the Communist unit.
This is the story as related to me in detail by President Hoffman in getting this research background of the history of the furniture work- ers— United Furniture Workers Union, CIO.
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 25
During this period lie was completely unable to get Brophy by telephone or to get any answer to his communication. However, when, a few days before the Thanksgiving conference date in Washington, this delegation showed up in his office, they asked him what he was going to say in his speech to the conference. Hoffman then told them that he didn't know that he was necessarily going to the conference because the conference call Avas in violation of the agreement that he had with John Brophy, of the CIO.
There was a tremendous amount of excitement, and they told him that he had to go, and they even offered to tell him what he was to say. They wanted to write his speech. They said that he must say that they would found a new union. This Avas in violation of their own unanimous agreement on the general executive board. They said that is unimportant, completely unimportant.
The delegation left the office, and within 30 minutes of the time they left the office John Brophy, who could not be reached for the previous 30 days voluntarily, called Hoffman and asked him how he was doing. There was just time enough for the Communist delegation to get out of the office and contact Brophy and Brophy in turn to call Hoffman to straighten out the whole thing.
Just prior to this period a great deal of pressure had been applied to Hoffman as president of the union, including two sessions to which he had been escorted by this Communist clique in the New York up- holsterers local in the office of Sidney Hillman. Sidney Hillman had told him that he had to go along with the course of history and asked him what was his hesitation. He pointed out that he had two or three thousand linoleum layers with building-trades cards whose jobs would be innnediately imperiled if they severed A. F. of L. affiliations.
At this time he makes some point of the statement that Hillman made to him that he had no choice and that the people were no consideration of importance and their jobs were no consideration of any importance.
This was the last of two conferences with Hillman, at which time Hillman put the pressure on him to come along with the CIO program regardless and in disregard, as a matter of fact, of the agreement of his executive board to go only on a TO-percent referendum.
By this time it became evident to him that there was not to be a legitimate organization but that this was an attempt to tvirn him into a stooge, a front president for an organization that they were going to set up and manipulate. He, therefore, conferred with the officers of the A. F. of L. and found that there was a different factor involved here that had special significance. Reluctantly in the earlier part of 1937 a proposal for labor unity had arisen, largely through the initia- tive of the teamsters union, and while Lewis was bitterly opposed to any such proposal he could not afford openly to oppose it. So Lewis had told them that, in addition to the other factors at this Thanksgiving 1937 conference, there must be a furniture union formed detaching the upholsterers from the A. F. of L., because there was a meeting of this unity meeting the Monday following Thanksgiving and if they pulled this detachment or secession of the upholsterers union from the A. F. of L., the A. F. of L., in all honor and self- defense, would be compelled to pull out of the unity negotiations be- cause of the breach of the faith which was involved. The onus for breaking off the unity negotiations would lie upon the A. F. of L.
26 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
They would be in that position in the public eye. The}^ had to have, because of political needs of the CIO president at that time, the chairman, because the CIO, of course, was thought constituted until 1938 as an organization with a president, but he was chairman of the CIO — Lewis had to have the new furniture union with the up- holsterers seceded that weekend in order to serve his purpose.
The A. F. of L. officers asked Hoffman therefore to go to this con- ference and to do anything that was necessary to prevent a new union being formed on the spot and the upholsterers implicated in the pro- ceedings which would put the A. F. of L. officials in an impossible position on the following Monday.
So there are two sets of purposes met in this conference. The Communist delegates — Pizer, Perlow. Hochstadt, Magliacano — pro- ceeded to come as delegates from tlie upholsterers union and proceeded to ]>our every kind of vilification and abuse that they could invent upon the union and all its historv here in conference with other unions.
Mr. Duffy. And Sirota?
Mr. McDowell. Sirota? Sirota was the other one of the group. There were five. The five I believe we should recapitulate with: Pizer. Perlow, Magliacano. Hochstadt, and Sirota. This was the group.
The essence of it was that the upholsterers group was able to solidify themselves and agree that they would promise almost any- thing as long as the conference itself did not form a union. So they filibustered for the better part of 2 days and they never did get to the place of forming the new union as a consequence. But they were taken out and told that John L. Lewis Avanted to see them, and they were ushered into it. They said Lewis would not see them unless they said a new union was to be formed. He said nothing about this, but when Lewis came into the thing to meet the delegation down here in downtown Washington he started addressing them as the new CIO Furniture Workers Union. Sal Hoffman, speaking for the upholster- ers, said : "But, Mr. Lewis, there isn't any new union formed. We have just agreed to set up a program and to carry on a referendum of our locals and the other locals involved."
Lewis turned on his heel and walked out of the conference.
The following Monday the Daily Worker carried a story, regardless of the facts, to the effect that a new union had been formed and the upholsterers had joined a new unioiL There was a complete falsifica- tion of the facts. They were called on it. On the following Monday the Communist group came in plus Muster this time, into the union office and they said there was no further nonsense, that they must go CIO, and they regardless of anything else were all going to go CIO.
This amounted to a mass resignation and Hoffman simply rose and said, all right, there is the door. Get cut. You have now resigned. Because by this measure he lost all the Communist members on his board, because under the democratic rules of the organization had they stayed they could have tied up his machinery completely in charges and countercharges in democratic proceedings for a long period of time.
The constitution of the union at that time went to such democratic extremes that an individual member accused and subject to expulsion could demand a referendum of the entire international union in the United States and Canada with unlimited right to press his case in
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 27
writing at the union's expense. This was an example. Any officer challenged by charges was automatically suspended. Therefore, the salvation as far as this Communist operation was concerned was this maneuver which made these people show their hand and expose them- selves as desiring to defy their own unanimous decision on the board. They then went out the door along Avith Muster. Within a few weeks a CIO charter was announced to a United Furniture Workers Union, and this union was formed by the setting up of these former A. F. of L. federal unions which were cletaching themselves from the A. F. of L. by some local unions the CIO had picked up in the furniture and woodworking trades in the course of time, and local 76 of the up- holsterers, and 76-B.
The arrangement was that the old upholsterers local in New York did not have enough Communist strength in the 2 years they had bcv-n in to enable them to swing it, so they {promised jNlustei-. the — at that time — incumbent business agent of the New York local, the presidency of the new CIO union now that they had lost Hotfman, and on this basis Muster became the president of the international union and 76 local, although not a Communist-dominated local, but on the basis of this deal the Communist strength and the Muster strength, with his allieSj.were sufficient to SAving it into the CIO as a local.
No referendum of course was ever conducted. The strange per- formance on this was that many of the people who were identified with the Communists did not break immediately, although they were under instruction to do so. In Los Angeles the local there was sum- moned to a meeting by Harry Bridges, because the Los Angeles local was supposed to have a majority of leftwingers as a result of the comeback of 1935. Harry Bridges met secretly with what he thought were all reliable people — some of them were not as reliable as he thought they were — to tell them what was to be done to secede and join the CIO along with everyone else.
This is the time Bridges had been made head of the CIO on the west coast and was switching from the A. F. of L. at that time and the movement was on.
The Rock-ford local, under this George Stewart, whose record they did not know at the time, had no knowledge of his record, stayed in the upholsterers, pledged loj- alty, as a matter of fact, and was warned at a meeting in Chicago in December 1937 that inasmuch as they were a new local, recently affiliated, they could go peaceably but if they stayed and made any j^retense and went later they would be penalized by the union defending its right.
What they did subsequently was to have a vote, and there was only one dissenting vote, and they did go CIO in the early part of 1938. The convention founding the United Furniture Workers was held in Rockford in 1938.
From the begining, as a result of this unconsummated deal which had been broken up by the upholsterers footwork in 1937, there was a great deal of dissension over the political issue. The political issue was never possible of submerging in the United Furniture Workers CIO because of the background. It is our opinion that Morris Muster, who I might say is a man of identically the same tempera- ment as David Lasser, that Morris Muster was^ never a member of the Comuiunist Party, but he did collaborate with them completely.
28 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
The test of this collaboration of Morris Muster is to be found in the test of the crisis of March 1943 in United States-Russian relations as reflected in the labor movement.
On the same weekend of March 1943 Admiral Stanley, the Ameri- can iVmbassador, delivered an ultimatum to the Soviet demanding that they give publicity in the press to the extensive lend-lease and Litvinov, in Washington, simultaneously announced to President Green, of the A. F. of L., and Phil Murray, of the CIO, that two Polish Jewish trade-union leaders. Alter and Ehrlich, honored and respected leaders of the Jewish labor movement in Poland for 25 years before the outbreak of war, who had been arrested upon the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland, had been released a month fol- lowing the invasion of Russia by Nazi Germany, and had disappeared subsequently, that these two men who had been personally intervened for by the whole labor movement in the United States and whom "Wendell Willkie had submited a personal request to Stalin for their release, had been executed on the charges that they were aiding the Nazis in Poland.
These of course were Jewish labor leaders, known and respected throughout the world.
This caused a crisis in the whole Soviet alinement in the labor move- ment, and it is in this connection that we have to establish how complete was the domination of the President of the United Furni- ture Workers by the Communists in this State.
A mass meeting of protests over the Alter-Ehrlich assassinations by the Soviet was organized in INIecca Temple, New York, and here came almost all the old European unions. The president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Bank in New York, one Adolph Held, was an old personal friend of years standing of the murdered men, but he was called by Sidney Hillman, president of the Amal- gamated and warned if he dared attend that meeting at the temple, his connection with the union — he had been president of the union's bank of New York — would cease automatically. Held did defy him and turned up at that meeting and he was replaced as president of the bank the following week by a young socialite fellow-traveling lawyer of New York.
Although Held had been, as I say, president of the bank from the beginning.
Muster's connection with this was related to me directly following the incident by James B. Carey, the secretary of the CIO, who did attend and speak at that meeting. He said by the evening of the meeting he had received calls from every identified Communist leader in the CIO threatening him that if he attended that meeting they would do everything from attacking him in the convention to, as Joe Curran said, bloody his nose for him.
There was only one person among the group they had their fingers in control of that had not called, and that was Morris Muster of the furniture workers. 'Wliile Carey was sitting at dinner a call came and he picked up the telephone. He said "Hello, Morris." Muster at the other end said, "How did you know I was calling." He went on to tell him he knew why he was calling because he had been called by Saul Mill, the whip of the Communist forces in New York City, and told to call. He said yes, he had. But he never made his argu- ment because Carey said he told him his side of it first and he never
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 29
bothered afterward. He didn't have the push. But he had been to the phice where he had on that political purpose to make the call. That is how much he was under their control.
This issue stayed under cover until the fall of 1945. At that time President Hoffman of the upholsterers' union following the war made several proposals for the maintenance of industrial peace, one for the arbitration of any disputes before strikes which was made at the Furniture Manufacturers' Association, and privately he sent a mes- sage to Muster, whom he did not regard as a Communist, whom he regarded merely as a soft stooge which the Communists used as a front man, that he would like to agree not to compete in the organiza- tion of workers and because of the inevitable clashes that would follow if some agreement could be reached.
Subsequent to that a meeting was held in the Hotel IMcAlpin in New York along about September of 1945, and at this meeting there were present in addition to President Hoffman and myself, and one or two other vice presidents from the upholsterers' union, Muster, Pizer, Perlow, and one or two others whose names are not important. It was a comparatively small meeting.
On the way down the hall after the meeting Hoffman in my presence said to Muster, "Just what is the idea of your being so close to Pizer here? After all, we know where Morris stands." Muster said, "Oh, no, you have Morris all wrong. He has changed. He is all broken off from that connection completely."
Muster put his arm around Pizer and his arm around Hoffman and said, "This is a new situation." Perlow, of course, nobody made any implication that he was. Everybody knew he was a tough, hard party supporter. But Pizer — well, it so happens that Pizer had tried the same thing on Sal B. Hoffman in 1937, 8 years before, had paraded before him as a person who was not really on the in. Later on he broke down and frankly admitted that the only thing was that he, Pizer, in 1937 was, along with Jack Hochstadt, in the party, in the top party faction, in the upholsterers situation, and he voted 2 against the 3 others, namely, Sirota and Perlow, not to push the issue to split the upholsterers' union. Pie explained that he had taken this matter to Jack Stachel, and the majority had been upheld and that was it.
This was Pizer's double role in 1937, first to present himself to Hoff- man as a nonparty person, a person Avho was independenit, broken away from his old associations which sent him into it, and then franldy to tell them it was merely a matter of dissent within the party faction and a split in which he was in the minority and overruled by the party dic- tator. Jack Stachel.
This set the stage for 1945-46.
(Wliereupon, at 1 p. m., the committee was recessed, to reconvene at 2 p. m. the same day.)
AFTER RECESS
Senator Buti,er. You may proceed.
TESTIMONY OF ARTHUR G. McDOWELL— Continued
Mr. Duffy. Mr. McDowell, was Morris Muster continuing in a posi- tion as president of the United Furniture Workers of America during this period of 1945 ?
43903—541 3
30 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
Mr. ISIcDowELL. Morris Muster was at that time president and had been president of the United Furniture Workers of America, CIO, since its founding convention in Rockford in 1938, and he did con- tinue to be president after this date until July 1, 1946. May I give further background for the conferences? Mr. DuTFT. If you would, please.
Mr. McDo^\ai:LL. Subsequent to this initial conference at the Hotel McAlpin in New York City, at which time at the adjournment of the conference there occurred this exchange between President Sal B. Hoffman and Morris Muster and Morris Pizer, in which, as indicated in the account of the conversation, Muster indicated his belief in Pizer's presence that Pizer was now a good fellow and no longer serv- ing the Communist interests, but one of us — my recollection is that President Hoffman at that time expressed skepticism about it to both Muster and Pizer's face, and Muster reassured him, but Pizer smiled but made no response.
It should be further recorded that Muster, in conversations in the course of these conferences, indicated that he had been very antago- nistic to the Communists during the period of the Soviet-Nazi pact, understandably so, and of course he and all his family are Jewish, and he indicated in these conversations that Pizer had also, during that period at least, broken away.
There were subsequent conferences held to discuss this matter of a no-raiding agreement between us. One was held in November in the offices of the United Furniture Workers on Fifth Avenue. A subsequent conference was held finally in the very early spring of 1946, at which time the conferences were abandoned because in each case of each proposal made by the Upholsterers International Union for the agreement that one union or the other should leave another area of the industry alone to be covered by collective bargaining activities of the other, objections were raised, whether it was on a trade basis or on a State basis, and finally in private conversation at the end of the early spring 1946 conference, Pizer and Perlow indicated that their only interest was to persuade the upholsterers to quit calling the United Furniture Workers Union leaders Communists, and if we would do that they thought peace and harmony would abide, and no formal agreement of any kind would be necessary.
Subsequent to the last conference held. President Hoffman related to me immediately on his return one afternoon that he had had a pri- vate telephone call from Morris Pizer, that Pizer had invited him to have lunch with him in Philadelphia to discuss a trade problem in relation to one of the concerns with which both of our unions had some collective bargaining relationships, and that in the course of this luncheon Hoffman, with the background of Pizer's 1937 kidding of him about having left the organization and then confessing that the only thing that was involved was that he belonged to the soft minority within the party fraction within the Upholsterers Union in New York — and that was the whole story — and he had been reversed by Jack Stachel, the director of the Communist Party, and that they therefore had had to go through with the split and the attempt to break up the Upholsterers Union in 1937: althougli he would have pre- ferred to have followed a somewhat different tactic, it was not a difference of policy. It was not a difference with the party's instruc-
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 31
tions on basic policy. This was the record, and knowing this, Presi- dent Hoffman told me of another incident to illustrate the duplicity of the man, Pizer. Prior to the breakaway of the Communist group for the second time from the Upholsterers International Union at the end of 1937 to form the CIO, and of course with a push in this case from the union, a complaint had been lodged against Morris Muster as business agent of the local union 76 in New York. The complaint was that he had not paid his assessment in a strike assessment that had been levied in the early part of 1937.
The laws of the international union are so drawn that no one is eligible for office unless he is in continuous good standing for 2 years previous to their nomination. Continuous good standing means that you have never been in arrears with respect to any obligation.
Muster was summoned to the International Union office and asked if this were true. Muster said yes, it was true, he had not paid the assessment, but the reason he had not paid the assessment was that he didn't think that as business agent he was obliged to pay the assess- ment, as an officer.
Pizer accompanied Muster on this interview. Wlien Hoffman then turned to Pizer and asked, "Did you tell him that as an officer he did not have to pay the assessment?" Pizer said he had told Muster.
Then he asked Pizer, "Did you pay the assessment?" for he was also an officer of that same local union. And he said, "Yes, I paid the assessment."
At that point President Hoffman pointed out that under the laws he had no choice but to disqualify Muster from holding further office after the beginning of 1936. His only powers as International Presi- dent enabled him to allow Muster to continue to finish out his term, but the law is so rigid that when it came up for renomination in the fall — all elections in those days were for a maximum of 1-year term — Muster was out of his union job.
Therefore, during this period. Muster was in the identical position that the young man, George Smerkin, alias Stewart, was in in 1933. He had been trapped by the Communists into being ineligible for office under the old setup, and therefore he had a choice of either being nothing or becoming an international president.
With this complete cul-de-sac in which they had him, he was avail- able at all times to be their stooge in 1937. He was not a too willing stooge, but he was in a position where they had a person who, unless they were a very honorable and scrupulous person, would be inevitably tempted to take this way out, which would leave them in the movement. The other way he would go back to the bench. That would have been the only choice.
^ This is an example of the duplicity, the smiling, open-faced admis- sion of duplicity on the part of the man Pizer. He admitted that he had counseled his friend, so to speak, to a course ; he admitted that he then had carefully avoided following the same course, and he made no apology for it whatsoever.
Therefore, this is the individual, again, who in the fall of 1945 and the spring of 1946 let Muster believe that this time he was no longer a loyal servitor of the Communists. This was a strategic deception, because on June , 1946, the biennial convention of the furniture work- ers met in the city of Detroit, and from the opening of this con- vention to the hour that it adjourned, it was unable to transact any
32 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
business because the Communist issue split the convention right down the middle.
At the critical moment on the roUcall vote which determined the control of the convention, Muster assured friends that Pizer would be his supporter ; but at that moment Pizer cast his vote on the Com- munist sicle, and control passed openly into the hands of the Com- munists on the board as far as the convention was concerned.
At this moment, having been in session for 5 days and the issue being so bitter as recorded in the press of the day, 5 days of conven- tion were unable to transact the adoption of any business whatsoever. They could never get past the credentials committee's reports.
At the end of the convention they finally decided to elect officers. Muster was elected in a contemptuous gesture, with the Communists in control of the convention, without opposition, as president. But all his supporters at this convention, where Muster for the first time had challenged the Communists, his supporters refused to take office and took their appeal to the office of Phil Murray, president of the CIO, with the demand that he intervene and clean up this situation, which was headed up hj a man, the secretary-treasurer, by the name of Max Perlow.
Following this appeal to Phil Murray to intervene and take over the affairs, the appeal being made by Muster, who remained helpless in the office but still with the title and powers of president, appealing to Phil Murray to intervene and recognize this as an abnormal and illegal situation because the convention majority was on the basis of loaded per capita of certain locals which were carrying members in the armed services, and these members, nonvoting in the election of dele- gates, were nevertheless claimed by the Communists for the purpose of controlling the convention. That is, they did not represent dues payments because no dues were paid by soldiers.
That was something we adopted in our union, and this union in peculiar fashion always copies administrative measures probably a month or so afterward. They copied the same thing. They had that system.
So this was a basis for legal intervention by the president of the parent organization, CIO.
Murray, however, refused, after some lengthy discussion. The reason for that can now be revealed, as this was a matter that I had personal knowledge of. The appeal was made to Murray again dur- ing the month of June. He reserved answer but indicated by the 25th of June that he would not intervene; that some measure might be taken to amalgamate the two unions, Furniture Workers and the International Woodworkers of America on the west coast of the United States, primarily, who, however, had a terrific problem over the Com- munist issue within their organization at that very precise moment, also revolving around the secretary-treasurer of that union, who was a Communist and who since has been removed.
This was no solution for the anti-Communist elements in the United Furniture Workers. In the early weeks of June they came into our union — they told us of the situation in our office in Philadelphia, and they requested tliat we not take partisan advantage of their situation by moving in on their supporters, but that we support them in their effort to take over and rid themselves of the Communists within their own union without imperiling their position. This we agreed to do.
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 33
I was present when President Hoflfman agreed that we would do this. We would make no move, we would encourage them. We would even give them financial support to fight the Communists. We would make no attempt, as the word goes, to take them over.
This went very well except that we warned the committee that came to our office from the United Furniture Workers after this convention — we warned them that in our opinion, after having been a willing front for the Communists all these years, Morris Muster did not have the intestinal fortitude to make a fight, but we agreed to support them anyhow.
On the 30th day of June 1946 I had convoked a conference of the upholsterers union locals in the southeastern States in the city of Asheville, N. C. My conference was finished on Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday morning, together with the local union officer from Asheville, I walked up "the hill to Mountain Park Inn above Ashe- ville, N. C. I had in my mind a newspaper from the previous day indicating that as a result of the expiration of price controls, and so forth, as of that evening, June 30, 1946, newspapers throughout the United States were striving desperately to locate Phil Murray to get the usual statement on the issue. They had been unable to find him.
I walked into the entrance to Mountain Park Inn and found several people whom I knew as officers on the steel workers, CIO, board. There was a secret meeting going on in the Mountain Park Inn of the board, which no one, even in the office in Pittsburgh, was allowed to divulge the location of.
From a member of the board at that meeting I secured the following story of the crisis, which now relates to the United Furniture Workers situation.
At the opening of this session which had been demanded by Clinton Golden, at that time second ranking man to Philip Murray witliin the steel workers, how at Harvard University as part of their trade- union progTam — Clinton Golden had demanded a showdown in the steel workers official family saying that one Lee Pressman and his Commie supjDorters must get out of the steel workers, or he, Clinton Golden, would get out. That was the issue, and that required the secret meeting.
The battle had been going on all Saturday and had been resolved that Sunday morning. May I correct that date. That Sunday morning would have been June 30. It was the 30th day of June, but the OPA had expired as of the last week day, which was the night before, Saturady. That was the connection in which they souglit to find Phil Murray, who was in Asheville, N. C, inaccessible.
By Sunday morning, Van A. Bittner, subsequently deceased, from West Virginia, who had joined in the showdown with Clint Golden, insisting that either they sliould resign or Pressman should get out — Van Bittner had been detached from the combination and Golden stood alone. The result was that afternoon of June 30, Sunday, Golden's resignation was accepted, the second ranking man in steel from its inception, has been accepted, and Lee Pressman had been con- firmed in his position in the steel workers, CIO.
Mr. Duffy. What was the official capacity that you refer to ?
Mr. McDowell. He was in a position which was not formal but which was equivalent to vice president. He had been the adminis-
34 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
trative officer of the steel workers up until that date from its forma- tion in 1936, for 10 yeai-s, and at this time he made the choice, and the choice was given back to him.
A cover was converted to tliat under which Mr. Golden was to serve as liaison man with Government, between the steel workers and the Government, but he stuck by his resolve. He held no further official position in the steel workers union.
Senator Butler. You say he has since been deceased?
Mr. McDowell. No. Clinton Golden is at Harvard. He is out of the labor union, conducting a trade-union school at Harvard.
(Discussion oE the record.)
Mr. Duffy. May we go back on the record now ?
Mr. McDowell. The interesting bearing of this on the furniture workers case is to throw light on subsequent policy of the CIO in relation to the United Furniture Workers, CIO. After this exhaust- ing battle, Phil Murray on July 1, the following Monday morning, faced the fact that on the front page of the New York Times was the searing resignation as president of the CIO Furniture Workers, of Morris Muster, on the grounds that as a trade unionist his record "would not permit me to remain liead of a Communist-controlled organization."
That is a quotation from his statement. He said at that time that a small minority of a thousand Communists dominated the 42,000- member union. The statement is a matter of official record. It was printed in the New York Times of July 1.
This of course resulted in the opening up of the entire situatioji. The people who had previously asked our union to stay away from it asked us now to intervene and to accept their affiliation. A large number of locals, stretching all the way from Philadelphia to Wis- consin, seceded and attempted to make their secession from the United Furniture Workers into the Upholsterers International Union effective.
This was the most extensive desertion, proportionate to its member- ship, that occurred in any international union over such a political issue so far as I have been able to determine. It included also the secession of a large proportion of the staff of this union.
The battle to confirm the secession legally by elections under the auspices of the National Labor Eeiations Board extended from this resignation of Muster in 1946, July, until late in 1948 before the wave of secessions had completely ceased and before the organization had been able to stabilize.
An emergency was declared, and the successor in the United Furni- ture Workers to Morris Muster became, namely, the person who had on previous occasions successfully betrayed him, Morris Pizer, not the well-known Communist secretary-treasurer, Perlow, who was identi- fied beyond all possibility, but Pizer, who had acquired this reputation of being the compromiser and the conciliator, and so forth and so on, contrary to his private conversations indicating he Avas a hard party man at all times.
This secession resulted in the transfer of probably between 7,000 and 8,000 members, actual dues-paying members, from the United Furniture Workers Union to the Upholsterers International Ujiion, but it came at a time when the full resources of the CIO, regardless of the issue, were thrown behind the United Furniture Workers, CIO.
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 35
I give an example of that in the fact that wherever we had a Labor Board case, every pressure that could be brought to bear, official and unofficial, on the Labor Relations Board by the CIO — and that was considerable in 1946 — was brought to bear to delay these elections, where the people had expressed themselves by overwhelming votes in meetings, and then their collective-bargaining business would be tied up in knots for weeks and months as the Board delayed or discussed whether they could or could not give them elections.
In some cases the Board's position was supported by actual rules affecting existing contracts, and in other cases we found there was no explanation. Contracts were not necessarily a bar, but there was con- stant delay in the process of the Board.
This resulted in the reconsolidation of the now clearly Communist- dominated Furniture Workers Union of the Grand Rapids situation, for example. Here is an interesting example of what selfish policy leads to in these circumstances.
Walter Reuther, president of the auto workers, over the bitter oppo- sition of the Communist-led clique in his own union, did nevertheless in the course of the campaign for ratification of the people's choice in Grand Rapids at a union meeting to transfer away from the old furniture workers outfit, sent his brother, Victor Reuther, in to make a radio speech on his behalf in Grand Rapids, in which he declared that this story of Communist domination of the furniture workers, although it was attested to by the man who had been its only inter- national president for the previous 9 years, who resigned on that ac- count, that this was a figment of other people's imagination and that there was nothing to it.
It should be entered in the record and noted that the Auto Workers, CIO, exactly 2 years later, at the expiration of the contract, renego- tiated by the furniture workers after their reinstatement in this plant, chartered an auto workers local in this same plant of the American Seating Co. on the grounds that the furniture workers was Commu- nist dominated, 2 years later.
This is an example of the problem, legislatively, that you have to deal with in the utilization of selfish and ambitious purposes of indi- viduals by the Connnunist operation.
Senator Butler. Do you believe at this moment that there is any substantial Communist element in Reuther's Automobile Workers Union ?
Mr. McDowell. Oh, yes. I think that they are, in my opinion, within sight of at least nominal control of Ford Local 600, which is the largest local of the whole international union.
Senator Butler. Local 600 ?
Mr. McDowell. Yes.
Senator Butler. Where is that, in Detroit ?
Mr. McDowell. In Detroit. That local has approximately 50,000 members. That has as many members in that one local union, almost, as we have in the United States in the furniture industry.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. McDo^vELL. There were approximately 2,000 people involved in the Grand Rapids situation, in which the auto workers took the position, first, that their CIO obligations compelled them to be politi- cally colorblind in 1947, when the election actually occurred; but 2 years later, when it was to their advantage to keep it in the CIO, they
36 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
suddenly announced that they had known it was Communist domi- nated all alono;, and chartered it as an auto workers local, and it still is an auto workers local.
The furniture workers' history from here on in becomes relevant to the issue of Communist domination and their method of operation under the conditions obtaining in the postwar period and under the conditions of major hostility of American sentiment toward commu- nism.
In 1947, August, there became effective the Management-Labor Relations Act, known as the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which act re- quired, in order to use the services of the National Labor Relation Board in representation elections, and so forth, that officers file affi- davits attesting that they are not members of the Communist Party or supporters of the Communist cause. In the case of the upholsterers, we have had this rule and enforced this rule as part of the taking of an oath of office since 1939. This, therefore, represented no problem.
However, the United Furniture Workers was faced immediately with the problem, should they comply or should they not comply? As far as we are able to determine, and our intelligence service was pretty good, Perlow and other Communists within the furniture work- ers were advised as early as October of 1947 that, if necessary to con- tinue in their positions of trade-union leadership, they would be allowed to sign the affidavits after filing pro forma resignations from the party. But they were not encouraged to do so. This was only an allowance in extremis.
There was, therefore, no compliance on the part of anv of the Com- munist-dominated unions in the fall of 1947 or 1948. This was made practical, and the postponement of the application of the party policy to comply only under necessity was made possible due to the fact that Lee Pressman persuaded Phil Murray that he must follow the proce- dure of the United Mine Workers and defy the law and refuse to comply or to be eligible under it. This gave the cover which was neces- sary for the Communists to avoid compliance in the early 2 years. They were, however, prepared to comply under the party orders, as we get the information, at any time it became necessary to hold their trade-union positions.
They did not comply at any time in 1948, but the issue was a bitter issue at their convention held in Chicago in June of 1948. At that convention, on a rollcall vote successfully manipulated, they refused even to allow the question of compliance or noncompliance *to be put to the referendum vote of the membership.
This created a crisis within their organization, and in the fall of 1948, the vote against compliance or submission of the question of compliance in the furniture workers convention was given as 22,552 to 16,090. '
Mr. Duffy. Let me have that again now.
Mr. McDowell. This was the vote in the 1948 Chicajro convention of the CIO Furniture Workers Union, which voted against compli- ance with the Taft-Hartley law and the filing of the anti-Communist affidavits, and which also, by this vote as given above, refused to per- mit the issue to be voted upon by the members in referendum.
This extraordinary exertion of power even to deny a referendum resulted in a series of crises within the United Furniture Workers Union in the successive meetings of its general executive board, in
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 37
the course of which Pizer emerged as the leader of the compliance forces in 1948 and 1949, and Perlow as the leader of those opposed to compliance duplicating the reported division in the party fraction over a hard as against a soft policy in the upholsterers union as of 1937, of the same people.
In 1937, according to Pizer's own report to president Hoffman, Pizer and Hochstadt had wanted a conciliatory policy on the seces- sion of the upholsterers, and Perlow, Sirota, and Magliacano had wanted the most rigid application of the party's current policy. This is exactly duplicated as to the personalities in the struggle which preceded the CIO Furniture Workers Union convention in 1948 and following.
I have just run across some data from the New York Times on the origin of this peculiar fight between Pizer and Perlow.
Mr. Duffy. Put it on the record. Will this lead up to the
Mr. McDowell. All this now bears on the question of Pizer's policy.
Mr. DuFFT. Will this lead up to the expulsion hearing ?
Mr. McDowell. Yes.
As the CIO convention of 1949 approached, a new factor affected the decision of the United Furniture Workers. It was clear that Phil Murray finally had determined to challenge the open defiance of CIO policy by the Communist-led clique of affiliated unions headed by Flarry Bridges of the longshoremen on the Pacific coast.
In accordance with its prior announcement, the CIO convention did adopt an order requiring all unions to conform with the CIO policies or be subject to expulsion. However, the United Furniture Workers, CIO, had given way to the compliance issue, first of all, the Communist-influenced unions, some months before. A referen- dum had been initiated and its outcome was never in doubt.
As a resulf. out of a clear blue sky at the beginning of June 1949, the United Furniture Workers' officers, including the open and at all times avowed Communist Max Perlow, filed affidavits of non- Communist membership. Because of personal history, Perlow felt it necessary to issue a simultaneous statement to the general press declaring that he had changed none of his views or loyalties from the condition obtaining before he formally resigned from the party in order legally to execute the affidavit.
This, in the opinion of all legal consultants that we could call upon, made his affidavit in violation of the law.
Consequently, on June 6, 1949, President Sal B. Hoffman, of the Upholsferers' international Union, filed telegraphic protest with At- torney General Tom Clark, and with General Counsel Denham, of the National Labor Relations Board.
The telegram to Mr. Tom Clark, Attorney General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C, under date of June 6, and identical with telegram sent to General Counsel Denham, was as follows :
Urgently protest and request investigation of filing of compliance afBdavit by Max Perlow, secretary-treasurer, United Furniture Workers, CIO. Acceptance of such compliance, accompanied by publication of continued devotion to Com- munist principles, would make mockery of tlie law and those of us who, like ourselves, have complied regardless of cost. Under our own laws, we have spe- cifically refused to accept such pro forma compliance and have expelled officers making such plea, regardless of time or occasion. My administrative assistant, Mr. McDowell, will spend this entire week in Washington and be glad to discuss
38 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
matters with you further. Address, McDowell, 1740 K Street NW ; phone, Executive 7786. Signed, Sal B. Hoffman, President, Upholsterers' International Union.
May I state for the record that General Counsel Denham advised us that he had forwarded our protest and the affidavits to the Attor- ney General, in accord with his interpretation of his responsibility under the law, and the prosecuting division of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation did invite us to supply material, and a complete record of the supporting newspaper state- ments, the past record, affiliations, offices held, activities participated in, and even information as to the party name of Charles Lawrence under which Perlow held his actual party membership, was furnished to the Department of Justice.
We continued to supply information, including recordings which showed in the Grand Rapids situation of American Seating Co. that at a word from a known Communist goon-squad leader, Louie Kaplan, formerly of the shipbuilding workers, and who has had established connections with J. Peters, Communist espionage agent, IMax Perlow within an hour confirmed arrangements made by said Kaplan, who was employed by the United Electrical Workers, expelled from the CIO at the 1949 convention, and whose word had only the weight officially of an officer of another union, unless it carried political authority.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. McDowell. Outside of a few telephone conversations in early 1950, nothing was ever heard of this case again from the Department of Justice.
The decision of the CIO convention in the fall of 1949 provoked a new crisis after compliance within the furniture workers. It is notice- able here that the furniture workers was the very first of all unions with Communist officers to adopt the policy of compliance, and I would point out that in a conversation between myself, organizer Harry Smulyan, S-m-u-1-y-a-n, and the above-referred-to Luigi Kaplan, representing the UE, we were told by this pretty authoritative Com- munist operative in Grand Rapids, in August of 1949, (1) that the UE was going to comply also with the Taft-Hartley law; (2) that they were going to withdraw in advance of the expulsion action of the CIO convention; and (3) that they had been approached by repre- sentatives of Jolin L. Lewis to transfer their affiliation to his district 60 organization upon their separation from the CIO.
Mr. Duffy. To transfer their affiliation to the United Mine Workers ?
Mr. McDowell. To the United Mine Workers, upon their exclusion or departure from the CIO. This invitation was not only to the UE, but to all the CIO unions who were going to be in difficulties with CIO policy at the forthcoming convention.
The first two items were confirmed by subsequent events, namely, the UE did comply, as did in succession the other Communist-domi- nated unions within the CIO ; and the UE did withdraw, somewhat in anticipation of expulsion from the CIO by its convention action.
In the case of the United Furniture Workers, it was clearly a case that no substantial union could survive under the United Furniture Workers' name without CIO support. It is not an independent or self-supporting organization, and the CIO could have taken over its
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 39
major portions in short order, either in a new union or amalgamating it with an existing union which had solved its Communist problem, relatively speaking, in the case of the International Woodworkers of
The same division within the United Furniture Workers board as it appeared on compliance developed on the matter of comphance with the CIO convention decision following its adjournment. On November 20, 1949, a Sunday, a statement was issued by Morris Pizer, apparently in Chicago, stating the United Furniture Workers would stay in the CIO, and therefore comply. On November 21, 1949, a Monday, a statement by Perlow was issued to the press, gently chiding Pizer for issuing a statement prior to a general executive board meet- ing scheduled for December 6 and 7.
However, the New York Times says it received Perlow's statement in the same envelope and by the same messenger, with a copy of Pizer's statement that they would stay within the CIO.
Perlow the same day, according to the postmark, sent out a letter and his press release, but not Pizer's, mailing them to the entire United Furniture Workers' list.
There is reason to believe that Pizer's statement was an original hasty reaction to the discovery that, following the CIO action now on record to put the furniture workers on trial, practically no section of their remnants in the Midwest and even the big 76 local in New York would stand for voluntary departure from the CIO.
The reaction of Perlow could scarcely have been so prompt unless Pizer consulted him step by step, or else that Pizer had been preparing to break with Perlow during and before the CIO convention.
On December 8, 1949, the United Furniture Workers issued a state- ment denying having refused to seat two members on the board at this meeting, and quoting Pizer as denying he issued any statement against undemocratic procedures in this case before the board.
A press committee composed of Gus Brown, of Los Angeles ; Frank O'Connor, of Boston ; and Bernard Mintner, of New York, all hard- ened, recognized Conmiimists, was appointed to speak exclusively for the board at these meetings.
On December 9, 1949, the United Furniture Workers board issued a statement announcing the defeat of Pizer's motion to stay in the CIO unconditionally, and adoption of two resolutions against the CIO favoring remaining only with autonomy, which resolutions were re- ferred to the June 1950 convention in Chicago.
Ostensibly from this date forward the controversy between Presi- dent Pizer and Secretary-Treasurer Perlow became more and more bitter. The convention of the United Furniture Workers in June of 1950 did vote overwhelmingly to comply with CIO policy.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. McDowell. I think we now come to the essence of the thing.
At the showdown convention of the United Furniture Workers, the issue was whether to stay in the CIO or not. Although the debate was bitter and the division sharp, the only mention of the word "Com- munist" in any of the discussion was made by Allan Haywood, an outsider representing the CIO and presenting the ultimatum to the convention to comply or be expelled.
The convention made precisely one change in the official family, namely, replacing Max Perlow, unqualified admitted member of the
40 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
Communist Party, by his own statement to the press even after filing the Taft Hartley affidavit, and his replacement was Fred Fulford of Indiana, at all times since his first identification with the union, begin- ning in 1938, a loyal follower of the Communist clique within the union.
Senator Butler. Do you think he was a Communist ?
Mr. McDowell. Fulford, as a matter of course, was accepted as one of the Communists, and when named to his face by myself in the city of Jasper in 1946 and 1947, he did not even bother to go to the trouble of denying it. He just let it be assumed that it was an established fact, and made no challenge to it.
However, this reform, anti-Communist faction is exclusively made up of people identified with the Communist movement in the past in this union. Starting with Pizer, who made no bones about his Com- munist Party membership, up until 1946 at least, William Gilbert of Chicago who, together with his wife, until their removal to Chicago from Massachusetts were on the Sam Adams School of the Commu- nist Party in Boston, Jack Hockstadt of New York, always identified as a Communist but also as a personal friend of Pizer's; and on the board, the convention after this supposedly bitter clean-out fight left vacancies for the hard-core Communists, such as Brown of Los Angeles and Magliacano of New Jersey, who on the surface refused at that time to accept office on the general executive board.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. McDowell. Bearing on the question of the validity of the change of loyalty of Pizer and his supporters, all previously identified, together with their opponent, Perlow, as active Communists, is the series of events immediately preceding this convention and following it to save the jobs of appointees prominently identified in the office as Communist personnel.
The first of these was George Smerkin, alias Stewart, office man- ager, previously identified as under Communist domination and direc- tion as early as 1933 and subsequently. George Smerkin was fired on the thinnest of pretexts within a few weeks before the convention by the obviously condemned and slated-to-go Perlow. No substantial reason was given.
The next most important post in the office, also appointive — impor- tant, that is, next to secretary-treasurership of the union — is the direc- torship of the insurance fund. The director of this is one Abraham Zide, Z-i-d-e. This individual, even more than Perlow, is a publicly identified Communist of many years' standing in New York. Practi- cally a standing officer of each year's Communist May Day celebration. Further, this individual was considered the closest personal friend of Perlow. Yet Perlow certainly foreseeing his own removal at the forthcoming convention, a few weeks before the convention fires his close friend and party associate as director of the insurance fund on the ostensible given grounds that he had failed to pay a claim for some $75 due in a maternity case to Max Perlow's own daughter, employed in the office.
Immediately following the removal of Perlow at the convention, the new and yet the old president, Morris Pizer, with a great flourisli and release to the press, reappoints George Smerkin (alias Stewart) as office manager, and Abraham Zide as director of the insurance fund.
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 41
In the normal course, no procedure or tactic would have been more effective to insure the least possible turnover of office personnel with all the strategic positions that they had following the ostensible change at the convention.
Further hearing on the validity of the change of position is the fact that in the case of Gus Brown and local 576 of the United Furniture Workers in Los Angeles, Calif., also admittedly, openly a long-time Communist-dominated local, pressure from the strongly anti-Com- munist State CIO council obviously and publicly applied, led Pizer to disestablish this local, suspend its charter, and set up a new local which, however, conveniently occupies quarters in the same building with the expelled local, and expelled Gus Brown.
However, in the case of local 140, United Furniture Workers, in the city of New York, where no such CIO pressure was applied, this local, under Alex Sirota, has continued to be affiliated with the inter- national union, to be identified as a center of Communist Party trade union activity, to defy the international union, to publish bulletins vilifying and slandering the officers of the international, including Pizer, to separate its insurance fund from the international union's insurance fund, maldng it completely financially independent, and to this date, so far as known, no action to terminate the charter or affect the charter and standing of local 140 has been taken by Pizer.
Senator Butler. That does not look like they are fighting too much, does it ?
Mr. McDo-\vELL. An analysis can further be made of the attacks on Pizer in the columns of George Morris, the labor columnist of the Communist Daily Worker, and it will be found that the impeachment is made, but by Communist standards of vilification and abuse it is a soft impeachment, indeed. I can speak from experience, because I have seen what they can say when they are talking about myself or anyone who is actually in the enemy camp as far as they are concerned.
It should be noted that as of October 19, 1951, more than a year after this convention at which the change was made, the fight between Pizer's own local 76 and this Communist-dominated 140, had gone to the point that acid was being thrown in a contest between the two unions for membership in a shop, and yet no action has been taken by Pizer to terminate the charter of the Communist local that has at- tacked in this fashion his own local union and its officers.
I don't know whether it is worth putting that clipping in the record.
Senator Buti.er. Yes, you can make that a part of the record.
(The clipping referred to follows:)
3 Seized as Vandals in Furniture Factory ; Offense Is Linked to Interunion
STRUOQIiE
(Special to the New York Times)
North Pelham, N. Y., October 19.— Three New York men were arrested here early today in the factory of the Trans Furniture Co. at 14 First Street and ac- cused of destroying new furniture with acid and knives. The police said the offense stemmed from a jurisdictional fight between locals 76 and 140 of the United Furniture Workers, CIO, for control of the factory's 25 employees
Damage to the furniture amounted to $1,700. The acid was so strong that it had eaten into the trousers of two defendants, and when they were arraigned the men wore cell blankets around their legs.
The defendants are Harold Antell, 26 years old, of 340 Pennsylvania Avenue Brooklyn; Richard L. Koral, 27, of 350 Cathedral Parkway, New York, and
42 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
Walter G. Donaldson, 36, of 1460 Beach Avenue, the Bronx, Antell and Donald- son received the burns.
District Attorney George M. Fanelli of Westchester County appeared at the arraignments before Justice of the Peace John Hyland and asked that l)ail be set at $50,000 for each defendant. All were booked on charges of burglary and malicious mischief. Bail of $40,000 each was ordered and none was provided.
Police Chief George Burrows said the case was related to the recent destruc- tion of $9,000 worth of furniture in a New York factory involved in a tight between the two locals. Some of the work of that factory was being performed by the plant here, he said.
Both locals have members working for Trans Furniture, Chief Burrows explained, and on September 26 local 140 began an all-out fight to control all the workers. The chief declared that union records indicated that the three men arrested today were members of local 140, although they intermittently dv^nied it, refused to talk, or gave conflicting stories.
Midnight was chosen for breaking into the factory because police shifts take place at that hour, the chief said. The intruders were seen entering an alley beside the factory, however, and 5 regular policemen and 2 auxiliary policemen surrounded the place. The intruders had smashed a window to gain entrance. The chief said they possessed, in addition to the acid and knives, burglar tools, stench bombs, and several vials of chemicals that could be used in starting fires.
Mr. McDowell. I think at this point I will suspend this, as far as the information bearing on the union is concerned.
I should like to point out that the imperceptible conversion of Pizer and Fulford is matched by the also amazing conversion of J. Ruben, jj.u-b-e-n, and the since deceased, I think it is, Gertrude Lane, of the hotel and restaurant employees union in New York. As far away as 1935, I had my last contact with William Albertson, expelled from the University of Pittsburgh with me in 1929, when officers of the InternationalLadies Garment Workers Union in 1935 reported to me that Albertson was in New York and was in charge of an alliance between open racketeering elements and the Communists, which had successfully taken over control of the New York hotel and restaurant trades.
It has been reported to me that the interest of the Communist move- ment in the control of the New York hotel and restaurant trades which, like furniture, is not obvious until you consider that in the case of the hotel and restaurant trades this gives them control over that ahnost invisible person, the waiter, the hotel chambermaid, and all hotel functionaries in the city of New York, which is the headquartere of the United Nations and of other considerable economic, business, political, military, and diplomatic activity.
As I indicated, it was our information that Albertson, who obvi- ously, with his family ties directly in the Soviet Union, was very close to direct communications — it has been reported to us, with some verification, that the actual boss of Lane and Ruben, who have now within the year and a half foresworn from Communist allegiance publicly, was a representative of the Soviet secret police.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. Duffy. Mr. McDowell, do you have any additional informa- tion regarding the activities of any of the leadership of the United Furniture Workers of America at this time ?
^Ir. McDowell. No. There is every indication that as of the tran- sition in 1950 at the convention, each one of these people, except the acknowledged hard-core Communists, namely, Gus Brown on the west €oast, and Sirota and his staff in New York, have scrupulously ab-
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 43
stained from even the slightest appearance of anything in connection with even mildly middle-of-the-road liberal causes. They are pecu- liarly circumspect.
Mr. Duffy. Do you think that the leadership of this labor organiza- tion is actually in good faith in their denunciation, or at least their refusal of accommodation of the Communist conspiracy or adherence to the Communist doctrine since 1950, at which time the CIO saw fit not to expel them ?
Mr. McDowell. They are the only exception. So far as I can de- termine, the soft treatment meted out to them by Haywood and Mur- ray, Haywood acting as the agent of Murray, was not related to any facts within that union, but to the fact that both Murray and Hay- wood felt deeply implicated because of their support to this union and their refusal to deal with Muster's request for a cleanout in 1946.
Mr. Duffy. Off the record.
( Discussion olf the record. )
Mr. McDowell. It is most interesting to see the type of editorial comment carried in the United Furniture Workers press, whose edi- torial board is composed of international president Morris Pizer, Fred Fulford, and George Strassler, and Michael De Cicco, D-e C-i-c-c-o. Three of the four were identified over all the years as Communists. George Strassler, who used the names of both Strassler and Strass, was identified as part of the Trade Union Unity League inheritance as early as 1940. There is no other record of him or iden- tification, and there is no way of knowing whether he is Strassler or Smerkin (alias Stewart) . I haven't been able to find out.
Mr. Duffy. You don't know whether they are the same person ?
Mr. McDowell. I don't know. Stewart's name has disappeared.
(Discussion off the record.)
Mr. McDowell. There is one thing which double agents of the Com- munists are not permitted until the very last stage in order to protect their usefulness in that ultimate extremity, and that is to denounce the Communists by name. In the editorial appearing in the United Furniture Workers press as late as the issue of March 1953, under the title "Peace and the UN," while a policy of negotiation is urged even without a truce in Korea at that time, which was the Communist Party line, the ostensibly anti-Communist references in the editorial care- fully eschew the word "Communist," although they use general terms such as "dictators" and "Stalin's heirs."
This needs to be compared with the similar remarkable performance at the 1950 cleansing convention at which not one person in Pizer's group ever identified Perlow and the opposition as Communists by name, according to the record of the proceedings.
Senator Butler. That editorial will be received for the record.
(The editorial referred to follows:)
Peace and the U. N.
International tensions have been mounting at such a rate in the past few months that a determined peace effort at this session of the United Nations is an absolute necessity.
Many opinions to the contrary aside, such an effort can be made successfully without sacrificing any of the moral principles held dear by democratic peoples. For negotiation is as often a matter of laying one's cards on the table as it is a matter of compromise.
44 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
At the present time, such an effort would mean that the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the other nations of tlie free world — wliile making perfectly clear their intention to remain militarily and economically strong as long as aggression threatens — would state again, but in more forceful terms, their supitort of an enforceable scheme of international control of production and distribution of both atomic and conventional weapons — coupled with an international program of international and technical assistance to the devastated and underdeveloped areas of the world.
In the case, specifically, of Korea, the ]>osition of the free world would be that, as much as a truce is desirable, there is no reason why discussion of all important issues involved in tlie Korean war should not be undertaken at the United Nations immediately, without waiting for a battlefield truce, inasmuch as many of the relevant issues already have found their way to the floor of the U. N. General Assembly.
These are the kind of proposals that dictators such as Stalin's heirs can understand. You cannot win their honest agreement to any principle in any case, but you can convince them that peace is preferable to war when those whom they would like to conquer are strong and determined and able to resist aggression but yet, as they well know, prefer peace.
Mr. McDowell. In reference to a statement made this morning in relation to the history of Chicago organizations in the unemployed field, it should be noted that the Chicago Workers Committees on Un- employment were organized in 1931 in opposition to the Communist unemployed councils; that the IWA, Illinois Workers Alliance, springing from this group, was apparently organized in formal fash- ion in 1933 or the very beginning of 1934, and that those elements represented in the Chicago Workers Committee on Unemployment who were able to maintain themselves in the workers alliance after the juncture with the Communists in April of 1936 did withdraw in Illinois at the end of 1938 and the beginning of 1939, leaving the workers alliance to collapse in the following year.
Senator Butler. Mr. McDowell, on behalf of the subcommittee, I wish to extend to you our appreciation for your extremely valuable and vital testimony that you have presented today.
This session will terminate subject to the call of the Chair.
(Whereu])on, at 4: 05 p. m., the hearing was adjourned, subject to the call of the Chair.)
SUBYEESIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOE
OEGANIZATIONS
THURSDAY, JANUARY 14, 1954
United States Senate, Subcommittee To Investigate the Administration
OF the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws, of the Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington^ JD. C.
The task force of the subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10 : 10 a. m., in room 341, Senate Office Building, Senator Herman Welker (acting chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present : Senators Welker (presiding) and Butler.
Present also : Senator Goldwater.
Richard Arens, special counsel ; and Frank W. Schroeder and Ed- ward R. Duify, professional staff members.
Senator Welker. Senator Goldwater, will you stand and be sworn ? Do you solemnly swear that the testimony that you will give before the committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God ?
Senator Goldwater. I do.
TESTIMONY OF HON. BAERY GOLDWATER, A UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA
Senator Welker. Ybu are a Senator from the great State of Arizona ?
Senator Goldwater. That is right.
Senator Welker. You may proceed with -your testimony in this matter.
Senator Goldwater. Thank you. Senator Welker and Senator Butler.
I appreciate this opportunity to appear before this committee to give you some of my own remarks and to insert into the record some of the prepared brief that my staff and people interested in this movement which Senator Butler has started have prepared, regarding S. 1606, which I hope that I will aid by S. 1254.
The people in Arizona have iDeen working on this for years.
International communism is against everything we believe in — America, God, the dignity and rights of individuals, and democracy. Communism is dedicated to world revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Its weapons in America are treachery, deceit, in- filtration, espionage, sabotage, corruption, and terrorism. It is using those weapons against us now — inside of our own country.
45
43903 — 54 4
46 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
Tlie House Committee on Un-American Activities, in reporting on the Internal Security Act of 1950 (U. S. Code Congressional Service vol. 2, 81st Congress 2d sess., p. 3886) said :
The need for legislation to control Communist activities in the United States cannot be questioned.
Over 10 years of investigation by the Committee on Un-American Activities and by its predecessor committee has established (1) that the Communist move- ment in the United States is foreign-controlled; (2) that its ultimate objective with respect to the United States is to overthrow our free American institutions in favor of a Communist totalitarian dictatorship to be controlled from abroad ; (3) that its activities are carried on by secret and conspiratorial methods; and (4) that its activities, both because of the alarming march of Communist forces abroad and because of the scope and nature of Communist activities here in the United States, constitute an immediate and powerful threat to the security of the United States and the American way of life.
The findings which support these conclusions and the vast quantity of evidence on which they are based are set forth in detail in the numerous reports which connnittees of Congress have printed and circulated.
There can be no compromise or appeasement between the ideals of our Republic and communism. The Communists still follow the Marxist line: "Parliaments are corrupt, and voting and legislating are pleasant forms of rituals for deluding the workers."
Congress has passed several laws aimed at curbing subversive activities.
The Alien Registration Act of 1940 made it a crime to advocate the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence. While force and violence is a basic principle to which the Communist Party members subscribe, the present line of the party, in order to evade existing legislation, is to avoid the open advocacy of force and violence and to resort to secret and conspiratorial methods. Consequently, the act is rendered less effective in dealing with Com- munist activities because of strategies and tactics of the Communists.
The McCormack Act of 1938 required registration of individuals who are acting as agents of a foreign principal. The Communists are skillful in deceit and in concealing their foreign ties.
The problem of how to enact laws to defend the Nation against the Communist Party is a perplexing one, but one with which we must keep wrestling. If we lose this battle, it will be because of com- placency.
In safeguarding our own liberties, we must operate within the framework of the Constitution. In 1950, in analyzing the problem, the House committee said :
Communism as an economic, social, and political theory is one thing. Com- munism as a secret conspiracy dedicated to subverting the interests of the United States to that of a foreign dictatorship, is another.
The committee went on to say :
We hold no brief for the economic, social, and political theories which the Communists advocate, but we contend that, under our constitutional system, ideas must be combated with ideas and not with legislation. If communism in the United States operated in the open, without foreign direction and without attempting to set up a dictatorship subservient to a foreign power, legislation directed against it would neither be justified nor necessary. This, however, is not the case.
The committee said that "a careful analysis of the strategy and tac- tics of communism in the United States discloses activities by reason
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 47
of which the committee has concluded that legislation can and should be directed" against those strategies and tactics of the Communist Party involving espionage.
Therefore, Congress passed the Internal Security Act of 1950 which made it unlawful for any officer or employee of the United States to communicate any information classified by the President of the United States as necessary to the security of the United States to any representative of a foreign country, or any member of a Commu- nist organization, and likewise made it illegal for any member of the Communist organization, or foreign representative of a foreign gov- ernment, to receive such information. The law also made it illegal for a member of a Communist organization to hold any office in the Government, or for a member of a Communist organization to conceal his membership in seeking employment in any defense plant, and made it unlawful for any employee in a defense plant to be a member of a Communist organization. The Secretary of Defense designates defense plants.
The Internal Security Act requires that Communist organizations register with the Attorney General and that they give the names and addresses of their members. Any organization registered as a Com- munist organization must show on its publications that it is dissemi- nated by a Communist organization.
The Internal Security Act creates a Subversive Activities Control Board appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Board may, upon application of the Attorney General, determine whether any organization is a Communist organization. Judicial review is provided after a hearing to the Circuit Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. Communist organizations are divided into two types: Communist-action organizations and Com- munist-front organizations. The former is defined as substantially directed, controlled, or dominated by a foreign government, or a for- eign organization, controlling the world Communist movement and operated primarily to advance the objectives of the world Communist movement. The Communist- front organization is one substantially directed, dominated, or controlled by a Communist-action organiza- tion primarily operated for the purpose of giving aid and support to a Communist-action organization.
The act of October 16, 1918 (8 U. S. Code 137) was strengthened by the Internal Security Act of 1950 and provided for the exclusion of aliens seeking to enter the United States to engage in activities prejudicial and dangerous to the United States, and for the exclusion of aliens who are members of the Communist Party, or who advocate the doctrine of world communism, or who are members of any organ- ization which is registered, or required to be registered, under the In- ternal Security Act, unless the alien can show that he did not know, nor had reason to believe, tliat such organization was registered, or required to be registered. It was also provided that no person may be naturalized who is a member of a Communist organization.
The Emergency Detention Act of 1960 was also passed as a part of tlte Internal Security Act of 1950. This act provides that the President may in time of an internal security emergency cause the apprehension and detention of persons as to whom there is reasonable ground for belief that they probably would engage in espionage or
48 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
sabotage activity. This law provides for the issuance of a proclama- tion by the President. Tlie President may issue a warrant for the arrest of such a person, a preliminary hearing must be had before an officer appointed by the President, with a full hearing before a Deten- tion Review Board appointed by the President with a right to appeal to the Federal courts. A proclamation can only be issued by the President in the event of invasion of territory of the United States, a declaration of war by Congress, or an insurrection in the United States in aid of a foreign enemy.
Membership in the Communist Party is not illegal per se under any Federal law. If a Communist organization or a Communist operates in such a way as to come within the definitions and performs acts which are outlawed, then it, or he, violates the law. If an organiza- tion changes its characteristics, then the object of the law has been accomplished. The most important thing in the combating of com- munism is to keep the people informed accurately and fully and con- tinuously about the activities, nature, and strategy of the Commu- nist Party.
A petition of the Attorney General of the United States sought to force the Communist Party to register under the Internal Security Act of 1950. The Attorney General, in a verified petition, after summing up the program of the Communist Party in the United States and in the world, concluded that "in the event of a war between the Soviet and any other nation, it is the recognized duty of all American Communists to defend and support the Soviet Union." Another con- clusion made in his petition :
In the event of war between the Soviet Union and the United States, the Communists in the United States have obligated themselves to defeat the military efforts of the United States and to aid and support the Soviet Union. The Communist Party teaches its members that in such event they must act to foment a civil war in the United States as a means for impairing the Nation's military effort and for establishing a Soviet America, having a dictatorship of the prole- tariat such as exists in the Soviet Union.
In the final conclusion in the petition, the Attorney General said :
To the leaders and members of the Communist Party, patriotism means soli- darity with, and support of, the Soviet Union.
At this point I would like to insert in the record certain instructions with which Judge Medina instructed the jury which considered the case of the 11 Communist leaders in New York in 1949, who were charged with violation of the Alien Registration Act of 1940 — instruc- tions which further define and label the Communist conspiracy within this country.
At the trial of 11 Communist leaders in 1949 in New York, charged with the violation of the Alien Registration Act of 1940, Judge Medina, in his instructions to the jury in October of that year, told them that these defendants were charged with conspiring with each other and others unknown to the grand jury to knowingly and wil- fully advocate and teach the duty, or necessity, of overthrowing, or destroying, the Government of the United States by force and vio- lence ; and in this connection, to organize the Communist Party as a society grou]), or assembly of persons who teach, or advocate, such overthrow, or destruction."
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 49
The act under which they were indicted says :
It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly or willfully, advocate, or teach, the duty, or necessity of overthrowing, or destroying, any government in the United States by force, or violence ; to organize any society, group, or assem- bly of persons who teach, or advocate, the overthrow, or destruction of any government in the United States by force or violence.
Judge Medina told the jury :
It is perfectly lawful and proper for the defendants, or anyone else, to advocate reforms and changes in the laws, which seem to them to be salutory and neces- sary. No one has suggested that the defendants transgressed any laws by advo- cating such reforms and changes. No syllable of the indictment refers to any such matters. Furthermore, should you find from the evidence that the de- fendants organized, or helped organize, and assumed, or were given leadership in the Communist Party as a legitimate political party solely with the view of electing candidates to political office by lawful and peacefiil means advocating reforms and changes in the laws, or the adoption of policies by the Government favorable to their contentions in the matters just referred to, you must render a verdict of not guilty, and even if you do not so find from the evidence, you cannot bring in a verdict of guilty against any defendant — unless the prosecu- tion has satisfied you of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in accordance with the instructions.
The Government introduced evidence that plans were deeply laid to place energetic and militant members of the Communist Party in key positions in various industries indispensable to the fuctioning of the American economy, to be ready for action at a given signal, and such action was to consist of strikes, sabotage, and violence of one sort or another appropriate to the consummation of the desired end; that is to say, the smashing of the machine of state, the destruction of the Army, and the police force, and the overthrow of the Government and what Communists call bourgeoisie democracy.
In the course of his instructions to the jury. Judge Medina said :
The prosecution further claims that the process of indoctrination at these various schools and classes was sought to be accomplished by the defendants by : (1) A persistent and unremitting playing upon the grievances of various minority groups, such as young people, veterans, Negroes, housewives, Jews, and those suffering from economic handicaps of one sort or another — rubbing salt into these wounds and doing their best to arouse and inflame antagonisms between various segments of the population; (2) by insistence that the Communist Party alone is qualified to assume and to retain leadership of the revolutionary movement for the smashing of the capitalist state machine, and the ushering in of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and that accordingly Communists must at all times maintain what they call their vanguard role and the elimination at all times of others who claim to be seeking by various means to attain the same, or similar ends; (3) by constant study and discussion of the steps by which the Communists came to power in the Soviet Union, including the details of the revolution of October 1917, in Russia, the strategy and tactics followed, includ- ing the wearing by the workers of uniforms of the Russian soldiers and sailors, the street fighting and so on ; (4) by constantly stressing their claim that capi- talism during the period of time specified in the indictment was on its last legs, or moribund, that the dictatorship of the proletariat was inevitable, that the workers should hate the capitalist system and their employers, and the Army and the police as mere instruments of Wall .Street monopolists and exploiters, who are said to hold the Government of the United States in their clutches; (5) by picturing the Government at the United States as imperialistic and tending toward fascism and the Soviet Union as the protector of the rights of minorities, and the only true and complete democracy and as dedicated to peace; (6) by indicating the doctrine that a war with Russia would be an imperialistic and an unjust war, in which event it is said to be the duty of those subscribing to de- fendants' principles to turn the imperialistic war into a civil war and fight against their own Government, meaning the Government of the United States.
50 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
The judge, in reviewing the defense, said :
The defendants asserted that they regarded the establishment of socialism in this country as necessary if the people are to live in peace and prosperity, that all their activities are directed toward the ultimate establishment of socialism, and take two forms which interact with and influence each other, the political and the educational.
The defendants asserted that they sought to form a Peoples' Front Government, such as was elected in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Rumania, and that this would only come about if and when a ma- jority of the people wanted it and were ready to struggle for it.
The judge was very careful to charge the jury :
Among the most vital and precious liberties which we Americans enjoy by- virtue of our Constitution are freedom of speech and freedom of the press. We must be careful to preserve these rights unimpaired in all their vigor. Thus, it is that these defendants had the right to advocate, by peaceful and lawful means, any and all changes in the laws and in the Constitution ; they had the right to criticize the President and Congress ; they had the right to assert that World War II, prior to the invasion of Russia by Germany, was an unjust war, an imperialist war, and that upon such invasion it became a just war worthy of all material and moral support; and they had the right to publicly express these views orally or in writing. They had the right, thus, to assert that the Government was at all times exploiting the poor and worthy workers for the benefit of the trust and monopolies. They had a right, thus, to assert that what they called the democracy of Russia is superior in all respects to Amer- ican democracy. They had a right to assert that the Marshall plan was a mis- take, that billions of dollars should be loaned to Russia and that legislation adversely afCecting Communists should not be passed. Whether you, or I, or anyone else, likes, or dislikes, such, or similar and analogous views, or agrees, or disagrees, with them, is wholly immaterial and not entitled to the slightest consideration in deciding this case. Unless a minority had a right to express and to advocate its views, the democratic process as we understand it here in America would cease to exist and those in power might remain there indefi- nitely and make impossible any substantial changes in our social and economic system, or in the texture of our fundamental law.
The Court told the jury :
You must be satisfied from the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendants had an intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of the United States by force and violence, and that it was with this intent and for the purpose of furthering that objective that they conspired both (1) to organize the Com- munist Party of the United States as a group or society to teach and advocate the overthrow or destruction of the United States by force and violence, and (2) to teach and advocate the duty and necessity of overthrowing or destroying the Government of the United States by force and violence.
With this background, I now come to S. 1254, which I have intro- duced to eliminate Communists from positions of influence and control in labor unions. This bill would enable the Subversive Activities Control Board to prohibit any individual found to be a Communist labor representative from functioning as a representative of em- ployees, and would also enable the Board to prevent any labor organ- ization found to be a Communist labor representative from function- ing as a labor organization until it had removed from influence or employment any officer or employee found by the Board to be a Com- munist labor representative. This could only be done by proceedings brought by the Attorney General before the Board. The Board is enabled to appoint a labor panel of retired Federal judges. The de- cision of the Board is appealable to a circuit court of appeals.
Why is such legislation required?
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 51
The CIO in 1950 expelled 11 of its 41 international unions because they were Communist dominated. The resolution on the expulsion read :
We can no longer tolerate within the family of CIO the Communist Party masquerading as a labor union. The time has come when the CIO must strip the mask from these false leaders whose only purpose is to deceive and betray the workers. So long as the agents of the Communist Party and the labor movement enjoy the benefits of afliliation with the CIO, they will continue to carry out this betrayal under the protection of the good name of the CIO.
I ask consent that that list of these 11 unions be inserted into the record at this point.
(The names of those unions and the dates of their expulsion are:)
The United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers, November 2, 1949
The United Farm Equipment Workers, November 2, 1949
Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, February 15, 1950
United Office and Professional Workers, February 15, 1950
United Public Workers, February 15, 1950
Food, Tobacco, and Agricultural Workers, February 15, 1950
American Communications Association, June 15, 1950
International Fur and Leather Workers Union, June 15, 1950
International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, August 29, 1950
Marine Cooks and Stewards, August 29, 1950
International Fishermen and Allied Workers, August 29, 1950
Senator Butler. Senator, may I ask a question at that point ? Have you ever talked to any officer of the CIO in connection with the expul- sions, especially with reference to the material upon which they formed the basis of the order of expulsion ?
Senator Goldwater. Senator, that was brought out at a hearing before the Senate Labor Committee in the 1st session of this Congress, and you will find in the record of those hearings several references to the reasons why they were expelled.
I will say that there was nothing too definite. Tliis decision evi- dently came about as the result of years of study on this subject and years of public opinion on the subject.
Senator Butler. Has the CIO or any other officers or officials ever made an offer or tender to the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare of the United States on the material that they have in connection with Communist infiltration of unions ?
Senator Goldwater. Not that I know of. I am not aware of any such offerings having been made.
Senator Butler. Do you not think that that would be very helpful if we could have that material ?
Senator Goldwater. I think it would be extremely helpful and I might suggest that in the course of these hearings on both your bill and mine we might consider subpenaing those officials of the CIO.
Senator Butler. I am leading up to that. Do you think that that is the method or do you think that we should ask them to come in and sit down and confer, with the hope that they would volunteer source of that information, because to me it is a very valuable source of infor- mation about Communist infiltration.
Senator Goldwater. Well, I should hope that they would volunteer sucli information, but based on the attitude of their officials last year when questioned on S. 1254, 1 doubt if they would. S. 1254 was con- stantly referred to as a "thought control bill." Now, your bill would receive the same label.
52 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
Senator Butlek. Do you happen to know that when the Senator from Minnesota, Senator Humphrey, held hearings on Communist activities in labor organizations that Mr. Carey, of the CIO, proposed a method dealing with this subject of Communist infiltration of labor organizations ?
Senator Goldwater. I was aware that some approach had been made to that, but I am not familiar with his proposed method.
Senator Butler. I would like this record to contain the views of Mr. Carey as expressed before the Humphrey committee, and I think that he should come and be interrogated on those views by this com- mittee. Do you agree with that ?
Senator Goldwater. I agree with that.
Senator Welker. The acting chairman would like to suggest that a first approach would be to invite the officials of the CIO to submit to the committee their evidence with respect to the reasons why the expulsions were made, and in the event the invitation is rejected, that this committee then issue a subpena duces tecum and bring in the files and records on the subject matter.
Senator Goldwater. In 1939 the House Committee on Un-American Activities listed the Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers Union as a Communist-dominated union. Ten years later the CIO acted upon the findings of the House committee and expelled this union from its membership (p. 6, October 1952 hearings. Senate Judiciary sub- committee).
The CIO said as to the Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers inter- national leadership :
The testimony at the hearings, both oral and documentaiT, demonstrates con- clusively to thife committee, and the committee finds that the policies and activ- ities of the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers are directed tovpard the achievement of the program and the purposes of the Communist Party rather than the objectives set forth in the CIO constitution. This conclusion is Inescapable, both from an analysis of the policies adopted by Mine, Mill, and as shown by documentary exhibits submitted by the imion, and by direct and uncon- tradicted testimony by former oflficers of the union that the Communist Party directs the affairs of the union.
At the hearing before the subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee in October 1952, former officers of the Union adinitted they had been members of the Communist Party and identified a number of the officers of the present Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers as having been members of the Communist Party.
The following officers and employees were subpenaed by the com- mittee and refused to testify as to whether they were Communists or not on the grounds that to testify would incriminate them.
Senator Welker. Senator, may I interrupt there. They refused to testify on the fifth amendment to the Constitution, which really means that they are not obligated to give testimony against themselves, ratlier than to incriminate themselves. It is a technical matter of which they will take advantage.
Senator Goldwater. I see. I said that on the grounds that to testify would incriminate them.
Senator Welker. That is not correct as a matter of law. There objection goes to the fact that no witness is obligated to give testimony against himself. Am I correct, counsel ?
Mr. Arens. That is correct, sir.
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 53
Senator Goldwater. I will take the correction.
Those persons were: Nathan Witt, general counsel; John Clark, president; Clinton Jencks, international representative; Herman Clott, Washington lobbyist for the union ; Orville Larson, vice presi- dent; Holmgren, assistant editor of the union newspaper; Rudolph Hansen, paid employee; Maurice Travis, secretary-treasurer of the international union; Graham Dolan, who said he had no title but worked on special assignments for President Clark, Vice President Larson, Vice President Wilson, and Secretary-Treasurer Travis ; and Albert Skinner, regional director and coordinator of the Kennecott bargaining counsel.
I will not go into all the details of the hearing. They are available in the report of the hearings issued by the United States Printing Office.
I would like, at this time, to insert in the record a photostatic copy of page 3 of the Union of August the 15, 1949, which contains the statement of Maurice Travis, the international secretary and treasurer of this union, on signing the Taft-Hartley law affidavit, in order that his union could qualify under the Taft-Hartley Act.
Senator Welker. Senator Goldwater, may I interrupt ? Will you identify the union for the purpose of the record ?
Senator Goldwater. Yes. It is the official publication of the Inter- national Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. It is entitled, "The Union." This is a f)hotostatic copy of the issue of August 15, 1949.
Senator Welker. Without objection, it will be so entered.
(The document referred to, marked "Exhibit No. I." follows: )
Exhibit No. 1
[From the Union, August 15, 1949]
Travis Statement on Signing Taft-Hartley Law Affidavit By Maurice Travis, International Secretary-Treasurer
The executive board of our international union has voted to comply with the Taft-Hartley law. I support this decision.
As most of the membership knows, I have stated, more than once in the last 2 years, that if it became important to the life of our union to comply with Taft- Hartley, I would support such a step. The reasons which have now made it vital to our union to comply are the betrayal of labor's fight for repeal of the Taft- Hartley Act by the controlling leadership of both the CIO and the AFL, by the 81st Congress and the Truman administration — a betrayal which now saddles the labor movement with this law for another two years — and as part of that betrayal, the adoption of raiding, gangsterism and strikebreaking as official policy by reactionaries in the leadership of CIO.
Since the executive board meeting at which compliance was voted, I have de- liberated very carefully on my course and I have also had the benefit of thorough discussions with my fellow ofiicers, executive board members, and members of the staff. The unanimous opinion of my fellow ofiicers and the others in the in- ternational union is that the most effective way in which I can serve the inter- national union is by continuing in my post as an ofiicer of the international union.
Since the interest of the international union is uppermost in my mind, I have been confronted with the problem of resigning from the Communist Party, of which I have been a member, in order to make it possil)le for me to sign the Taft- Hartley afiidavit. I have decided, with the utmost reluctance and with a great sense of indignation, to take such a step. My resignation has now taken place and as a result, I have signed the afiidavit.
This has not been an easy step for me to take. Membership in the Communist Party has always meant to me, as a member and officer of the international
54 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
union, that I could be a better trade unionist ; it has meant to me a call to greater effort in behalf of the union as a solomn pledge to my fellow members that I would fight for their interests above all other interests.
The very premise of the Taft-Hartley affidavits is a big lie, the same sort of lie that misled the peoples of Germany, Italy, and Japan down the road to fascism. It is a big lie to say that a Communist trade unionist owes any higher loyalty than to his union. On the contrary trade luiions are an integral part of a socialist society, the kind of society in which Communists believe. Therefore, I believe that good Commimists are good trade unionists.
The biggest lie of all is to say that the Communist Party teaches or advocates the overthrow of the Government by force and violence. If I had believed this to be so I would not have joined the Communi^^t Party. If I had later found it to be so I would never have remained in it. All the slanders by the corrupt press, all the FBI stool pigeons, and all the persecution of Communist workers will not make me believe it is so. I believe that when the majority of the American people see clearly how rotten the foundation of the capitalist system is, they will insist on their right to change it through democratic processes, and all of the reactionary force and violence in the world will be unable to stop them.
It is because I believe these things that I have fought the affidavit requirement of Taft-Hartley. I believe it is a blot on American life; I believe under our bill of rights, for which our forefathers fought, that an American has as much right to be a Communist as he has to be a Republican, a Democrat, a Jew, a Catholic, or an Elk or a Mason. Free voluntary association is the very corner- stone of the democratic way of life. I have been a Communist because I want what all decent Americans want, a higher standard of living for all the people, the ending of discrimination against Negroes, Mexican-Americans, and all other minority groups. I want a peaceful America in a peaceful world. Despite my resignation from the Communist Party, I will continue to fight for these goals with all the energy and sincerity at my command.
I am also taking this step because I believe it is one effective means of bringing home, not only to the membership of the international union but to the people generally, the dastardly and unprecedented requirement that a man yield up his political affiliations in order to make a Government service available to the people he represents. This is a dangerously backward step in American political life which threatens all of our democratic institutions. Americans have the right to belong to the political party of their choice and trade union members have the right to choose their own leaders. Denial of these principles undermines democracy and gives comfort to the arrogant reactionaries who seek to put our country on the road to fascism.
At the same time, I want to make it absolutely clear that my opinion continues to be that only a fundamental change in the structure of our society, along the lines implied in the very words of the charter of our international, "Labor produces all wealth — wealth belongs to the producer thereof," can lead to the end of insecurity, discrimination, depressions, and the danger of war.
I am convinced that capitalistic greed is responsible for war and its attendant mass destruction and horror. I am convinced it is responsible for depression, unemployment and the mass misery they generate. The present deepening de- pression, growing unemployment, and threat of war confirm my conviction that the only answer is socialism.
As a matter of fact, this Socialist concept has always been the guiding principle for American workers. The struggle led by the great Eugene V. Debs, the early fight for the S-hour workday, the steel and packing struggles led by Bill Foster, the stormy history of the I WW were all influenced by socialist ideals.
As a member of our international union I have always been proud of and have drawn strength from its basic Socialist tradition. No other union in this country matches ours in its glorious working-class history. Our union, and its prede- cessor, the Western Federation of Miners, has carried on some of the most bitter and courageous struggles in the history of the labor movement. I have always been inspired by the fact that early leaders of this union were socialistic in one form or another, that Bill Haywood also took the road to communism and died not only a great leader of the working class but as an honored and respected Communist.
Therefore, I want to make it crystal clear that my belief in communism is consistent with what I believe to be the best interests of the members of this union and the American people generally and thnt I am especially hapny to be able constantly to remember that it is consistent with the finest traditions of the international union.
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 55
I know that sooner or later we will turn this present shameful page in American life, that the reactionary offensive will be beaten back and that the American workers will again resume their march on the road to peace, progress, and prosperity. Particularly do I know that the day will come when loyalty oaths and affidavits will be a thing of the past, when the true test will again be service to the people and, for trade-union leaders' service to their members.
In the meantime, I am sure that every member of the international union joins me in my pledge to fight to keep this international union strong, to bend every effort to make it even stronger, to continue to keep it on a progressive, militant course, and to do everything in my power to make life in our country happy, secure, prosperous and peaceful.
It's Official Now
President John Clark announced last week that he had been officially notified in a letter from the National Labor Relations Board that Mine-Mill is in full compliance with the provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act and is now eligible to use the processes of the Board.
The formal compliance notification followed the unanimous decision of Mine- Mill's international executive board to meet the signing requirements of the Taft-Hartley Act.
Officers Hail Tbavis' Stand
Statement by President John Clark, Vice President Reid Robinson, and Vice President Orville Larson :
Pursuant to the resolution adopted at the last meeting of the international executive board, the international union has now fulfilled the necessary steps to effect compliance with the Taft-Hartley Act.
There is little to add to what has already been embodied in that resolution except to reaffirm our determination to fight for the welfare of the international union and to maintain this international union on its progressive and militant course.
Let no one believe for a moment that compliance with Taft-Hartley means that we intend to retreat from the basic policies we have pursued and advocated. Recent developments have only served to emphasize the correctness of those policies. The war danger is still with us. We mean to fight against it. The danger of mass unemployment and a terrible depression hangs, like a cloud, over the entire country. We mean to fight against this danger by advocating policies which will give greater security to our members and to the mass of the American people.
We also know that the usual propaganda will be unloosed against us in con- nection with the signing of the affidavits. The action and the statement of Brother Travis speak for themselves. We regret that this action is necessary, but we commend him for his forthright and courageous stand, and we are happy that the international union is thus assured of his continued leadership.
At the same time, we must again enter our most violent protest against a pro- vision of the law which tells a man what political party he may or may not join and which interferes with the freedom of union members to pick their own leaders without the help of the Tafts and the Hartleys.
As far as the rest of us are concerned, we have been called Communists in the past and expect to be called Communists in the future, despite the affidavits, as long as we follow policies to which the reactionaries and Fascists are opposed.
We know that other Americans in recent history, like Franklin Roosevelt and Frank Murphy, were also called Communists when they pursued progressive policies, and that the CIO in its early days and its leaders were similarly de- nounced. Such name-calling cannot alter the actual facts. Such name-calling will not deter us in giving the kind of leadership which the rank and file of this international union expects from us.
Senator Goldwater. Let me say here, that under the Taft-Hartley Act, an employer, or the National Labor Relations Board cannot go beyond the non-Communist affidavit filed by the union officials. If the affidavits are filed, the employer must comply with the law and must bargain with the union whether or not he thinks that the affidavits are false and that the representative is still a Communist.
56 SUBVERSIVE mFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
Let me call attention to what Mr. Travis says regarding Bill Haywood :
I have always been inspired by the fact that early leaders of this union were socialistic in one form or another, that Bill Haywood also took the road to communism and died not only as a great leader of the working class but as an honored and respected Communist.
Senator Welker. And Mr. Haywood was the gentleman who was prosecuted in the State of Idaho for conspiracy with Moyer and Petti - bone in the early years of the twentieth century to kill Governor Speunenburg. I think that should go in to show that his activities dated way back.
Senator Goldwater. I might add that Bill Haywood, as you will remember, was head of the International Workers of the World dur- ing World War I. In 1918 he was found guilty in a Federal court in Chicago of espionage, sabotage, and interfering with the war effort of World War I. Pending his appeal he jumped bail, fled to Kussia, and now lies buried in the Kremlin as one of the heroes of communism. His heroism consisted of treason to his countr3^
Senator Welker. Now, if we could go back to the statement I made about Bill Haywod, I should say in fairness to Mr. Haywood that the prosecution of the Haywood, Moyer, Pettibone case in the State of Idaho for planning the killing of Governor Speunenburg, was repre- sented by the late and great Senator William E. Borah. The defense was represented by the great and late Clarence Darrow. Messrs. Haywood, Moyer, and Pettibone were all acquitted of the charge.
We will proceed.
Senator Goldw^ater. Consider the case of Nathan Witt, general counsel of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, and the brains of the union, Lee Pressman, former general counsel of the CIO testified before the Un-American Activities Committee in the House in 1950 and said that he and Witt both belonged to the Communist Party at one time and that he. Pressman, John Abt, Charles Kramer, and Witt worked in a cell together. Ware was the liaison with the Communist Party of this cell and he collected their dues- Wliittaker Chambers in 1948 testified that Ware, Abt, Witt, Pressman, Alger Hiss, Donald Hiss, Henry H. Collins, Charles Kramer, and Victor Perlo belonged to the Ware- Abt- Witt group.
Witt was former executive secretary of the National Labor Rela- tions Board. In 1940 he wrote the United States Senate when the NLRB was being investigated that he was not and had never been a member of the Communist Party, a Communist sympathizer, or one who used the Communist Party line.
At the hearing in 1952, Witt refused to testify as to wdiether he was a Communist on the grounds that he was exercising his right under the fifth amendment not to give testimony against himself. Nathan Witt was also a member of the board of trustees of the Jefferson School of Social Science, which the Saturday Evening Post of March 12, 1949, said was the biggest school for the teaching of communism in New York, and annually enrolled 3,000 students which was a fraction of the total signed up b}' the national chain of Communist schools.
How does a union become Communist-dominated, and how did these CIO unions become Communist-dominated? To begin with, when the first attempts were made to orgjinize mass production in-
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 57
diistry, there was an acute shortage of trained organizers. Unknow- ingly, many Communists were used and they installed themselves and their sympathizers in key positions in many of the new unions. The newly organized workers, with no experience in unionism, were no match for these skilled technicians. The result was that in union after union the Communists controlled the top level tliough the mem- bership was overwhelmingly American in its sympathies. In the CIO findings on the expulsion of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers :
Both Wilson and Eckert made it perfectly clear to the committee that the fact that this union followed the Commimist Party line was not accidental. It was the result of the complete domination of the union's leadership by the party. The party group within the union has a systematic working apparatus for making its decision and for translating these decisions into union policy. At the top, there was a party steering committee of four members. This com- mittee, of which Eckert and Maurice Travis were members, determined Com- munist policy within the union. They did this in consultation with the leaders of the Communist Party. Meetings were frequently held with the Communist Party leaders, such as William Z. Foster, chairman of the party ; Eugene Den- nis, general secretary; John Williamson, its labor secretary; and Gil Green, its lUinois director. In addition, there was a regular envoy of the Communist Party, who was designated as liaison man between Mine, Mill and the party.
In meetings of this steering committee, which was sometimes enlarged to include such persons as the union's research director and the editor of its newspaper, the policies to be adopted by Mine, Mill were determined by these Communist leaders. Their decisions were tlien brought to the so-called pro- gressive caucus of the union, which contained all of the Communist and pro- Communist leaders of the union ; all anti-Communist groups of the union were excluded from this caucus. The Communist decisions were invariably adopted by the caucus and were then brought before the official bodies of the union and adopted as union policy.
This was the transmission belt by which the decision of the Communist Party leaders became decisions of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers.
The membership, of course, had a theoretical veto power, but the party's control of the union's newspaper, control of its organization, and control of its leadership enabled the Communist Party to conceal its dictation of union policy and thus to maintain its power over the union's affairs. The right of the union membership to control policy given lipservice by the leadership was thus frustrated. The membership had no voice, for instance, in the decision of Eeid Robinson to resign as president — a decision made by the Communist Party for party reasons. He had no control over the appointment of Maurice Travis, a newcomer to the union, as executive assistant to President Robinson, an appointment dictated by the Communist Party for its own purposes. The membership had no control over the appointment of organizers and, as a result, approximately 90 percent of the union's staff are members of the Communist Party.
Eckert, in testifying before the Senate committee in Salt Lake in October 1952, said :
The Communist Party regarded MMSW as one of the key unions In America, because of its strategic position in the nonferrous metal industry a"nd also because they have locals in Alaska and close proximity to the Soviet Union. That is an interesting note, because the MMSW locals up there, which are completely dominated by the Communist Party, are only 40 miles from Soviet Russia. Because of the importance they attach to MMSW, they made special efforts to reactivate me in the Communist Party. I became active in the party again from that time (1945) until the time I left MMSW, or just prior to leaving MMSW in 1948.
Eckert testified before the subcommittee on this steering committee in MMSW. Eckert said that the steering committe was composed of Maurice Travis, Eckert, Al Skinner, and Charles Powers, and they
58 SUBVERSIVE ESTFLUENCE IX CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
received their instructions from Gil Green, State organizer of the Communist Party in Illinois.
The steering committee, he said, would also meet with William Z. Foster, national chairman of the Communist Party, Eugene Dennis, and other top leaders to discuss matters affecting the Communist Party. He testified that the following was the way the union adopted its 10-point program in 1946 : It was first discussed by the steering committee: it was then submitted to the enlarged party meeting held; from this meeting it was taken to what was called the progressive caucus inside the MMSW, which consisted of the party people on the staff of the union and certain nonparty people who were on the staff and other people who were not on the staff, but were in the MMSW union.
He said the progressive caucus would then make these proposals where it was necessary to have them approved by the international executive board to the international executive board of the vmion, which was almost evenly divided between the right and left wings. Those decisions would then usually become the decisions of the union and sometimes, as in the case of the 10-point program, submitted to the convention, as was done in the instance of the Cleveland convention in 1946, and became adopted by the convention as the official program of the union. As he said :
It originated in the steering committee and passed down to this large party meeting, then to the progressive caucus, the international executive board, and finally adopted by the international convention. Irrespective of the various channels through which it went, it started with the Communist Party and crystallized as doctrine, or program, of the union as a whole. (Pp. 51-58.)
There were approximately 126,000 in the union then (1946). The end result was the convention adopting a program which originated with a small number of people who were Communist Party members, wliich was later adopted as a program of over 120,000 members. Eckert said that the party membership of the union never averaged 1 percent at any time and that a small number of Communists, even 4, a steering committee, could commit a union of 100,000 members to a ])rogram which they, the 4 Communists, or a few more, originated. (P. 59.)
Eckert said the Communist personnel did not seep very far down because if it had it would be very much larger; here and there, there might be a shop steward who might be a member of the party, or a local union president, or a local member of the executive committee, or shop committee, but, by and large, the control of the union by the Communist Party was exercised from the top. (P. 59.)
Tlie Communist Party leadership was able to maintain itself in control by the following procedure : A staff of the people who have contacts with the membership would go out and campaign for their particular candidate. They would get up at the meetings and speak for them, and they were not above stuffing the ballot boxes where it was necessary to do so. (P. 60.)
Ec]i:ert said he knew Mr. Nathan Witt was a member of the party and had attended many party meetings with him. He was one of the top party men and liaison man between the Communist Party and various unions that were under the control of the Communist Party, including the MMSW, and frequently was the person who
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 59
transmitted various things to MMSW, party decisions which were to be put into effect inside the union.
The unfortunate and tragic thing is that most of the members of the union are not aware of this Communist domination and are loyal Americans. There is no law which now protects the rank and file of a labor union from Communist domination of their inter- national union.
I say that those men are entitled to the leadership of loyal Ameri- cans. S. 1254 would provide a means to eliminate from a union Communist leadership such as Travis and Witt, This bill would permit local unions to bargain as bona fide labor unions and as a part of a bona fide international union. Employers would no longer be compelled by law to sit down with a Communist representative. The union newspaper would no longer be a vehicle for Communist propaganda to be dropping its indoctrinations drop by drop, issue by issue.
I cannot conceive of a single reason, or justification, for the Gov- ernment of the United States permitting men who are Communists to head and to run a labor organization. I think loyal members of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, for example, are entitled to their Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union free and clear of Communist domination. Their strikes, if they strike, should not be under any cloud that it is for political purposes and under a leadership over which they have no control.
My bill would not destroy the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers — it would protect them and preserve them.
The ease with which 4 or 5 men can control a large international union makes me think that we should start an investigation into the general subject of international unions to determine how demo- cratic they are in the election of their officers. In many interna- tional unions the same person has been president for many years. The constitutions, conventions, systems, appointments of interna- tional representatives, control over locals, have made it possible for one man to perpetuate himself in office. The membership should have control of the selection of the officers.
On Friday, April the 24th, 1953, Albert J. Fitzgerald, general president of the United Electrical Kadio and Machine Workers of America, told the Senate Labor Committee at its hearing that S. 1254 and its companion House bill H. R. 3993 was a "thought-control piece of legislation." Because Senate bill 1606 will undoubtedly receive the same charge from this and similar unions, I think it is well to discuss that attack at this time. In the first place, the UE dwells on the alleged fact that orders of the Subversive Activitie-s Control Board will operate to destroy unions. Nowhere does he advert to the fact that the membership of a union, which is the object of such an order, will have the opportunity to purge itself of the few individual leaders whose Communist activities give rise to the order, and that they can, in that manner, preserve their union with all its rights and privileges under the Federal laws.
Secondly, he quarrels with the various legislative standards and definitions which the bill provides as guides to be used by the Board in determining whether or not a union, or an individual union official, is a Communist representative. Here he employs the well-worn shib- boleths of thought-control and guilt by association. Mr. Fitzgerald's
60 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
remarks are to be found on -pnges 1995 to 2010, inclusive, of part 4 of the hearinofs before the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare of the United States Senate of the Sod Congress.
During the Senate hearings last year on labor, it became evident to me that for any proper consideration of a bill such as Senator Butler's bill or mine, we should include a study of what the unions have in their constitutions today to protect themselves against Com- munist infiltration and for that purpose my staff made this study. For this study 89 national or international union constitutions cover- ing a combined union membership of approximately 12 million were examined. Forty-seven of these constitutions had provisions either of a specific or a general nature which barred Communists from union office or membership or both. It should be noted that a refusal to accept Commimists as members can serve as an effective bar against Communists holding union office since, as a rule, officers rise from membership ranks. The combined membership of these 47 unions was about 8.2 million or roughly two-thirds of the total membership covered by the sample.
In the attached table, "Selected list of unions with constitutions barring Communists from office or membership," a separate column shows the date of the union constitution consulted in the study. A number of the unions hold conventions at intervals of 2 vears or longer and constitutions are generally dated to indicate only the initial year in which provisions became operative.
The information, as found in the union constitutions, was classified according to whether the constitution contained either (1) a specific provision barring Communists, or (2) a more general provision de- signed to eliminate undesirables from membership or office. Specific provisions all had in common a mention of the word "Communist."
Illustrative of such types of clauses is the following:
No member shall be eligible to hold oflBce in this union or act in any ofBcial capacity for this union or subordinate body thereof who shall be subject to orders or discipline of any party or organization (such as the Communist Party, Nazi or Fascist organization) which makes its interests and policies on union matters binding upon its members irrespective of the decisions, interests, and policies of the union.
Provisions of a more general character were those which apparently could be construed as barring Communists although the word "Com- munist" actually did not appear in the constitution. Virtually all the union constitutions identified as having such clauses had provisions somewhat similar to the following which appeared in one constitution :
No person shall be eligible either to membership or to retain membership in this international or any local xmion affiliated with the international who shall be a member of any organization having for its aim or purpose the overthrow, by force of the Constitution and Government of the United States.
Two provisions in the general category differed substantially from this type of clause : one was a requirement that officers be willing to execute affidavits necessary to secure access to Government agencies; another required officers to file statements as required by law indi- cating acceptability under law as a qualified representative of the union.
Now, Mr. Chairman, this study is in tabular form with some com- ments, and I would like permission to insert it in the record at this place and at this time.
Senator Welker. Without objection, so ordered.
SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS 61 (The document referred to marked "Exhibit No. II," follows:)
Exhibit No. II
Selected list of unions tcith constitutions barring Communists from offlce or
memhersMp *
Name of national or international union
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR
National Agricultural Workers Union
International Union, United Automobile Workers of America
Bakery and Confectionory Workers' International Union of America_ Journeymen Barbers, Hairdressers, Cosmetologists, and Proprietors
Inteniational Union of America
International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders and
Helpers of America
International Brotherhood of Bookbinders
International Association of Bridge, Structural and Ornamental Iron
Workers -•
Building Service Employees' International Union
International Chemical Workers Union
International Association of Cleaning and Dye House Workers
Coopers' International Union of North America
Flight Engineers' International Association
American Federation of Grain Millers
United Hatters, Cap, and Millinery Workers International Union
Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union.
International Jewelry Workers' Union
International Longshoremen's Association
International Association of Machinists
National Organization Masters, Mates, and Pilots of America
American Federation of Musicians
Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators, and Paperhangers of America
International Photo-Engravers' Union of North America
Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America
Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks, Freight Handlers,
Express, and Station Employes
Retail Clerks International Association
United Slate, Tile and Composition Roofers, Damp and Waterproof
Workers Association
International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen
and Helpers of America
Date
of consti- tution
General Specific provision provision which may barring be construed Communists as barring from — Communists from—
CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS
International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft, and Agricultural
Implement Workers of America
International Union of Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers
United Gas, Coke, and Chemical Workers of America
Federation of Glass, Ceramic, and Silica Sand Workers of America
National Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association
Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America
United Optical and Instrument Workers of America
American Radio Association
United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum, and Plastic Workers of America
United Steolworkers of America
Transport Workers Union of America
Utility Workers Union of America
International Woodworkers of America
INDEPENDENT OR UNAFFILIATED UNIONS
Engineers, Architects, and Scientists, National Professional Associa-
tion-
National Federation of Federal Employees
International Union of Life Insurance Agents
LTnited Mine Workers of America
The Society of Tool and Die Craftsmen
Brotherhood of Utility Workers of New England, Inc- National Union, United Welders of America
1950 1947 1951
1949
1949 1949
1948 1950 1950 1950 1949 1951 1950 1950 1949 1950 1947 1949 1948 1950 1951 1950 1950
1947 1947
1949
1950
1951 1950 1950 1950 1950 1951 1949 1949 1950 1950 1950 1950 1950
1948 1950 1950 1948 1949 1950 1950
Mem- ber- ship
X X
X X X
X
X X
X X
X
X
X X
X X
OflSce
X
X
X X X
X X
Mem ber- ship
X X
X
"x"
X
x"
X
X X X X
X X
X X X
Offlce
X X
X
X
X X
X
1 The omission of a union from this list does not necessarily mean that its constitution does not include
provisions barring Communists.
43903—54 5
62 SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCE IN CERTAIN LABOR ORGANIZATIONS
Union Teial Pkocedures Wheke Communism Is an Issue
The constitutions of the following unions covered trial procedures where communism may be an issue. These 10 unions were selected arbitrarily for illustrative purposes.
1. International Union, United Automobile Workers of America (AFL).
2. International Union, United Automobile, Aircraft, and Agricultural Imi)le-
ment Workers of America (CIO).
3. International Association of fU-idge, Structural, and Ornamental Iron Work-
ers (AFL).
4. Building Service Employees' International Union (AFL).
5. International Chemical Workers Union (AFL).
f>. Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union (AFL) .
7. International Association of Machinists (AFL).
8. United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum, and Plastic Woi-kers of America (CIO).
9. Brotherhood of Utility Workers of New England, Inc. (Independent). 10. International Woodworkers of America (CIO).
Generally the trial procedures were listed under sections of the constitution dealing with disciplinary matters. Usually, the procedures were not exclusively designed to handle charges of communism but could be utilized in any one of a numlier of specified violations of union constitutional provisions.
The procedure followed by the International Union, United Automobile. Air- craft, and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (CIO), may be of par- ticular interest in view of the special attention paid to this problem at the UAW- CIO's March 1953 convention. The 1951 constitution of the union (art. 10. sec. 8) provided that members were ineligible to hold elective or appointive office in any UAW local union or in the international union if they were "a member of or subservient to any political organization, such as the Communist, Fascist, or Nazi organization." A detailed trial procedure (art. 48) by a local union trial committee (for charges involving the Communist issue as well as a number of others) provided in part that local trial committee verdicts of guilty could be reversed by a two-thirds vote of the local union membership. However, verdicts