United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities

“ However, with the rise of Hitler Germany, the trials of the Reichstag, an international leader by the name of Dimitrov acquired world fame because, in his defense against the frameup which Goering tried to put over on him, he learned that the Communist tactics and the Communist policies in Germany had turned the masses of German workers against the Communist Party and had resulted or had certainly played a part in contributing to making it possible for Hitler Germany to result with Hitler’s ascension to power. ”

“ We are at present witnessing an attack upon a union in our own city as a result of the combination of discredited labor leaders, the un-American Canwell Committee and the Seattle P-I and its FBI agent and strike-breaker, Fred Niendorff.
Today, Labor is faced with and all-out offensive of the profit-greedy NAM. They are determined to bring wages down while continuing to raise the cost of 483 living. This attack on the peoples’ living standards is most serious to the thousands of greatly underpaid white-collar workers. ”

“ And I am strictly opposed to secret negotiations, whether it occurs between employers and unions, whether it occurs between heads of organizations, or whether it occurs in international affairs. I think that the only safeguard that we have that the rights of the people will not be trespassed upon is when everything is out in the open. ”

“ This particular expulsion drew the attention of the Communist Party to us, and especially to my former wife. They knew that the steelworkers union was bitterly anti-Communist. They didn’t dare to try to make any approaches to the steelworkers union to have me thrown out, but they did have absolute control, they thought, in the office workers union, and they thought they would take their revenge on my former wife by proceeding against her. ”

“ In that respect, many people in the union to which I should belong have asked me many times how could they guarantee that some untoward thing would not occur in the organization. And it has been my recommendation to them that the only guarantee anyone has is that he participate fully in the life of his own organization and not delegate and not allow his own responsibilities to be passed on to somebody else. ”

“ At that time I was very active in the United Auto Workers. I felt that the United Auto Workers was doing a fine job in increasing production for the war. Their no-strike pledge was very loyally kept, and there were people there who always attended meetings, who were always ready to try and get other people to come to the union meetings, who were ready to do jobs for the union in the way of promoting blood-bank drives, and so on, getting people to register to vote, and the sort of things that I was interested in. ”

“ And I cannot pass up the opportunity to remind all of us that it is a fundamental principle of our form of Government, of our democratic representation system, that we honor and dignify the individual as an individual for his own worth, and not completely subordinate this individual to the purpose of a mass and make him a faceless creature. ”

“ It has been demonstrated time and again, has it not, to your satisfaction, that Stalin has endeavored to use international communism as a tool in order to advance his own foreign policy which necessarily, of course, meant his strengthening his own position in the Soviet Union. ”

“ But it was a terrible shock and disillusionment when large numbers of people found, out of their own direct knowledge, that these huge forced labor camps did in fact exist and that people who were committed to them were committed to them for terms ranging from 25 years to life instead of the official propaganda which has been preached, to the effect that no sentence was over 10 years in length in the Soviet Union. ”

“ The Communist Party had as one of its principal objectives and one of its chief propaganda weapons, which it used upon other persons of political mindedness, that the Communist program was a consistent program on a domestic policy and on foreign policy, that our program was liberal domestically and liberal internationally. However, in 1938, after a long period of struggle and effort, the Communist Party succeeded in prevailing upon many people to accept the slogan of collective security as the proper policy to pursue in foreign affairs. ”

“ The old-age people responded so vigorously that they themselves determined that they must have a union. And they chose the name of Old-Age Pension Union.
At first, I believe, Costigan was not an officer of it. As a matter of fact, he felt that he had more than he could carry handling the work of the Washington Commonwealth Federation. So he asked the party people to find him some help to see if he could carry on this extra work that needed to be done. And, through the efforts of Mr. Lowell Wakefield, they found a person by the name of William J. Pennock who was a very able man. ”

“ I would like to be able to live in peace and quiet because my own health will not permit me to do all the other things that need to be done.
Mr. Moulder. Mr. Dennett, as chairman of this committee, and on behalf of counsel, Mr. Tavenner, and Mr. Wheeler, and I believe I should presume to express appreciation also on behalf of the full committee on Un-American Activities, the Congress of the United States, and the people of America for your honest, courageous, patriotic, and convincing testimony and information concerning communistic activities. ”

“ If a democracy is to work, if it is to be a democracy or continue to be a democracy, it is essential that each participant, each member be a participant. That is the best recommendation I can make.
Mr. Moulder. That is very true. In our investigations the committee has found many instances where the Communist Party leaders have been able to infiltrate into, say, a local union in the eastern section of this country because the membership did not attend the elections and did not vote and participate actively in the meetings. ”

“ We were trying our level best to support the policies which the Communist Party urged upon us, and that pertained especially to the question of war, fighting the program of involvement in war at that time. It involved being very critical of the top leadership of the American Federation of Labor, which many other people criticized as well as we, and by we, I mean the Communists were not the only ones that criticized; many of the rank-and-file members who had no knowledge of Communist Party policy or activity were also critical. ”

“ We have certain evidence clearly revealing that Harriette Dennett has made regular reports to the Federal Bureau of Investigation over a long period of time for which she has received payment. We are convinced that no honest trade unionist would have connections with any police body, especially the FBI, and still serve the best interests of the Union.
Let as examine the role of the FBI. Organized labor recognizes that law enforcing agencies are absolutely necessary in the protection of public and private property, prevention of crime, and safeguarding our welfare. ”

“ It was a union of about 65 members, and there were no more than a half-dozen persons in it who were not members of the Communist Party.
That seems incredible, but the reason for it is that most of the persons who were members of the union were working as secretaries in various union offices, or were working for some individual employer with whom there were no collective-bargaining contracts and there were no regular functions of a union. It was simply a home where these people could pay dues and use the union label wherever they wanted to for their own convenience. ”

“ I learned later from Tommy Ray that Tom Burns became a licensed man, left the Communist Party long before, and has had nothing to do with it; that is, in recent years. Although he was a very able man way back in the period of 1932, 1933, and 1934 when he was very active in the organization of the Marine Workers Industrial Union, and had a great part in organizing the sailors on the waterfront in Seattle at that time. ”

“ The Communist Party was striving to obtain an endorsement of that federation convention which would call for the organization of either a farmer-labor party or a new independent political party. In other words, our effort, speaking of the Communists, was to drive the federation into making a completely new, independent, separate political organization. However, our plans were dependent upon approval from the central committee of the Communist Party. ”

“ The Cannery Workers Union was a local affiliate of the United Cannery, Agricultural, and Packinghouse Workers of America. In the national leadership I knew a Mr. Donald Henderson, who was the president of that organization. I knew him very well, associated with him frequently at the convention, transacted a great deal of business with him concerning the cannery workers out here because we were having a great deal of difficulty over language problems. 438 The cannery workers in that union were those who were sent to Alaska regularly each year to work in the salmon industry. ”

“ To accomplish this union-busting program, the most vicious antilabor legislation, such as the Taft-Hartley law has been passed, and the Un-American Activities Committee, the little Dies Committees and numerous other government agencies—all in conjunction with the FBI—are engaged in a witch-hunt against labor. ”

“ Dennett, that the committee, having heard as many witnesses as it has on the subject of communism, recognizes that it is teamwork that has enabled the Communist Party to get where it is, rather than grandstand playing. ”

“ When I first came into the Communist Party the usual procedure was something that went under the title of “Cooption.” Cooption meant that the district organizer could appoint anybody he wanted to the district committee or to the district bureau and could call them 410 in to serve, and everybody else had to accept such a person as being a fully qualified member of that body. ”

“ He even made commitments, and part of the deal which people seemed to be so concerned about at Yalta and Potsdam and Cairo and Casablanca involved Stalin making commitments to Roosevelt and Churchill to the effect that the Soviet Union would use its influence to suppress the revolutionary effort of the workers in the various countries that were on the brink of revolution.
And that is why when the Soviet Red Army marched into those border countries in eastern Europe they did not attempt to create a Soviet revolution. They, instead, created something they called people’s democracies. ”

“ Tavenner. What was the attitude of the Trotskyites as to Stalin’s agreement with reference to Greece, for instance?
Mr. Dennett. They accused him of betraying the working class not only in Greece but in the Soviet Union because he was ruling in the Soviet Union with such an iron hand that workers there were being suppressed. They were being forbidden from enjoying the efforts they were putting in to build a Socialist country. In fact, they were being deprived of the fruits of what was intended to be socialism. ”