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ra / 4 wt ELEAN GF \4 WAS no accident thet a law ~ was put on the books in 1947 requiring that officers of Amer- jean Jabor unions swear them aeives to be iree of commmiinism. An examination of* hearings 40 years befcre by the House committce on un-Aincrican activ: tles will show why. The testi- mony was piven by John P. Frey, president of the AFL metal] trades, His warning was later but” i tressed by thousands of pages of additional testimony taken from hundreds of witnesses the eountry over. that .proved no union could tolerate communism and save itself. They gave a complete pand- rama of Communist alms ani “activities not only in Americats trade wnions but in those af Rtaly, France and Britain, and showed with names, dates eand places, just how Communist infiltration into unions was _£& widinaicd wie peanut Weim ss saiitier! an ana adeantinas! talie EY had a motive, of course, in addition to his concern as & aved cilien. The AF of L ws biter because John LeaLewis’ scal had in 1935 broken loose and set up the CIO, This same Lewis, in 1974, had bouzht full-pige advertisements fn newspapers all around the United Slates to dvenuunce and expose with undeniable fact, tte eonspiratoria! character of the Cammunist movement Bs 25 agency of the Sovict goverq- ment in Moscow. Yet in 1935, for tne reasons atill obscure, Lewis had opened the doors of the C10 to com- munism. I say “still obscure” even though it is obvious from even the briefest study of Lewis's character that he loves power and is inclincd to grab any stick, to beat the dos. IT have no donbt he would use Pemensislete VOLIMUSLS BS TPE One tr rivver feet oe quickiy as he would use and has used, all other kinds of People. But yeu, in 3922-24 be had a brush with tiem that came within a hait's breadth of losing him his United Mone Workers’ unton. He ts not go Stupid as to have lorgotte , 7 at eoning einnes - ee | — ene By Frank C. Waldrop \ HAVE heard it said thet Lewis tarly saw hoW Com munism Was developing within the New Deal and decided in 1934-35 that he would run in |, ahead of it with the CIO, the | better to head off revolution. That's a likely face-saving story it is true, but it also has some merit just the same. For sure it is that the Communists iw and surrounding the govern. ment were out te capture the labor movement with the gov- ernment’s help, after 1933. Jobn L., for all thet he sat down with them, used them and was used by them. just can't be pictured as a reliable and faith- ful Moscow missionary, obedl ent to the discipline and the or- ders from the throne that every Communist must meekiy obey, a SoMEWH ERE ‘in the murky denths of New Deal chicane ery there lies a hidden story yet to be told. Lewis put the CIQi + +h together in 1835 with Commu: nists running his errands. In 1936 he handed the famous, hail a miilion doiars to F_D.R, In 1937 he began to find him sslf on the way out, and his ultimate unhappy leave-taking froin the CIO as all Qhe workd knows, was not his own idea. - His suceessor in office, Philip Murray. Was @ much softer and more pliable type, and well the Communists understood it. T WAS the intertwining of the Communists througho.t the CIO that had John P. Frey busy in 1938 filling the recor! of the House committee. He foretold what would hap pen in such major untons as the National Maritime union, the United Auto Workers, the Transport Workers, Steel Work- ers and other behemoths. _ He warmed that unless union labor kept itself free of Commu: nist encirclement, labor would one day find ttself working for a tyranny which “menaces the structure and form of our gov ernment.” * The NMU and fis president, Joe Curran, tricd to live with cotumunism and faited. Curran ht one point even denounced ‘his own orranization ss a Coth- miunist captive. The UAW has gone threaph . e the CIO as a whole, * foand-ttelf in serious=ixterna’ atraits when in 1947 it was, ab most 10 yerrs after Prey’s testi- mony, confronted with a law of Congress at last requiring that officers of unions sign affida- vits that they were not members of the Communist party. Arins Frey, wit Wilntsses flooded in and the evidence with them. Evidence of commu+ nism in the schools, in the fed- eral theater, arts and writers’ projects of the WPA, of Com munist fronts such as the Work- ers’ Alliance, International Workers’ Order, International Labor Defense. American Stu. dent Union, American Youth Name after name was entered im the commitice hearings of alien Communists in the U.S.A, subject to deportation. But no action was taken. To . the contrary, Mrs. FP. D. Roose velt, herself, was @ leader in heaping scorn and ridicule upon the committee, and on several exasions actually quartcred: Communist members of the , American Youth Congress in i the White House itself. \ \\ ANOEXED - 6 the same pattern. too- 3% 950 y, h, News he ibe “UN 28 1950 Wash. Star _ny, . Mirror ‘Page ah Times-Herald [4 a » Post N. ¥. Compass... _