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
Mr. DENNETT. Yes; I had something to do with selecting it.
When they told me that I had to choose a party name I asked for help
on it, and the only help they could offer was to use the name of J. P.
Morgan or John D. Rockefeller or Henry Ford or something like that.
They were always suggesting the most prominent capitalists as the party
pseudonym.
Mr. TAVENNER. Will you tell the committee, please, what your
first activity was in the Communist Party after becoming a member?
Mr. DENNETT. I believe that I was first assigned to carry on
this classwork in Portland, to keep this school going that was started.
But that didn’t last very long because at that time the district
organizer of the party was a man by the name of Alex Noral, who was
here in Seattle.
And Noral was troubled because they were unable to get someone to fill
the function of a district agitprop director here in Seattle. So he
was asking Fred Walker to come to Seattle to be the agitprop director
because Fred Walker had organized such a successful school in Portland
and had done such splendid work which met with the district approval.
Walker, however, had personal reasons for not wanting to leave
Portland. So he requested me to accept the assignment to Seattle. And
I was perplexed as to what to do. I was in the middle of a school
teaching year, but I was becoming more convinced all the time that
there was no future in teaching--at least the way I wanted to do it.
So I accepted, under a great deal of pressure, the assignment to come
to Seattle. And that was, I say, under a great deal of pressure, too,
because the way I was approached on it was that “Well, now you are a
member of the party. You do what the party tells you to do, and you go
where the party wants you to “go.”
Mr. MOULDER. May I interrupt at that point before you start on
your Seattle testimony?
I am curious to know, during that period of time when there were no
laws prohibiting membership in the Communist Party, why there was
direction that you operate underground or under false names?
Mr. DENNETT. You remember I spoke about the criminal
syndicalism prosecutions in Oregon. The members of the party were being
accused of violating the criminal syndicalism statute.
Mr. MOULDER. A statute?
Mr. DENNETT. In Oregon, yes. And they considered that they
were under attack for illegality.
Mr. VELDE. May I ask a question?
Mr. VELDE. I would like to know at the time you joined the
Communist Party, I believe it was in 1931, if you had any idea at that
time that the policy of the Communist Party of the United States of
America was being dictated by Soviet Russia?
Mr. DENNETT. Well, there is a sort of mixed answer to that.
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