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)

356 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES ]Mr. Arnold. Mr. Counsel, if the people who are in dispute here can't get together among themselves, I don't know how in heaven's name the courts are going to do it, unless they put them all in jail. ]Mr. Reagan. You see, Mr. McCann, the question that was asked us is trying to lead or trap us into saying something that might indicate that we favor the Government forcing somebody to go to work. I am a laboring man and a union man, and I believe in the inalienable right of any man to strike if he so desires. Mr. McCann. Mr. Chairman, that completes the questions. Mr. CoBB. I have another question. Mr. McCann. He has one more question to ask. Mr. Kearns. Let's move it along. We don't want to lose any time. Mr. McCann. Gentlemen, this question is submitted to you : Do you believe the courts should have the power to enforce a worker's right to work under a collective-bargaing contract? Mr. Reagan. That is getting into a pretty legal field, too. Mr. McCann. That is Mr. Cobb's question. Mr. Reagan. Mr. Cobb is getting us into a sort of a legal field here, that it would take a lot of study to answer a question like that. I think that is why unions hire lawyers. I think you are getting into a field there — could I make a statement, Mr. McCann, to indicate the attitude of the gentlemen here, and myself, and of the Screen Actors Guild, regarding our labor policy and our belief ? Mv. McCann. We will be glad to take it, sir. Mr. Reagan. First of all, we have a very great faith, not only in America but in the American citizen and the American workmen, who, as was said here the other day, is the backbone of America. We believe in Jefferson's words, which he expressed better, that the American citizen, if you tell them the whole truth, will never make a mistake. We believe in the purposes of legislation concerning labor unions. We do not believe in the principle of legislation trying to interject itself into the relations between employers and employees, to bring in a relation which has never operated historically, and we are not sure that it will ; and we do believe in the democratic rights of the American workingman within his union to try to preserve what we have gotten. We entered this strike primarily with a selfish motive. We were attempting to settle it because the overwhelming bulk of our people are free-lance actors. They are not under contract. They only work when pictures are being produced. We know that labor strife that slows down production cuts down the number of pictures and our people don't work. That was our primary purpose in entering into this trouble and trying to settle it, because we were elected to represent the actors on our executive board. So we felt we had an obligation to the whole industry, I will say, and if it was possible at all to stop the fracas, we should do so. Now, when we entered this thing, we knew what is obvious and has been proven here time after time, I believe, that it was a jurisdictional dispute, an argument between two labor leaders. We saw no reason then and see no reason now why several thousand men would have to give up their means of livelihood while those men argued about something that must eventually be settled by arbitration and could have been settled then. That has always been our task. In regard to neutrality on this, we don't properly know who should do what in the studios. We have never tried to decide that. We are