Jurisdictional disputes in the motion-picture Industry : hearings before a special subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, Eightieth Congress, first-session, pursuant to H. Res. 111 (1948)

MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES 245 Mr. McCann. With the actors' group trying to get them to get together ? Mr. Arnold. Yes. Mr. McCann. And that was entirely fruitless ? Mr. Arnold. Yes. Mr. McCann. When you gentlemen got through in Chicago, what did you do then? Mr. Somerset. I should like to clear that last part on Chicago ? Mr. McCann. Proceed, Mr. Somerset. Mr. Somerset. The last 3 days of the convention we were still trying to do our best, right up to the last day, to see if it couldn't be settled between Hutcheson and Walsh. Joe Keenan did his best. Joe Keenan was the representative of the IBEW, who later came to Hollywood, which you will hear about. Everyone present gave me to understaiid — and I know gave Eddie to understand at that time — that it was practically a deadlock, that Hutcheson could not give in from a prestige angle and that Walsh could not give in because he would be lost. These statements were naturally off the record. In other words, they were trying to show us the impossibility of getting any further. About the day before the end of the convention was the first time that I had a chance to talk to Herb Sorrell. When Gene Kelly couldn't get him after the first day he left — on the first day of the convention. I told Herb Sorrell what Kelly would have told liim. We thought he would believe Kelly better than he would me and that therefore Kelly was the one to tell him. I told him that this is what Kelly would have told him if he had been present. I told him just what Ronnie has told you as to what Hutcheson said. Herb said, "That is not what the three men told me. I have seen the three men and they did not tell me what you have just informed me they told you at your meeting." I said, "Well, would you find them again? Would you talk to them individually, or any way you can, and let me know if they still tell you the same as you tell me they told you, because if that is the case, we better know it. We better let our gang know that everything isn't kosher." The next time I saw Herb was the day before the convention closed. I think it was the day before. I asked Herb if he had seen the men. He said that he had and he said, "Yes ; I have seen two of them." I said, "Did they tell you substantially what I told you?" He said, "Yes ; not exactly but substantially." I said, "What is going to happen ? What can happen ?" Herb said, "It seems to me that it is a matter of elimination." And I said, "What do you mean by 'elimination'?" He said, "One side or the other will have to go." And that was just about the end of our conversation. I talked to the three men again. One of them left and I talked to the other two, and I asked them again — I said to them, "What you told us, is there any change whatsoever?" That was in front of Edward Arnold. Again tliey said, "Absolutely not. We have not chai]ged. We will never change. We can't change. That is what we feel and that is exactly what we feel now, and that is exactly what we will always feel." This was the last few days of the convention. The last day of the convention I said, "Good-by," to Hutcheson, and I said, "Bill, isn't there anything that we can do?"