We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
HO COMMUNISM IN MOTION-PICTURE INDUSTRY Mr. Parks. I did not mean any inference by that, Counsel. All I meant was that I think you know, even better than I, that I know nothing of any conspiracy that is trying to overthrow this Govern- ment. You know this even better than I. And my point was that I think if I was working in a drug store, I doubt very much whether I would be here. Mr. Tavenner. We have had many people before this committee who have been engaged in very menial forms of making a livelihood, and that will be so in the future. Mr. Parks. Please don't take that in the wrong spirit, because it was not meant in the wrong spirit. Mr. Tavenner. I am glad it was not. I did not fully understand your reference to the possible .destruction of your career by being subpenaed here. You did not mean to infer by that that this committee was bringing you here because of any effect it might have on your career ? Mr. Parks. No, I didn't infer that at all. What I meant, and what I said, was that because of this, in my opinion, I have no career left. Mr. Tavenner. Don't you think that that question might be influ- enced to some extent by the fullness of the cooperation that you give the committee in a situation of this kind ? Mr. Parks. I have tried to cooperate with the committee in every way that I feel that I can, but I think the damage has been done. This is my personal opinion. Mr. Tavenner. Those are all the questions I have at this time, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Wood. Any questions? Mr. Jackson. Don't you think that more than the damage that possibly has been done you by this committee, which, after all, is an expression of the will of the American people and operates under the mandate of the people—don't you think the great damage occurred when you became a member of an organization which has been found to advocate the overthrow of every constitutional form of government in the world? Is this committee more to blame than your own act in affiliating with that organization? Mr. Parks. As I told you, Congressman, when I was a good deal younger than I am now, 10 years ago, I felt a certain way about certain things. I was an idealist, I felt strongly and I still do about the underdog, and it was for these reasons that this particular organi- zation appealed to me at that time. I have later found that this would not fulfill my needs. At that time, this, I don't even believe was a mistake. It may have been a mistake in judgment. This is debatable. But my two boys, for instance, I would rather have them make the same mistake I did under those circumstances than not feel like making any mistake at all and be a cow in the pasture. If a man doesn't feel that way about certain things, then he is not a man. The thing that I did—I do not believe that I did anything that was wrong. Judgment, this is debatable. This I agree. Mr. Jackson. You say, Mr. Parks, that your association at best was haphazard, and, in your own words, you are afraid you were not a very good Communist. Mr. Parks. That is correct. Mr. Jackson. Upon what do you base the opinion that the people whose names you have in your possession probably have severed their