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)

414 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES be good Tvill on botli sides and that there would be no trouble, and now nobody likes it, Hutcheson doesn't like it and other people don't like it and one side interprets it one way and another side interprets it another way, and we are asked to come along and we wrote the clarification." He said that they sajd the same thing in more words and used, he did say a bushel of words, but I would still not think and I didn't think at the time this would mean that he was saying the clarification did not express their meaning in December. That made it very clear to me that they meant what they said in December, and they meant they had taken into consideration all the arguments by the carpenters. The same thing applies to the interpretation that the actors placed on their talking about the pressure upon them. It seemed to me plain and seems to me plain now at that time and after hearing Mr, Birthright what they meant by pressure. Of course, there was pressure upon them. There was not only pressure from the carpenters, there was pressure upon them by many people who are in on this. No doubt at the meeting of the A. F. of L. executive council in December and every other meeting they discussed, and there was chronic pressure upon them by everybody who wanted to clear the situation up here, and they were undoubtedly pressured by Mr. Hutcheson. Mr. Birthright in Indianapolis told me about Hutcheson and indicated his annoyance because he was annoyed and didn't want to be bothered about the thing, didn't want to get into it, because it was causing him constant headaches. That is what the pressure was, it seemed to me. Then when the Screen actors talked about it they put a very strict interpretation upon that and they got the notion into their heads that those men were forced to sit down and to write something they didn't mean in December and didn't mean when they wrote it. Now, there are a series of incidents which occurred after this, and I think that are covered fully in the testimony in this hearing. There has been testimony here several times that the producers all throughout this whole thing have been interested only in having this thing settled equitably and getting the people back to work, that they have always been willing to support any kind of a proposal of arbitration that was made. In don't think the record, certainly not my own experience, substantiates that position, and the record of these experiences led me to believe that the producers were closely cooperating with the lATSE in this effort to destroy the conference, led me to believe that at some time or another, there was back of this hypothesis, and it simply is a hypothesis, that the decision was made before August 1946, before the December directive, after the December directive was passed, after the strike began, but at some time or other the producers, and by that I mean chiefly Mr. Nick Schenck, the producers reached a decision to support the lATSE and get rid of the conference of studio unions, possibly because — I am speaking hypothetically — possibly because they were just tired of having to deal with two groups of Hollywood unions and wanted to deal with one, thinking that to deal with one would be more simple than dealing with two, possibly because the producers after off-the-record expressing their knowledge have treated this subject very gingerly. In fact, in this hearing the producers have very often complained of the men who were at the head of the lATSE and have given that as the reason why they can get along always with the lATSE.