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)

COMMUNISM IN MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY 147 Mr. Smith. Mr. McGuinness, my investigation reflects that it isn't necessary for these Communist writers to actually put any material into pictures, but that it is possible for them to receive lar^e salaries each M'eek and from that salary donate to the Communist l*ai'ty and actually further and operate their activities throughout the United States. Is it your opinion that that can be done, being affiliated in the studios? Mr. McGuinness. I think that is done. I think that substantial sums of money are raised in Hollywood, or raised through the advertising power of Hollywood personalities. I also think if the industry was surveyed and every picture it has made for the last 10 years appraised that the weight of evidence in favor of constructive American pictures on the screen would be preponderantly in the favor of the industry and its patriotism. But I do not maintain, and I could not maintain, that vigilance has been so successful that nothing has ever crept by. I want to state, as Mr. Menjou did, that I believe no head of any studio with whom I am acquainted — and I also know most of them over a great period of years — would consciously allow any propaganda that served a Communist purpose to get on the screen. But I do not think we have been infallible. I think we have stubbed our toe occasionally. I think we will do it less in the future. Mr. Smith. Do you feel, Mr. McGuinness, that they have plenty of time and that if they get more writers and more leaders and more control as the time goes on that the vigilance will become more difficult and they then can at some time in the future take over ? Mr. McGuinness. I believe this : There has been a long strike, one of the longest in the labor history in the United States, going on in Hollywood. That strike began with a very strong supporting group of guilds which had been organized and brought together by Herbert K. Sorrell, about whom there has been considerable testimony before this committee. It was an amusing feature of his organizational work that some years ago he issued cards as painters to the Screen Office employees who were the stenographers, the clerks, and the telephone operators; also to the General Publicists Guild — and there may be some justification for thinking the press agents paint — and also to the Story Analysts Guild. However, when the strike was called many of these guilds rebelled against the idea of respecting picket lines by order from headquarters. Membership meetings were held at which the issue was forced to a vote of the membership. In the case of the Screen Office Employees Guild they voted not to respect the strike, and they subsequently broke away from the painters' union and reorganized themselves as the separate Office Workers Employees Guild under charter from the American Federation of Labor. Had Sorrell and his group won that strike, which, incidentally, was supported to the utmost by the controlling group of the Screen Writers Guild — they attempted to get the Directors Guild or the Actors Guild to support the strike, also to the extent of not crossing picket lines, and they were unsuccessful in that attempt — but had they succeeded they would have had a tight hold on many of the important guilds and unions, the craft unions, within the industry. This would have been attained at a time when the present Screen Writers Guild contract with the producers has only about a year or 15 months to run.