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)

1550 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES "4. The Motion Picture Democratic Committee can in no way collaborate with such organizations." These proposals put as a resolution, were defeated by the executive board by a vote of 19 to 0 (reported in the Communist People's World, March 12, 1940). Mr. Douglas and Mr. Dunne then resigned from the organization because of its Communist character. Herbert K. Sorrell was a member of this executive board (official stationery), and continued actively to support the new position of the organization which was in strict conformance with the Communist Party line will be shown hei-einafter under the heading of "Patterson Slate," a venture which the Motion Picture Democratic Committee supported. Other members of the executive board of the Motion Picture Democratic Committee at that time who are now supporting the present strike in the Hollywood studios are Harold Buchman, Al Caya, John Cromwell, Norval Crutcher, John Green, Edward Mussa, Irving Pichel, Gloria Stuart, Frank Tuttle. One of the last acts of this Motion Picture Democratic Committee and one which showed its Communist character was a meeting held at the Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles on April 6, 1940, at which this organization was represented. The title of the meeting was according to the Motion Picture Democratic Committee bulletin dated March 26, 1940 : "America Declares Peace." This meeting constituted a violent attack on Franklin D. Roosevelt and the "war-mongers" and was called by the Hollywood Peace Council, afterward to become the American Peace Mobilization, an organization denovmced by the Attorney General of the United States as one of the most dangerous Communist oi-ganizations ever to be launched in this country. Persons who were speakers, or present on the platform, who are now supporting the 1945 Conference of Studio Unions' strike in the studios are : Philip N. Connelly, Dalton Trumbo, Frank Tuttle, Ellis E. Patterson, Reuben Borough, Herbert Biberman. My. Kearns. Those names will all be submitted in the record. Those are my records which he submitted to me that he is now using, or rather, his records which he gave to me. Mr. Levy. That is correct. The Motion Picture Democratic Committee went out of existence during the latter part of the Stalin-Hitler pact, when the Communist Party in the United Sates was isolationist and antiwar. When the Communist Party line changed from isolation to prowar because of the attack on Soviet Russia by Hitler, the Motion Picture Democratic Committee was revived under a slightly different name. This time it was called the Hollywood Democratic Committee. This committee, like its predecessor the Motion Picture Democratic Committee, followed the Communist Party line, but this time it was not so apparent because the line now called for all-out support of the war, because of the need for assistance by Soviet Russia. We now find a very "patriotic" organization hailing Franklin D. Roosevelt as a great commander in chief instead of a war-monger and trickster leading the country into an unpopular war and betraying the country into the net of Wall Street, as the Motion Picture Democratic Committee had claimed when Stalin and Hitler were allies. Herbert K. Sorrell, now emerges as a member of the executive board of this organization also, whose program is just the reverse of its predecessor where he was also a member of the executive board. However, the Hollywood Democratic Committee has also now gone out nf existence. On May 24, 1945, there was advance notice that the Communist Party line in the United States would again undergo a change. This notice was in the form of a letter from a leading French Communist, Jacques Duclos. Mr. McCann", May I stop you just a moment there? Mr. Levy. I don't know where Mr. Duclos is. He is probably in Paris. Mr. McCa-nn. I was not going to ask you about Mr. Duclos, I was going to ask you what time the Hollywood organizntion went out of