Mr. O’CONNELL. Well, I naturally read some of the news stories in both the Seattle Post Intelligencier and the Seattle Times. And I heard about her. Now, I don’t recall her too well but I am pretty sure that in the early days of the WPA in the State of Montana she, I think she was working in the Great Falls area; if I remember her correctly, she is rather short and squat, rather pasty complexion? I don’t remember her too well. I can remember she--I think I saw her once or twice at that time while I was on the Public Service Commission and later when I was in Congress, a group of people had gone down and raided a commodity warehouse in Great Falls and had taken food and various things out of the commodity warehouse. If I remember her correctly, at that time she was on a committee that came to see me to use my influence to see that they weren’t prosecuted for what they had done. Then I later saw her in the State of Washington, my feeling would be maybe 3 or 4 times. I am pretty sure; I don’t remember her too well. Mr. VELDE. Could you place those times you did see her more definitely as to the year? Mr. O’CONNELL. I really couldn’t. I was in the State of Washington from August of 1944 until October of 1949, and it is over that period of time that I actually saw her. Mr. TAVENNER. During the 1954 hearings of this committee in Seattle, Barbara Hartle was asked to tell the committee from her own personal knowledge what connection the Washington Pension Union had, if any, with Communist activity in that area. I should state to you that Barbara Hartle was one of the Smith Act defendants in the State of Washington and was convicted. She testified before this committee after her conviction and sentence. She testified very fully regarding her knowledge of Communist Party activities in the Northwest. She described the circumstances under which she became a member of the Communist Party and how she rose to the No. 2 position in the Communist Party in the State of Washington. This is the answer that she gave to the question of the connection between the Washington Pension Union and Communist activities: There was quite a lot of connection with Communist activity in this area between the Communist Party and the Washington Pension Union. The Northwest district of the Communist Party has paid a great deal of attention to the Washington Pension Union for a long period of years. What to do next in the pension union has been the subject of many discussions in district board and district committee meetings in which I have participated between the period of 1932 to 1940 and in large district committee meetings before that in the latter 1930’s.