California Surprised at Congressman Dies' Whitewash of Hollywood's Caviar Comrades
TAIT, DOROTHY F.
California Surprised at Congressman Dies' Whitewash of Hollywood's Caviar Comrades By DOROTHY F. TAIT LJOLLYWOOD.—The West Coast Communist hunt which **got off to a flying start a few weeks, ago...
...T thought of him the other night when I heard Norman Thomas speaking over the radio...
...It was handed over to George Cohan, who would wave the flags to make a bum show go...
...Me told the Grand Jury that on the night of the murder the Los Angeles County organizer of the Communist Party...
...Most of these are well-meaning people...
...They want the fifth column taken care of...
...But becsjuse he had sense enough to change his mind when the worjd changed around him...
...J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, announced from San Francisco that he intends to learn the "general status and activities" of Harry Bridges...
...I am not considering Communists and Fascists...
...Se.be said: "This is the time to' fight," and formed his congregation into a company...
...But like dog fights in alleys, it had a beginning...
...Lincoln seemed naive when he referred to men in blue who made sacrifices at Gettysburg "that government of the people, by the._people, for the people should not perish from the earth...
...In this field, too, the New Deal administration has spoken and acted vigorously to defend our own freedom, and has also-sought to aid the threatened or submerged democracies of the Old World...
...The dictators would have the prestige of such a world conquest as was never achieved by Kubla Khan, Alexander, or Napoleon Bonaparte...
...Hitler would be a fool to try to land an army here...
...Groups whose rights have been precarious because of religious or racial prejudice have known a larger measure of security under the Roosevelt administration, and even the enemies of democracy and freedom have been protected in the freedom they seek to destroy...
...The American people have been suddenly aroused by foreign dictatorships to the fact that this country is not safe from attack...
...At that time, he held oat no hope of ever getting around to hold hearings in California...
...American travelers would be subject to his pleasure...
...Perhaps it is always so...
...These policies, economic and political, domestic and international, are the New Deal...
...Had he lived from 1790 to 1850 he would have spent his time peacefully building up the tiutheran Church...
...The great majority of the young people favor the selective draft...
...Enemies of the New Deal, whether that enmity arises out of domestic or foreign politics, have unerringly picked out the American Labor Party as a crucial spot in the 1940 campaign...
...but all efforts of the organization are being directed at the November finals...
...All of the trumped-up and propaganda-controlled youth congresses and peace mobilizations have nothing to do with the youth of America...
...I need not mention other cases of intellectual lag...
...And in Los Angeles, District Attorney Buron Fitts reiterated his intention to ferret out Communists who are violating state laws...
...Leech was in Los Angeles on the way to his home in Portland, Oregon, after testifying before Dies' subcommittee secret hearings in Beaumont, Texas...
...John L. Leech, brought Webster, Smallman, Taylor and Jeffries to his home and told them they had gotten into trouble in the course of their party duties and that he must hide them...
...I heard General Hugh Johnson the other day pooh-poohing...
...He recognizes exactly ^hat we are up against and makes clear, clean suggestions about what we must do...
...HOUBe Committee to .IDv_i~ , Un-American Activities...
...Different people may value different things, and at different times special qualities or conditions or enjoyments may be given a special rating...
...The trouble is that they are acting in one period as though they were living in another...
...Explosive editorials appeared in the trade papers...
...Europe, Asia and Africa would be organized in a tight military and economic unit...
...IN May of this year, at the time the nation was beginning * to get defense-minded, the Los Angeles district Attorney, Buron Fitts, set up an "Anti-Subversive Activities Division," and immediately investigators began to rummage through files and sniff trails of Communists...
...turned over to the tender iimiercies, of Mr...
...The primary election, on September 17, will be the first major test of strength within the party...
...Those regulatory measures which have not been aimed ^ectly at farm or labor...
...The American Labor Party workers are aware of the danger facing us, and are equal to the task ahead.Stars Unincorporated NOT so lon, ago the country ~~ . surpci8ed to · h"r that Mar1bi Di~fi, Congressman in charre of ,th:t...
...alld ,,11'bto follo,,·ed by others until the picture ill complete...
...Mumford's main picture is false, but he tries to smear it with suspicion...
...They prom...
...Leech claims that about a year ago he gave full depositions to Dies'-West "Coast investigators...
...The issue in the 1940 presidential election is clearly drawn between these two opponents...
...Champion took this as a party command and hid the men, he stated...
...Clyde Champion, a former organiser of the Communist dominated United Cannery, Agricultural Workers and Packinghouse Workers Association (UCAWPWA), was apprehended in Bakersfield and brought to Los Angeles...
...TPHE headline spearing honors go to Congressman Martin * Dies who flew into Los Angeles on August IB and in a whirlwind investigation uncovered something he must have thought to be evidence proving that a number of famous Hollywood pinks were in reality snow white—or perhaps it was...
...They are ready to spend for armaments...
...In thi*-sort of time the speeches of Norman Thomas, the sneers of Malcolm Cowley, the arguments of Senator Wheeler or of Senator Nye fitted perfectly...
...California Attorney General Earl Warren fired a few shots at the beginning of the "season" by calling together on August 14 district attorneys and aides from ten Southem California counties to "map a fight to nip sabotage...
...But they see clearly...
...Time passed, and Dies—who had obtained his 1940 appropriation on the strength of the West Coast situation—occupied himself in states other than California...
...From 1918 to 1940 our unwarlike ways were reinforced by the cynicism of World War disillusion...
...A few days prior to the Texas primaries, at which time Dies was coming up for nomination (tantamount to election in Democratic Texas), he called to Beaumont, his home bailiwick, three California ex-Communists, John L. Leech, Rena M. Vale and George Bertholon, who he told the press were the key witnesses for the West Coast...
...In his general testimony, Leech named James Cagney, Franchot Tone, Lionel Standcr, Fredric March, Samuel Ornitz, Herbert Biberman, Jean Muir, Francis Lederer and many others as participants in the Stalinist "cultural" program for Hollywood during 1935 and 1936...
...Followed then Franchot Tone, Luise Rainer, and James Cagney, with Philip Dunn thrown in for good measure...
...Talking America down was the fashion—especially among the intelligent and sophisticated...
...Following the publication of the "Liberty" articles, Hollywood motion picture producers "hit the ceiling...
...lily white...
...Norman Thomas is not the only one...
...By continuing to say exactly what seemed right and useful ten years ago they have become public enemies more dangerous than Fritz Kuhn or Father Coughlin...
...Dies' "clean bill of health" exonerated them of pinkishness from birth...
...Courts have been humanized by the appointments of the past seven years...
...IT was at this juncture that Dies appeared in Los Angeles...
...The New Oetl has brought some measure of .security and some measure •^humanity into the jungle of "rugged individualism...
...had· .~~R · to California to prove that ~, mO"ie stars · .. ·ere ~OT ()om.unls1...
...Let these gentlemen imagine for a moment what sort of world we shall face a month after the defeat of England...
...He speaks now exactly iVhe did in 1920, in 1925, in 1$30...
...With regard to the murder, Leech corroborated Champion's testimony, saying that on the night of the murder, the four S. U. P. members had come to him and insisted that the party hide them...
...improvement have nevertheless ttt.the same general motive: the guarantee of savings *ik deposits and the regulation of security exchanges have *||nvof direct benefit to all economic groups...
...Meanwhile, District Attorney Buron Fitts has chosen to disregard Dies' kindnesses to caviar comrades and is proceeding with a Grand Jury investigation of punitive Communist activities in Los Angeles County...
...LatinAmerican countries could be penalized if they failed to do his bidding...
...Whatever evasions he included in the Republican party platform, and however Mr...
...CENTER John Leech who, it will be remembered, was the United States Immigration...
...At the time of the...
...ised Dies more unfavorable publicity than he had yet known, should he come to Hollywood and bring out the facts behind his "Liberty" articles...
...To them I recommend the example of Pastor John Peter Muhlenberg...
...They think they are doing fine service now...
...Members of the party are acutely conscious of the fact that local, national, and international decisions may turn upon the vote cast under the ALP emblem in November...
...Republicans and Communists have joined in this attack, and have sought by fair means and foul to prevent the Labor Party froip supporting and endorsing President Roosevelt for reelection...
...They don't want to go into the army and navy, but they know the crisis of the hour demands it—so they are ready to go...
...Like good little children lining up for castor oil, members of the film colony whom Leech had named as contributors to the Communist cause knocked on the doors of Dies' "secret chambers...
...Assembly district clubs, county headquarters, state headquarters, individual members and affiliated trade unions, have rallied to the defense of the American Labor Party and the New Deal with an enthusiasm unmatched since 1936...
...He, in turn, he stated, contacted State ufficials of the party and was told to use party facilities to take care of the, murder suspects, and he then took them to Champion's home...
...The destruction of all freedom within the countries ruled by the dictators, and their eagerness to extend their political systems by the force of arms, have focusscd attention upon the whole field of American foreign relations...
...The story told hue has not 'heen told in the ealltern pr...
...If a politician professed to love his pountry we just grinned...
...If genuine eloquence was ever in place it is in uus:bobk.' , I ¦ Naturally the Communists, the Nazis, the pacifists are liter- Mr.- Mumford...
...In movie ttnnt the StalinisU...
...At home, and especially in the field of industrial relations, the rights of the American people have been protected, redefined, and extended...
...paper woman...
...The common people know it, but these" great writers, orators and statesmen don't...
...And they have learned the lessons from Norway, from Holland, from France...
...Now, as in 1936, 1937, and 1938, the Labor Party holds the balance of power in New York State...
...To Norman Thomas and Malcolm Cowley I could add Senator Nye, Senator Wheeler and a lot of others...
...Fredric March and Humphrey Bogart, who Leech said were merely included on a list of cmtacts sent from New York party headquarters to Los Angeles, led the whitewash parade...
...Their misfortune is a lag due to a lack of realism...
...Thomas is the perfect example of a complete lapse...
...If the rest of us had any sneaking sentiment we concealed it like a vice...
...Most of the opposition is on the surface, among radio orators, congressmen, writers...
...There is courage and good sense," he painfully acknowledges, "in much of what Mr...
...Be'is'tremendously in earnest...
...And it is also interesting to note that those in whom the film industry had the heaviest investments were given first attention by Dies...
...But normal people always want security, .decency, opportunity to make a livelihood, something of beauty and comfort...
...He heard them in secret (no other members of the Committee were present), and statements he released to the press did not contain names or any information injurious to Hollywood pinks or "fifth column" public servants...
...They are not eloquent—not even excited...
...Thia and other ettrcmicling of left-wing Htivlty OR ·:tJY...
...I am thinking of honest American pacifists...
...murder of Reilly he was, witnesses claim, a member of the Communist fraction of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific...
...it links in with the IIMI'e !!erious activities of ' Harr,.· Bridges...
...Simple folks might love their country and crooks would pretend to love it...
...Wheeler and Nye have used the same argument...
...Department's chief witness against Harry Bridges at the Angel Island deportation trial last year...
...I know because I have "seen their faces" and heard their voices...
...Here ill the behlad the...
...Often his quiet language has a; deep eloquence...
...He proved that for years after beating England, Hitler could not land an army on our shores...
...He could dictate every dollar's worth of American foreign trade...
...It is apparent to those who have followed the Anti-Nazi League crack-up that these persons had already jumped off the Kremlin bandwagon, but everyone in Hollywood knows they were once riders...
...Assemblyman Samuel W. Yorty, who was instructed by the California Legislature to determine the extent of Communist Party influence in the State Relief Administration, has closed his hearings for the time being...
...i . • RUT the other major phase of the New Deal, its political 8 program, is in truth more fundamental than the ecoIn this year, especially, the American people know the value of democracy—of freedom and sell-government...
...But the threat to our democracy has not been limited to our own border...
...But he evidently thinks there are a lot of other people in this country who can be drugged into unconsciousness by his sort of poison...
...if* LEWIS MUMFORD has written a great book, "Faith for Living...
...It was so during the Civil War...
...Prime Minister Churchill speaks words that have an eloquence not too far from that of Patrick Henry and Abraham Lincoln...
...No Federal government since that of Lincoln has been so aggressive in championing human rights as has the administration of President Roosevelt...
...Some of them have done fine service to the cause of democracy...
...Again we are in a time when "Give me liberty or give me death" is not a high school fustian but the expression of a deliberate choice...
...American ships could leave American coastal waters only with his permission...
...On August 1, Brittain Webster, now a member of the Communist-dominated Longshoremen's Union, was apprehended and questioned...
...The typical statement runs like this: "I don't want to fight, but if England is licked we will all have to fight...
...During this happy period it became normal to make money and make progress...
...Humanity, democracy, progress—these are the New Deal, and they, are not just words...
...The antithesis of the New Deal is personified in Wendell Willkie, in his campaign manager, Joseph Martin, and in the Republican leadership generally...
...Willkie may angle for the progressive vote, fte issue is clear beyond any possibility of confusion, even hy Republican headquarters...
...WITH the issue thus stated, the American Labor Party naturally cannot hesitate...
...the $5,000 • week actors and actrH8e8 are 1I0W scurrying from those who arran Ired th_ eadletls rolU\Cl...
...He called Leech back from Portland for further questioning, and tried unsuccessfully to reach Rena Vale...
...Their opposites, almost without exception, are the program and attitudes of Wendell Willkie and his associates...
...Mterican Pacifists Ignore London Carnage, %each Outmoded Philosophy of the Twenties By WILLIAM E. JOHN rf^^RODUCE Pastor John Peterj Muhlenberg as a hero...
...Their propaganda among us would have the authority of victory...
...North told of seeing Webster brandish a piece:of pipe...
...Certain American Legions ires claim that what Dies uncovered was a whitewash brush...
...The democratic doctrine would be discredited by defeat...
...Important elements of our population would rush—as, in fact, some are doing now— to join forces with the outside Fascists...
...Labor's Stake Is Safety of New Deal from GOP, Communazi, Attacks By ELI L. OLIVER 1 (State Executive Director, American Labor Party) TflHE 1940 presidential election will decide whether or not ftlje government of the United States is to continue to kMe;that general attitude toward social problems which so been called "the New Deal...
...The National Labor Relations Act put the Constitution of the United States into effect for the first time in the work-shops of the nation...
...That attitude can be reasonably well characterized as humanitarian, progressive and democratic...
...Dies zation in Hollywood...
...Mumford says, if only he could forget his spread-eagle oratory...
...of cocklail parties, I~tures and (und-raisin", drin .. AlthougH the picture o( movie ,tars listening .oolfun'Y to Biberman di5courlle on dialectic materialislII i ••• UlliDe...
...th .. West Coast CI.O .. in ract the entire C.P_ apparatus which h supported (or several yearll...
...Cowley does the kind of learing, lrypercritieal review that makes you wish Dante could do justice to him in deepest hell for a million years or so...
...Many thinking people of California are exceedingly bitter over the Dies' whitewash, and it is anticipated that before he gets the appropriation he is now asking' from Congress he will have to do a great deal of explaining...
...To outsiders, this spurt of activity appears about as clear as a dog fight in an alley...
...This campaign is of exactly the kind for which the party was formed, the economic and political welfare of labor is at stake, and the American Labor Party must and will put up for these objectives the best campaign of which it is capable...
...apolltate I1Iovie 8tan...
...Groups whose viewpoints seem as far apart as Communism and Nazism appeared—in September, 1939— "ganged up" to attack the American Labor Party...
...But it is interesting to note that the Hollywood trade papers which had been so exercised over Dies' "Liberty" articles and over Leech's testimony to the Grand Jury, were mouse-quid about Dies' appearance in the film capital...
...His testimony was released to newspapers, but in this case names were included...
...He can't say that Mr...
...Behind this ill a story · whidl . ~ alllUMS altd annor_ tile · ·poUtl...
...Not because he Maine a great statesman...
...The lives of working people, of all Americans, will be shaped by the 1940 election...
...He is honest...
...1*HE values of life do not change rapidly or noticeably...
...We!!t Coast i8 important beca.we ., the streneth o( Commolst .,pili •. Morll...
...It is natural that it should be the ordinary people who recognize this most fully...
...The one is primarily economic: sinhnum wage and maximum honr legislation, relief for the unemployed, housing, social security, and similar elements in the New Deal program have been of direct economic benefit to millions of industrial workers...
...I.^Not-because he became a great general...
...Nothing more has been heard from that quarter...
...California Surprised at Congressman Dies' Whitewash of Hollywood's Caviar Comrades By DOROTHY F. TAIT LJOLLYWOOD.—The West Coast Communist hunt which **got off to a flying start a few weeks, ago with the indictment, by the Los Angeles County Grand Jury, of four alleged Communists for the muraer of John Reilly in 1936, has now subsided to quiet investigations in San Francisco and Los Angeles respectively...
...During a period of this sort patriotism goes into the discard...
...When JohD Leech appeared before the Los Angeles County Grand Jury* members of that body questioned him about all his activities and contacts while he was county organizer of the Communist Party in 1935 and 1986...
...This year, as never before, since the party was formed, New York's vote seems likely to be decisive in the national election...
...Again Hollywood producers "hit the ceiling...
...In that manner, evidence was uncovered of the five-year-old murder of Reilly in SanPedro...
...I have talked with them by the hundreds from here as far west as the state of Michigan...
...He hates democracy...
...They fail to see what is before them...
...Reilly was beaten to death with baseball bats and pieces of iron pipe...
...But this is nonsense...
...In the "New Republic" this great book is...
...They lack the kind of sense that Pastor Muhlenberg had when he became General Muhlenberg...
...ACLOUD of smoke today darkens Britaih's capital...
...American Labor.Party voters are thinking of the New Deal tttwo sets of relationships...
...The Nazis are battering London and everything that we have loved in life, and this person comes along—writing in a journal called "The New Republic"—and tries to smear a man because he uses words which betray a love for democracy, for decency, for kindness, for intelligence...
...American mores were set during the long and prosperous peace period from 1865 to 1914...
...1...
...If anything else were needed to spur the members of the party to their greatest effort, this New York State Communazi parallel has done the job...
...Their achievement and defense require different sorts of^sacrifice...
...Information released by Dies in Beaumont at the time—July 17-20 —revealed that Leech's -statements must have formed' the basis for Dies' assertions aisout Hollywood reds in his "Liberty" articles of last winter...
...Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" and Give me liberty or give me death" were the funny and old-fashioned fustian of a fellow who wore knee-breeches and a wig...
...story told by a We8t Gout ne...
...The best part of the' population also made reforms—made them peacefully arid developed the theory that they could be made only peacefully...
...have lIMn their Midaa turn to non-contributing...
...He and three of his alleged co-fraction members, Pegleg Taylor, Edward Jeffries and Claude Smallman, were indicted on August 8. Of several witnesses before the Grand Jury, the most important was Robert North, an eye witness, who stated that on the night of the murder he and Reilly were looking for the location of a mimeograph machine which the Communist fraction of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific was using in typical Communist manner, when they were set upon by the four above* named members of the union and several "John Does...
...The man is] discussing issues of life and death...
...In sanctified innocence he helps the cause of' Hitler...
...Malcolm Cowley, and this Mr...
...The minions of dictatorship hurl death from the air...
...This critic is not honest...
...But in 1940 we are in a different world...
...Do these nice men want to pit their nice little speeches against such a force...
...But he happened to be in the full flush of manhood in 1776...
...ntiRd~ in California...
...War seemed so remote that when we got into the catastrophe of 1914-18, our involvement could be represented as a mere accidental misstep...
...He is doing what he can to discredit it...
...Threats nf unfavorable publicity were sidetracked for some reason...
...They will back our government in sharp, adequate action...
...the stars named, and members of their families, their agents, wives, sweethearts and friends, issued vehement denials that ran into thousands of inches of newspaper space...
...Chacrii.ed· over the way in " 'hich they ""ere taken by the local co.: , missan...
...Farm proOVos, even though not always perfectly successful, have m the economic welfare of the farmer as their unvarying nkjective...
...The young men, especially, have this attitude...
...National defense has become identified in the policies of the Federal Government with all permissible assistance to the cause of freedom abroad...
...But with changing times these things come at different p'jQces...
Vol. 23 • September 1940 • No. 37
