(The witness confers with his counsel.) Mr. MOULDER. What is your next question, Mr. Tavenner? Mr. TAVENNER. Counsel is consulting the witness. Mr. DENNETT. Counsel is calling my attention to the nature of your question asking what steps can be recommended, and he is trying to bring me back to that point a little more directly, and I appreciate it. I hope you will bear with us on it. Mr. TAVENNER. Let me suggest this to you: My question was not so much directed at what you mentioned as it is to this particular phase of the matter, that here is an organization which had very proper purposes: It apparently had no desire to be controlled or influenced by the Communist Party; but the Communist Party determined it was going to take it over. Now my point is: How, from your experience in the party, could this group have successfully resisted being taken over by the Communist Party? (At this point Representative Harold H. Velde returned to the hearing room.) Mr. DENNETT. I think there is no one single guaranty. I think it requires a number of changes in our behavior and in our attitude in the various democratic organizations. I mean by that democratic in form; I am not referring to a party as such. In that respect, many people in the union to which I should belong have asked me many times how could they guarantee that some untoward thing would not occur in the organization. And it has been my recommendation to them that the only guarantee anyone has is that he participate fully in the life of his own organization and not delegate and not allow his own responsibilities to be passed on to somebody else. If you leave it to George, let George do it, you wake up some time and find that George hasn’t done it the way you would have preferred to do it or the way you would have done it had you been there. And it is my firm conviction that one of the most hazardous parts of our democratic process is the tendency of people to leave it to somebody else to take care of their own responsibility. If a democracy is to work, if it is to be a democracy or continue to be a democracy, it is essential that each participant, each member be a participant. That is the best recommendation I can make. Mr. MOULDER. That is very true. In our investigations the committee has found many instances where the Communist Party leaders have been able to infiltrate into, say, a local union in the eastern section of this country because the membership did not attend the elections and did not vote and participate actively in the meetings. If there were other means of voting than to be personally present, that might be avoided. Mr. DENNETT. I favor referendum votes myself. Mr. TAVENNER. In other words, the point you are making is: There is a very great responsibility on each individual in his own organization regardless of the organization.