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C. I. O. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE'S CAMPAIGN HAS

BEGUN

Already the Nation-wide campaign of the C. I. O. Political Action Committee has begun. Meetings are being held in all of the major cities of the United States. Regional conferences are being scheduled which cover the whole country. Even in small communities, local committees are getting to work on the 1944 election campaign. The leaders of the C. I. O. Political Action Committee are making good their promise to cover the whole United States with a thoroughness which is extraordinary for American political campaigns.

We reproduce at this point two newspaper stories concerning the meetings of the C. I. O. Political Action Committee in our major cities. These newspaper accounts will serve to indicate the type of meetings now being conducted. One of these meetings was held in Kansas City in January 1944, with Sidney Hillman as the main speaker. The other was held in Detroit in February 1944, with Harry Bridges as the featured attraction. The nature of the C. I. O. Political Action Committee's assault upon the Congress of the United States is clearly defined by the remarks of Harry Bridges at the Detroit meeting. "Why," said Bridges, "there are more Hitler agents to the square inch in Congress than there are to the square mile in Detroit." Parenthetically, it should be noted that a group of Hitler agents has just been convicted of sedition in Detroit-a fact of which Harry Bridges must have been aware when he made his attack upon Congress.

The account of Sidney Hillman's meeting in Kansas City appeared in the Kansas City Star of January 26, 1944, and reads as follows:

Two C. I. O. AIMS-SIDNEY HILLMAN HERE TO ORGANIZE THE UNION FOR 1944 POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PLANS FOR A BIG VOTE-GOALS ARE FULL EMPLOYMENT AND INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION-WOULD OUST ISOLATIONISTS

A twofold objective of protecting full employment and obtaining international cooperation accounts for the C. I. O.'s plunge into the 1944 election contests, Sidney Hillman, chairman of the C. I. Ó. political action committee, explained here today.

The president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, named to head the C. I. O. vote drive, arrived at the Hotel Muehlebach with a party of officials. A 2-day conference will be held to organize the voting activities in Kansas and Missouri.

SEEK A BIG VOTE

"Our first objective is to obtain a large registration," he said. "It is the history of the country that it goes reactionary when a very light vote is cast. We're hoping for a vote at least as large as in 1940 when more than 50 million were cast." The registration drive will be conducted through the shop stewards in plants, and by other organization leaders. The conference here will perfect the plans and a C. I. O. political action director for Missouri and Kansas will be appointed, Hillman said.

Specific endorsements of, or opposition to, candidates will be made later, the chairman said. Asked if the C. I. O. would support the fourth-term candidacy

of President Roosevelt, Hillman replied, with a smile, that "no commitments have been made."

"We'll wait until after the national conventions have been held," he added. "Then we may hold a conference of the C. I. O. and cooperating groups-and we may not. The chief executive this time should have a mandate from the people because of the difficult international issues involved."

TYPE TO BE DEFEATED

Hillman defined "after Pearl Harbor isolationists as the type of men that ought to be eliminated."

"A great many honest people, in our own ranks, too, were isolationists before the war. Now, anyone with such views is hopeless and is helping build fascism. There are enough of them in the Senate for the people to be concerned about." A minority in the Senate controls international peace, he amplified, explaining that a two-thirds vote is necessary to ratify treaties. Every time one isolationist is eliminated "you are two to the good," he added.

The C. I. O. intends to throw its weight into the campaign in helping mobilize 14 million trade unionists and their families, as well as farm and other progressive groups, he said. His group is working jointly with the A. F. L. and other organizations, in parallel lines.

"Only 28 million votes were cast in 1942 elections," he pointed out. "Labor alone could be responsible for that many votes if full registration is obtained and people go to the polls."

INTO STATE CAMPAIGNS

The C. I. O. will enter the State, congressional, and national campaigns, Hillman said. Approval or disapproval of every candidate may not be given, but a stand will be taken on many. The records of all will be supplied. In some districts the C. I. O. will have to determine its strength and possibility of joining with other groups.

"I know we're quite a factor in Missouri and we have a considerable following in Kansas," he remarked.

Hillman said a "reactionary coalition of Republican and Democratic Congressmen is attempting to disfranchise 10 million servicemen," an effort he described as "outrageous."

If national income is 100 billion dollars after the war, as estimated, he added, it will mean 15 million persons unemployed. Only candidates working for full employment should be elected, and ones who will cooperate in international relationships.

A CLOSED CONFERENCE

The Lithuanian-born labor leader, who rose to top rank under President Roosevelt in the war-production program, will meet at 2 o'clock in a closed conference with Kansas and Missouri C. I. O. steering committees at the Hotel Pickwick. At 2 o'clock tomorrow he will attend a meeting at the Community church, to which A. F. L. representatives, railroad brotherhoods, farm representatives, and the clergy have been invited.

With him were C. B. Baldwin, assistant chairman of the political action group; John Abt, general counsel; Richard Rohman, publicity director of the Amalgamated; and Irwin L. DeShelter, C. I. O. regional director.

The account of Harry Bridges' meeting in Detroit appeared in the Daily Worker of February 28, 1944, and reads as follows:

200 MICHIGAN LEADERS HONOR HARRY BRIDGES

DETROIT, Mich., Feb. 27.-More than 200 prominent leaders from all walks of life attended a luncheon given in honor of Harry Bridges by the Wayne County C. I. O. Council, at the Book Cadillac Hotel here Friday, Feb. 18.

Bridges, victim of a disgraceful red-hunt by the Department of Immigration under Attorney General Francis Biddle's direction, is fighting deportation proceedings which have rallied the nation's labor and progressive movement to his side. He has twice been cleared in government hearings but Biddle, nevertheless, has continued steps to deport this outstanding C. I. O. leader and one of the most inspiring war figures in the country.

Seated at the speakers' table with Mr. Bridges were: Mrs. Clara Van Auken, national Democratic Committeewoman; Miss Elizabeth Stellwagon, president, Michigan Federation of Democratic Women's Clubs; Circuit Court Judge Lila M. Neuenfelt; C. Pat Quinn, president, Wayne County C. I. O. Council; Prof. Samuel Levin, head of the Economics Department, Wayne University; Prof. E. W. McFarland, president, Greater Detroit Consumers' Council; Ben Probe, secretary, Michigan C. I. O. Council; and George Wilson, president, San Francisco Industrial Union Council.

BRIDGES URGES UNITY

Bridges spoke on the necessity for unity and political action for winning the war. He warned against apathy on the part of voters and urged that the people act on all vital legislative questions. Cautioning against relaxing political efforts on the strength of the belief that President Roosevelt will automatically be reelected for a fourth term, Bridges stated that Roosevelt will not run again unless he receives sufficient indications from the public that they will work to elect a win-thewar Congress to work with him.

If a bad Congress is elected, contended Bridges, the President will probably return to the ranks of the American people and fight for progressive issues as a private citizen. "Roosevelt is holding back on running for a fourth term," he conjectured, "because he wants to see what we are going to do about sending some of those rascals (Congress) home to stay. Why, there are more Hitler agents to the square inch in Congress than there are to the square mile in Detroit."

Probate Judge Patrick H. O'Brien summarized the sentiment of the luncheon gathering on the question of the Harry Bridges Case, in a message stating: "There is no doubt in my mind that the proceedings for the deportation of Harry Bridges will finally be defeated because, from the standpoint of fact and law, the proceedings are untenable. The unfortunate aspect of the present situation, however, is that, while we are in the midst of a global war, and at a time when all of the energy that our country can muster should be directed toward the main object of winning the war, it has become necessary for diverse groups of liberal and forwardlooking people all over the country to expend their energies in defeating a proposal to deport one whose presence here in America is vitally necessary to the war effort, and whose life and struggle have been an inspiration to the common people of this country. In my opinion there is no man in the country-whether labor, or capitalist, whether intellectual or unlearned-whose career in this country better represents the high ideals of our civilization and even of our American way of life than the man whom you honor today-Harry Bridges. I hope that either honorable Francis Biddle, or his Excellency Franklin D. Roosevelt, will act promptly to put an end to these senseless proceedings."

R. J. Thomas, George Addes, and Richard Frankensteen telephoned from Los Angeles, where they were in a U. A. W. Executive Board meeting, expressing their regrets at being unable to leave California in time for the luncheon.

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NEW YORK CONFERENCE OF JANUARY 14-15, 1944

On January 14-15, 1944, the C. I. O. Political Action Committee held a national conference in the Florentine Room of the Park Central Hotel in New York City. The predominance of Communists on the program of this conference provides a true index of the extent to which the Communists have not only infiltrated the C. I. O. but have also been accorded places of leadership in Sidney Hillman's C. I. O. Political Action Committee.

The following Communists participated as speakers in the conference of January 14-15: Donald Henderson, Reid Robinson, Julius Emspak, Grant W. Oakes, Michael J. Quill, Joseph Curran, Lewis Merrill, Ruth Young, and Ferdinand C. Smith. The Communist records of each of the foregoing persons is discussed in some detail in this report.

Collaborating with the C. I. O. Political Action Committee in this conference were a half dozen prominent officials of Federal agencies, among them being Clinton Golden who is vice chairman of the War Manpower Commission. Golden's radical record goes back many years to the time when he was associated with the communistic Brookwood Labor College at Katonah, N. Y.

The Communist C. I. O. leaders who predominated on the speakers' roster at this conference were not so long ago just as outstanding in the American Peace Mobilization as they are today in the C. I. O. Political Action Committee. As Peace Mobilizers they showed the true colors of their patriotism. As Peace Mobilizers they bitterly assailed the Congress of the United States for giving aid to Great Britain through lend-lease. As Peace Mobilizers they publicly declared their indifference concerning the outcome of the war in Europe: to them there was no choice between the Nazis and Great Britain. As Political Actioneers they are again bitterly assailing the Congress of the United States, but this time with the charge that an overwhelming majority of the Congress is obstructionist with respect to winning the war. It is obvious, of course, that their attacks upon Congress whether of 1940 or of 1944-spring from their commitments to a totalitarian philosophy and their undeviating loyalty to a foreign power.

If an organization that features Donald Henderson, Michael J. Quill, Joseph Curran, Reid Robinson, Julius Emspak, Ruth Young, Ferdinand C. Smith, Grant Oakes, Lewis Merrill, and the like as its leaders should, through the negligence of the American electorate, ever achieve political power in the United States, there would be an end to the American form of government-with its three co-equal and independent branches--as we have known it from the beginning of our Republic. Such an end to our form of government is the aim of these Communist conspirators under the leadership of Sidney Hillman. Their high positions in labor organizations and their pretended patriotism mask one of the most subversive movements this country has ever known.

11

VOTING CHARTS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY AND THE C. I. O. POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE

One of the methods by which the C. I. O. Political Action Committee is at present carrying out its attack upon the Congress of the United States is the use of a chart which shows how the members of the House of Representatives have voted on 20 measures.

There is, of course, absolutely nothing amiss, subversive, or otherwise improper about giving the widest publicity to the way in which a member of the House of Representatives casts his vote. Any citizen or any group of citizens is at liberty to pass judgment upon a member of Congress on the basis of his voting record. Indeed, it is eminently fitting that this should be done. Members of Congress expect to be judged on their voting records.

But the important fact about the voting chart which is now in use. by the C. I. O. Political Action Committee is that it is absolutely identical with the voting chart now being used by the Communist Party for the same purpose. Both groups have selected the same twenty measures for passing judgment upon members of Congress. In other words, the political views and philosophy of the Communist Party and the C. I. O. Political Action Committee coincide in every detail. The Communist Party's judgment for or against a member of Congress is based upon grounds which are absolutely identical with the grounds used by the C. I. O. Political Action Committee in deciding for or against a member.

It is also significant to note that the overwhelming majority of the members of the House of Representatives are blacklisted on the the basis of this chart which is now being circulated by the Communist Party and the C. I. O. Political Action Committee. More than 75 percent of the members of the House fail to pass the test which is based upon their voting records on the arbitrarily chosen 20 measures.

It is not at all surprising that the voting charts of the Communist Party and the C. I. O. Political Action Committee should coincide completely. It is not, however, a case of mere coincidence. It could hardly be otherwise when there is such an extensive overlapping of personnel in the two organizations.

While members of Congress do not object to the publicizing of their records, such is not true of the leaders of the C. Î. O. Political Action Committee. They have used every influence within their powers to prevent the issuance of this report. Most of them do not wish their Communist records, together with the seditious nature of those records, exposed to the light of day by a committee of the Congress.

We have already referred to the fact that the 20 measures used in the voting charts of the Communist Party and of the C. I. O. Political Action Committee were arbitrarily chosen. In the period covered by these 20 measures, the House of Representatives voted on thousands of measures. Just why the 20 were selected out of these thousands is far from clear. It is interesting to note further that these voting

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