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COMMUNISM IN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY 67
Mr. Wood. Well, I tliink if you are taking your orders from a foreign country you nnist be an agent of that foreign country, and there is no question about tlie Conniuinist Party. It is not a local thing. If it was a political party and had the same ideals and ideas, and put them on a platform, I wouldn't o})en my mouth ; but I don't think they have their own ideas ; I think they get their orders and follow them out. If they thought that their way of handling the situation was better than ours, I wouldn't say anything, but I don't think they have any right to be permitted to go on and try and tear this country down and give us what Russia has.
Mr. Wood (Congressman). Do you mean by that you feel that each of them, the rank and lile, are getting orders directly from the foreign government ?
Mv. Wood. No; I don't think they get orders, personally; they take orders from the heads. They just give them their orders and tell them what to do, and they do it.
Mr. Wood (Congressman). Do you think they are all conscious of the fact that they are doing that under orders from a foreign power?
Mr. Wood. We have ti'ied to figure out why they do it — why they take the abuse and give the money away they do. We can't figure it out, except that maybe they think if anything happens they are going to be the commissars here — they are going to be the executives of the studios.
Some of them, I think, want to be intellectuals. I think they have different reasons; but we cannot quite figure out how they can dominate these people, Americans, ancl make them do the things they do. There are some of them back there now.
The CiiAiiorAN. We will take care of them when their turn comes.
Mv. Wood. I will help you, sir.
Mr. Wood (Congressman). If they were all eliminated from the picture, would it, in your opinion, weaken the effectiveness of the picture industry or the purpose for which it is organized ?
Mr. AVoOD. Definitely not. There are only a few of them. There are some stars that are important, yes; but the rest of them wouldn't make a bit of difference, we wouldn't Ivuow they were gone. We have lost some very fine peo^^le in this business. The greatest man we ever had in the business was Irving Thalberg. He died. It was a great loss. These other people, we wouldn't know they were out of here. If they went back to Russia — and I hope they do — we would be better off, that is all.
Mr, Wood (Congressman). Mr. Chairman, for myself I desire to extend my personal thanks to Mr. Wood for his courageous and efficient manner in appearing before the committee.
The CiiAiK^iAX. Mr. Stripling.
Mr. Striplixct. Mr. Wood, do the Communists maintain any schools or laboratories in Hollywood for the purpose of training actors or writers ?
Mr. Wood. Yes; they have a laboratory theater there.
Mr. Striplixo. What is the function of this theater?
Mr. Wood. Well, in the old days we used to have youngsters who had a chance to study to become actors and actresses through the stock companies. Every city had two or three stock companies, but now