◆ SpookStack

September 29, 1950 CHARGE #1 ....that District Attorney Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, Democratic nominee for Attorney General, is a "leftist" because, in FEBRUARY, 1945 he described deporta~ tion proceedings against Harry Bridges as a "threat to industrial peace " and joined in a recommendation that they be dropped. THE TRUTH IT IS APPARENT FROM THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT OF FACT THAT DISTRICT ATTORNEY BROWN'S FCBRUARY, 1945, STATEMENT WAS ISSUED IN CONCERT WITH STATEMENTS MADE BY OTHER CIVIC, STATE AND NATIONAL LEADERS, FOR THE PURPOSS OF PREVENTING WATERFRONT STRIFE AT A TIME WHEN THD NATION WAS ENGAGED IN A DEATH STRUGGLE WITH THE AXIS POWERS. THE ATTEMPT, FIVE YEARS LATER, TO ISOLATE THE BROWN LETTER AND MAKE IT APPEAR THAT HE IS A "LEFTIST" FOR HAVING WRITTEN IT, IS A PALPABLY CRUDE POLITICAL SMEAR. The political philosophy of Harry Bridges had nothing to do with Ir. Erown's action, and the chronology of events leading up to it makes this fact absolutely clear. In FESRUARY, 19h5, our nation was at war. As leader of the Longshoremen's Union, Harry Bridges virtually controlled the operation of West Coast ports through which American men and material had to pass enroute to the theatres of war. Early in 194 Bridges' union wrote a voluntary "no-strike" clause into its contract. This action, in support of the war effort, lead the California State Assembly, on JUNE 13,-194h, to pass a resolution publicly praising the union for its pledge. The resolution was voted 58 to 1 and later made unaninous. On JUNE 26, 1944 ~ 13 days after the Assembly resolution was passed -~ the Jnited States Circuit Court of Appeals denied Bridges a writ of habeas corpus in his fight against deportation. This led immediately to openly expressed public apprehension that Bridges’ workers would tie up the waterfront in sympathy with hin.