Investigation of Communist Activities in Seattle, Wash., Area, Hearings, Part 1United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities
History
Investigation of Communist Activities in Seattle, Wash., Area, Hearings, Part 1
United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities
Communism -- Washington (State) -- Seattle
And among the points which were emphasized in this literature was the
necessity of teaching the democratic process of government. But it has
always been my experience that when you try to carry out the teaching
of the democratic process of government and you come in contact with
the military, sometimes they don’t quite agree with you. And in this
particular instance my efforts to carry out the literature and carry
out the educational program which came from John W. Studebaker’s
office, the United States Office of Education, met with considerable
resistance on the part of the company commander. He just didn’t like
the idea. It sounded to him as though it was communistic for people
to be talking about democracy and talking about having some way of
resolving grievances and difficulties and that sort of thing through
the democratic legislative method. And we came into sharp conflict over
that.
Of course, I finally gave him the excuse which he was looking for. Some
of these workers in the camp were from the soup line with me--most of
them were. They knew me around Seattle and they knew that I had been
an agitator on the waterfront and on the skidroad. I had held many
meetings on the skidroad. So I was well known to these men. And they
asked me to conduct a course in sociology. I had some knowledge on the
subject, and I had some textbooks of my own which I had used, which I
had studied when I was going to the university. One of those was a book
entitled “Contemporary Social Movements” by Jerome Davis. I had that
book. And, of course, that book attempts to survey all the then current
social, political, and economic philosophies that were occupying
the attention of various people throughout the world, including the
Communists and the Fascists, the Soviet Union and what was going on in
Italy, and that sort of thing, and also in Germany. So I proceeded to
answer the request of these workers to have a class in contemporary
social movements.
The company commander attended two sessions of the class. And he
attended those two sessions where I was using this text to describe the
Communist system in the Soviet Union and the Fascist system in Italy.
And he decided that that was subversive propaganda and should not be
conducted, and he accused me of spreading subversive propaganda in the
camp.
Mr. MOULDER. Then were you expelled?
Mr. DENNETT. Yes.
Mr. TAVENNER. Wasn’t his accusation correct?
Mr. DENNETT. I think that his accusation was misplaced. I
was making as honest an effort as I knew how to make an objective
study. And there seems to be a great deal of difficulty in these days,
as there was then, to determine the difference between an objective
presentation of a factual situation with respect to a controversial
subject without being accused of propagandizing for it. It is a
difficult point.
Mr. TAVENNER. In what work after your removal from the
Civilian Conservation Corps did you engage?
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