Mr. O’CONNELL. You will remember that was the period in which the CIO was beginning to organize and there was considerable, we had the little steel strike, we had Memorial Day massacre at Republic Steel near Chicago; there were many things happening in the labor situation at that time, and in my opinion the Daily Worker covered them better and did a better job than any other paper I knew of. Mr. TAVENNER. You knew of course that the Daily Worker was the official organ of the Communist Party, and that it was required to be read by all Communist Party members in order to ascertain the directives that were being issued by the Communist Party. Mr. O’CONNELL. I knew that it was the organ of the Communist Party but whether or not the members were required to do it, I was not a Communist, I didn’t know. Mr. TAVENNER. Why did you desire to give aid to the Communist Party by writing such a highly commendatory article to be printed in the Daily Worker? Mr. O’CONNELL. I was dealing with the paper as such and particularly with its labor coverage as such. I think I confined my letter to that particular phase of the coverage that the Daily Worker did. There was no intent on my part to give aid or support to the Communist Party or anything---- Mr. TAVENNER. Was it your purpose to get aid or support for yourself from the Communist Party? Mr. O’CONNELL. No, not aid and support from the Communist Party. I lived in western Montana and I was a Congressman from western Montana where we had a very, very militant tradition out there as far as labor was concerned. In that particular period and of course during the depression and at other times, labor leaders had been hanged out there, one labor leader was hanged to a railroad trestle---- Mr. TAVENNER. What has that to do with the question I asked? Mr. O’CONNELL. What I am trying to point out is that I lived in a district, that I represented a district where there were a lot of militant labor leaders who read the Daily Worker, who actually, many of them I know, were not Communists, there wasn’t any particular fear--there might have been 30 or 37 Communists in the whole State, nobody was ever bothered about them, nobody was afraid of them. As a politician they came to see me and talk with me, they came to other politicians there. Mr. TAVENNER. Communists? Mr. O’CONNELL. Yes. I can remember--in the 33d--in the 33d Legislature of Montana the Communist Party came and talked to the legislative assembly while the legislature was assembled and all that on the conditions that existed in the State at the time. There wasn’t any, I am trying to put you in the pattern and in the spirit and in the situation that existed in that day. We weren’t worried about them, we weren’t afraid of them at all. We let them speak their piece, we let them say the things they wanted to say, if they had any contribution to make, to make it, and so on.