that it was capable of influencing and obtaining the vote of one-third of the members who voted in the Democratic Party slate or side of the ticket and because of that fact and because we were in a higher state of mobilization than the rest of the Democratic Party when primaries came along we could exercise a more direct influence in the primaries than anybody else because our members in the Washington Commonwealth Federation had a great zeal and a greater devotion to carrying out their objectives than the other Democrats who frequently relied upon making their decisions in the general election. When asked the question why was it that the Communist Party was so interested in obtaining control of the Washington Commonwealth Federation, he replied: Because we wanted to ultimately obtain political power for the Communist Party in the United States of America. Did you observe efforts made by William Pennock and Tom Rabbitt, to get control of either the Democratic machinery, the machinery of the Democratic Party, or the machinery of the Progressive Party through the use of the Washington Pension Union? Mr. O’CONNELL. Well, I would say in a certain few districts in King County, probably one district in Snohomish County, legislative district in Grays Harbor County, that the nominees of the Democratic Party were certainly not people that the pension union had selected or had picked out but I think they were people the pension union supported because of their votes in the legislature and so on. The Commonwealth Federation was actually gone in my time. I don’t know what it did. I don’t know what its power was and what its influence was but for instance in the 35th District if Pennock was the Representative and Rabbitt was the Senator and they were both in the pension union they certainly had some influence there.