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. TAVENNER. I would like to interrupt the course of this
testimony and produce to the committee a copy of the subpena served on
Mr. Jerry O’Connell, and call the committee’s attention to the return
which shows that it was served at 12 minutes to 9 p. m., March 8, 1955,
at his residence, 3415 Central Avenue, Great Falls, Mont., signed
Harold Mady, chief of police.
I desire to offer the document in evidence and ask that it be marked as
“O’Connell Exhibit No. 1,” for identification purposes only and to be
made a part of the committee files.
Mr. MOULDER. It is so ordered.
Mr. TAVENNER. Mr. Dennett, you were asked a question by one of
the members of the subcommittee with reference to your knowledge at the
time you became a member of the Communist Party as to what control,
if any, that a foreign power had, over the Communist Party in this
country, and you explained that.
I would like to carry that point a little further at this time.
While you were a member of the Communist Party were you acquainted with
an organization known as the Trade Union Unity League?
Mr. DENNETT. I was.
Mr. TAVENNER. Will you tell the committee, please, briefly,
what that organization was?
Mr. DENNETT. Well, it was an effort on the part of the
Communist leadership in this country to bring about the organization of
unorganized workers. It had the idea that they should be organized in
industrial unions. This is because its leader was William Z. Foster,
and William Z. Foster had been an active leader in A. F. of L. unions.
As a matter of fact, he was the leader of the great steel strike of
1919, and in the course of that strike he drew certain conclusions
about the way it was conducted, namely, that it was next to impossible
for the workers to obtain the kind of solidarity they needed to win
when they were divided into so many different craft organizations.
So it was Foster who gave the greatest attention to this question of
getting the maximum strength through organization of the workers in
unions. And the Trade Union Unity League was an effort to organize
these unorganized workers.
Now to the best of my knowledge some of the greatest success of the
Trade Union Unity League occurred right here in the Northwest.
When I came into the district in 1932 there was a comparatively young
fellow by the name of James Murphy who was the head of the Trade Union
Unity League here. He was a lumberworker. He was a bona fide worker. He
knew the language, he knew the habits, and he was able to get around
the same as any “bindle stiff.”
For fear some might not understand the use of the term, in the old days
loggers had to carry their own blankets when they went from place to
place. And the way they carried them caused them to be called bindle
stiffs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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