I went on to school being firmly convinced, as a result of what I had seen as a child, having seen workers defeated time after time in strikes and in disputes, I became thoroughly convinced that the most priceless thing that anyone could obtain would be a full and complete education. And I hoped to receive one. I don’t think I ever received as much as I wanted. Finally, after obtaining my teaching certificate and beginning to teach--you remember the year was 1928. And in 1929 the stock market crashed. And it wasn’t very long before the effects of that economic interruption began to be felt throughout the land. And among the first to feel it were the teachers, at least in the State of Oregon with which I was then familiar. The teachers were required to accept great discounts in order to cash their warrants--15, 20, and in some cases 25 percent discounts were taken by the banks to cash the teachers’ warrants. And teachers were generally receiving at that time about $100 per month. I was fortunate. I was teaching in a district which was a rather wealthy district, and they were not on a warrant basis. But I began to have great apprehension because most of the teachers I knew were suffering this way. And this was in 1931. Of course, I had been concerned about economic problems over most of my life. And when I was a high school boy I read Marx’s Das Kapital, and I was somewhat acquainted with his theory of economics. And I was quite disturbed at this economic crash which began with the stock market crash of 1929. So I was looking for some organization which might give some kind of an answer. In fact, I think that I told some of my friends that I was actually looking for the Communist Party for 2 years before I found it. In 1931 my father sent me a notice of a Civil Rights Conference to be held in Portland, Oreg. This conference was being called to organize a defense for some people in Portland who had been accused of violating the criminal syndicalism law in the State of Oregon. They were alleged to be Communists. Some of them I later learned actually were Communists. My father was unable to attend the conference. So he asked me to go. I went. There I met the first Communists. The first one that I met was Mr. Fred Walker, and a person by the name of Paul Munter. Mr. MOULDER. May I interrupt? Is that the Civil Rights Congress? Mr. DENNETT. It wasn’t a congress, it was a conference. Mr. MOULDER. Civil Rights Conference? Mr. DENNETT. Yes, sir. Mr. MOULDER. Was it an organization? Mr. DENNETT. No. It was certainly a temporary organization for that particular case. Mr. MOULDER. Who was the leadership of that? Mr. DENNETT. It was organized under the auspices of the International Labor Defense, better known as the ILD. And they had their attorney at this conference who gave an explanation of the case, an explanation of the law, and outlined the program of the International Labor Defense for the purpose of trying to win that case.