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58 COMMUNISM IN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY
can be eliminated and you wouldn't miss it. If you picture some official, or the banker, as a dirty "so and so," we can see that, and out it jToes. Of course, they know me pretty well. In fact, I don't have any of them around. I don't want them.
Mr. Stripling. You haven't had any trouble with any of the Communists in your own productions?
Mr. Wood. No.
Mr. STRirLiNG. Why do you think that is ?
Mr. Wood. Because I don't have them. Don't want them.
Mr. STRirLiNG. Is that true of all the studios in the motion-picture industry ?
Mr. Wood. I know the heads of most of the studios. I know Louis Mayer, Mrs. Schenk, Eddie Manix, I know the Warners, Mr. Friedman, Mr. Ginsburg of Paramount, Mr. Yates of Republic. I could go on down the line. I don't think any of them would willingly permit propaganda, Communist propaganda, in their pictures. But it is impossible, utterly impossible for the heads of the studios to read the number of scripts they would have to read. There is the danger. They are always trying. So you have to be a watchdog.
Mr. Strttling. What group in the industry must be watched more carefully than the rest ?
Mr. WojOd. The writers.
JNIr. Stripling. The writers ?
Mr. Wood. Yes, sir.
Mr. Stripling. Is it your opinion that there are Communist writers in the motion-picture industry?
Mr. Wood. Oh, yes. It is not my opinion, I know positively there are.
Mr. Stripling. Would j^ou care to name any that you know yourself to be Communists?
Mr. Wood. Well, I don't think there is any question about Dalton Trumbo; any .question about Donald Ogden Stevrart. The reporter asked the question of a great many writers, "Are you a member of the Communist Party," or "Are you a Communist?"
Mr. Stripling. Did they deny it?
Mr. Wood. They didn't answer it.
Mr. Stripling. Was John Howard Lawson one of those persons?
Mr. Wood. Oh, yes; he is active in every piece of Communist work going on.
Mr. Stripling. Is there any question in your mind that John Howard Lawson is a Communist ?
Mr. Wood. If there is, then I haven't any mind.
I suppose there are 19 gentlemen back there that say I haven't.
Mr. Stripling. When did you first notice this effort on the part of the Communists to enter Hollywood or to exert influence in the motion-picture industry?
Mr. Wood. Well, I think they really started working around 1030, some, I forget the exact time. I think we were very conscious of it, had been for some time, but like everyone else we probably hadn't done anything, because it is quite an effort and you get quite smeared, and a lot of people would like to duck that. It is fun to play bridge, for instance, rather than to check on something like that. We felt it more, I think, just previously to our organization in 1944.