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

“ I have less knowledge of O’Connell’s Communist Party membership than of DeLacy and Rabbitt, but have sat in Communist Party meetings with him when all present were Communists, and I understood him to be one also, or at least so sympathetic as to make no actual difference. Many Communist Party members were for the founding of the Progressive Party in this State and worked in it after its founding. ”

“ Mr. O’Connell. I do not want to go into all of the evidence as I understand it, but as an attorney I am completely suspicious of the testimony given by David Greenglass. He had real motives. He had everything to gain by what he was doing. During the pleas for clemency and since that time there has been other evidence produced that in my mind raises a real question, the positions taken by Dr. Harold Urey and by other scientists as to whether or not the so-called secret which was transferred or alleged to have been transferred and so on was a secret at all. ”

“ I don’t have to tell you that many of us understand your appointment of the pathetic Communist or pro-Communist boy Phil Reno to your headquarters staff in Denver as political and labor relations official was at the behest of George Marshall and Lem Harris, the Communist Party’s avowed agricultural policy fellow, in order to insure a continuing flow of money from the Marshall Foundation to the National Farmers Union. ”

“ Tavenner. The will authorized you and the other trustees to apply the income derived from the trust and such parts of the principal as the trustees in their own unlimited discretion deemed necessary for the following objects and purposes:
The education of the people of the United States of America to the necessity and desirability of the development and organization of unions of persons engaged in work or of unemployment and unemployed persons, and the promotion and advancement of an economic system in the United States based upon the theory of production for use and not for profit. ”

“ During my term in Congress I was particularly active in fighting for the freedom of Tom Mooney. My Dad had been in the miner’s union, a member and executive for that particular period; he has always been interested. When I came here I introduced a resolution in the Congress asking for the freedom of Tom Mooney and for a pardon for him.
I think my best recollection is as far as the International Labor Defense is concerned that the matters I sponsored were around prisoners like Tom Mooney. 577
Mr. Tavenner. Are you familiar with the fact that it has been cited as a Communist front organization? ”

“ I just want to say that, as far as I am concerned—that is, the best way I can describe it honestly and sincerely, is that from my environment, from the poverty since my birth and the things that happened to me as a child and as a young man, and so on, I grew up in a very, very liberal tradition where people were certainly tolerant of all the various shades and hues of political opinion as we saw them. ”

“ I would say the best compliment to me in my district would be for the Daily Worker to say that I was a rotter.
Mr. O’Connell. Well, I think that would be true today. You would be surprised if you went out to the State of Montana and went into some of the mining camps and taverns and what not. For instance, 602 we have a character in Butte by the name of Paddy King. Paddy sells the Daily Worker. He has silicosis. He is a real character around there. He goes all around the town. ”

“ I think in my work out there I have earned the respect and consideration of all the people in the kind of job I have been doing.
We do not have any integrated bar in the State of Montana. The Montana Supreme Court regulates and supervises the bar out there. I am sure that the members of the supreme court will tell you the things I have said here today about my friend and all that are true.
Mr. Velde. Do you not think you are a bit gullible or naive when you say that you did not know there was a Soviet espionage ring operating in this country? Tell the committee the truth.
Mr. O’Connell. ”

“ What I am trying to point out is that I lived in a district, that I represented a district where there were a lot of militant labor leaders who read the Daily Worker, who actually, many of them I know, were not Communists, there wasn’t any particular fear—there might have been 30 or 37 Communists in the whole State, nobody was ever bothered about them, nobody was afraid of them. ”

“ Chairman, the testimony of Barbara Hartle regarding the labor school. She was asked the question as to what connection there was between the school and the Communist Party. That is between the Pacific Northwest Labor School and the Communist Party. Her answer was as follows:
The Pacific Northwest Labor School was a Communist front project in the field of education and its basic purpose was to spread Marxist-Leninist education, but to do it in such a way as to attract non-Communists in addition to its use for being a school for Communist Party members. ”

“ There are all kinds of situations that exist. But as far as I am concerned, Lem Harris never influenced me to make a grant to the Farmers Union or to any organization.
Mr. Tavenner. Don’t misunderstand me again. My question is broader than the influencing of you. My question is whether or not it influenced the action of the trustees.
Mr. O’Connell. Of course I don’t know whether Lem Harris went out and met with Jim Patton and Gardner Jackson, who was a trustee. ”

“ For the purpose of any such investigation, the Committee on Un-American Activities, or any subcommittee thereof, is authorized to sit and act at such times and places within the United States, whether or not the House is sitting, has recessed, or has adjourned, to hold such hearings, to require the attendance of such witnesses and the production of such books, papers, and documents, and to take such testimony, as it deems necessary. ”

“ I will read it:
“Former Representative Jerry J. O’Connell, labor’s fighting Congressman from Montana, has been appointed regional director for the International Workers Order in the Rocky Mountain area, Herbert Benjamin, executive secretary of that organization, announced today. “Mr. O’Connell will be able to continue his effort on behalf of the labor movement on a much broader scale in his new post,” Herbert Benjamin declared, “since the IWO is labor’s foremost and largest fraternal benefit society. ”