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)

422 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES get the impression that Mr. Hutcheson had in any way forced Mr. Birthright or the committee to do anything, I did certainly get the impression that Mr. Hutcheson, like everybody else in the picture, was a source of annoyance to Mr. Birthright because Mr. Birthright would have been very happy if the December directive had been accepted by everybody in the spirit in which he thought they had written it and no trouble had arisen. So he was annoyed at Mr. Hutcheson and everybody else who had anything to do with creating the causing of the flifficulties that had arisen out of it. But at no time did he give me the impression he had been forced by Mr. Hutcheson to do anything. I talked, then, with Mr. Morris Hutcheson and I told Mr. Morris Hutcheson that I thought the position that his father had taken all through this, at least as it had been reported to me by people like the screen actors, had not in any way materially helped to settle this or even helped his own people. I thought he was making a great mistake. I want to say at this point I have never held any brief for Mr. Hutcheson. I publicly and severely ci'iticized him in a speech that has been entered into the record for reference. He is a Republican and I am a Democrat, so that is one reason we wouldn't see eye to eye, anyway. I did not think his attitude had been very helpful at all. I had the impression he did not seem to be sufficiently concerned about the people out here in Hollywood who were out of work. I had been told, or had gained the impression, gathered the impression from things that had been said so often by the screen actors and the position that was taken so often by the lATSE and the producers, that the main stumblinir block to any kind of arbitration was Mr. Hutcheson. He was unwilling to agree to any kind of arbitration. That was the impression I had when I went to Indianapolis. I told Mr. Morris Hutcheson in my opinion his father was playing directly into the hands of the lATSE. And upon the assumption that the producers were allied with the lATSE, every time an arbitration proposal was made, and every time an arbitration proposal was made that Mr. Hutcheson simply rejected it and said, "I won't arbitrate anything" the odium falls on him. I said, "Why doesn't lie show a willingness to go along part way in this thing and find out to what extent Mr. Walsh is willing to arbitrate?" As long as they can refuse, simply because Mr. Hutcheson won't answer, the odium falls on Mr. Hutcheson. Mr. Morris Hutcheson told me I had been misinformed, that his father was not opposed to arbitration, had never been opposed to arbitration. He had taken the same position throughout the whole dispute, and his position was this: Tliat he would not go to any arbitration in which Mr. Walsh predetermined the results of that arbitration by laying down his own conditions, namely, the basis of the arbitration should be simply the December directive, as interpreted by Mr. Walsh, omitting the interpretation of the men who had written the directive. From the very beginning his position had been this, that he was agreeable to any proposals of arbitration, provided that the basis for that arbitration should be either both the December directive, as explained by the August clarification — both should be made the basis of the arbitration, or in the event that the other parties would