Mr. O’CONNELL. You see, I really didn’t get to know him. He was elected to Congress shortly after I came out there and then he came down here to Washington and then after his defeat for Congress he was only back in the State of Washington a short time and went to work, if I recall correctly, in the national office of the Progressive Party and was working outside the State of Washington so that my contact with DeLacy was not very great. I didn’t get to know him like the people that were out in the State day in and day out and were in the Democratic Party meetings. Mr. TAVENNER. Mr. O’Connell, we have the situation where the Communist Party went deliberately about seizing the leadership and capturing the leadership in a very powerful political organization in the State of Washington, namely, the Washington Pension Union, and ahead of it the Washington Commonwealth Federation. It succeeded in capturing the leadership of it. It did it for the purpose of advancing the interests of the Communist Party. Will you tell the committee whether or not the leadership of this group, the Washington Pension Union, was successful in influencing either of the parties of which you were secretary in any of its policy actions? Mr. O’CONNELL. I think for instance, in the Democratic Party particularly by its organization and by its work and demands for improved pension legislation, they had tremendous influence on the Democratic Party. As a matter of fact the--I would say even on the Republican Party. In the 1945 session of the State legislature the actual legislation proposed by the pension union placing a $50 floor under old-age-pension grants and setting up a system of budget and what-not, the legislation which they actually introduced passed the State senate by, I think, a vote of 45 or 46 to nothing. Both Democrats and Republicans voted for it. In the House I think it passed the same way probably 102 to 1 or 105 to 3 or something like that, it was almost unanimous. In that particular effect certainly they not only had influence with the Democratic Party but certainly in putting legislation on the books---- Mr. TAVENNER. What influence did it have on the Progressive Party? Mr. O’CONNELL. Of course we had no power. We had no officials of any kind. Mr. TAVENNER. Actually, wasn’t the leadership in the Washington Pension Union and the leadership in the Progressive Party practically the same? Mr. O’CONNELL. The leadership? Mr. TAVENNER. Yes, wasn’t there an overlapping leadership which made the two practically the same?