Hearings regarding the communist infiltration of the motion picture industry. Hearings before the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, first session. Public law 601 (section 121, subsection Q (1947)

56 COMMUNISM IN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY Mr. Stripling. Mr. Wood, are you a ineniber of the Motion Picture Alliance for tlie Preservation of American Ideals ? Mr. W()(H). I am. I was the first president. Mr. Stripling. Will you tell the connnittee the circumstances mider which this organization was founded, and the rea.son why it was founded? Mr. Wood. Well, the reason was very simple. We organized in self-defense. We felt that there was a definite effort by the Communist Party members, or Party travelers, to take over the unions and the guilds of Hollywood, and if they had the unions and guilds controlled, they would have the plum in tlieir lap and they would move on to use it for Communist propaganda. Mr. Stripling. Do you recall the year that the alliance was established ? Mr. Wood. 1944. Mr. Stripling. I. have here a copy of the statement of principles of the guild. Mr. Wood. Yes, sir. Mr. Stripling. Without reading them into the record, could you briefly outline to the committee the purposes? I will hand you this. Mr. Wood. I am sorry, I don't have my glasses. I was going to ask yon to read it for me. Mr. Stripling (reading) : Statement of I'rinciples We believe in, and like, the American wny of life; the liberty and Iretnloni which generations before us have fought to create and preserve; the freedom to speak, to think, to live, to worship, to work, and to govern ourselves as individuals, as free men ; the right to succeed or fail as free men, according to the measure of our ability and our sti'ength. Believing in these things, we find ourselves in sharp revolt against a rising tide of communism, fascism, and kindred beliefs, that seek by subversive means to undermine and change this way of life; groiips that luive forfeited their right to exist in this country of ours, because they seek to achieve their change by means other than the vested -procedure of the ballot and to deny the right of the ma.ioi'ity opinion of the people to rule. In our special field of motion pictures, we resent the growing impression that this industry is made up of, and dominated by, Communists, radicals, and crackpots. We believe that we represent the vast majority of the people wh(v serve this great medium of expression. But unfortunately it has been an unorganized majority. This has been almost intnMtable. The very love of freedom, of the rights of the individual, make this great majority reluctant to organize. But now we must, or we shall meanly lose "the last, best hop; on earth." As Americans, we have no new plan to offer. We want no new plan, we want only to defend against its enemies that which is our priceless heritage: that freedom which has given man, in this country, the fullest life and the richest expression the world has ever known: that system which, in the present emergency, has fathered an effort that, more than any other single factor, will make possible the winning of this war. As members of the motion-picture industry, we must face and accept an especial responsibility. Motion pictui'cs are inescaiiably one of the world's greatest forces for inllueucing public tlionght and opinion, iioth at home and abroad. In this fact lies solemn obligation. We refuse to permit the effort of Communist. Fascist, and other totalitarian-minded groups to pervert this iiowerful medium into an instrument for the dissemination of un-American ideas and beliefs. We pledge ourselves to fight, with every means at our organizxl command, any effort of any group or individual, to divert the loyalty of the screen from the" free America that give it birth. And to dedicate our work, in the fullest possible measure, to the presentation of the American scene, its standards and its freedoms, its beliefs and its ideals, as we know them and believe in them.