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)

2306 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES He was telling this committee that was his philosophy. Then in answer to this question by Mr. Landis, he said : It is a right of free speech and free assemblage, but it was not a picket line of force to prevent people going to and from work. Mr. Sorrell said this at page 2367 : Let me tell you, Congressman, I don't believe in violence and I don't believe it is necessary and I have demonstrated it in the Disney strike. He went on to testify that in the Warner picket line, though he had mass picketing, no cars were ever prevented from going through ; no people were kept out of the plant and he never heard of anybody, particularly company officials, being molested. Well, on the record — and there it is — those are just straight and complete falsehoods. They are utterly untrue. Mr. Laxdis. Well, he admitted once that maybe occasi(5nally some 3^oung fellow would get out of line. Mr. ZoRN. For example, I have a tremendous number of documents. The Los Angeles Times of Friday, September 2Y, 1946 : Strike Leader Herbert K. Sorrell told newf-men that "there may be men hurt, there may be men killed before this is over, but we are in no mood to be pushed around any more." Now I have here a series of newspaper accounts of the violence, the mass picket line, the attacks on people and the attacks on workers. I have a series of affidavits here, photographs of violence, photographs of mass picketing barring access to plants, which completely destroy any possible basis for the testimony of Mr. Sorrell which I read. These injunction affidavits, these newspaper accounts, the photostats which are attached and the court orders of the injunctions demonstrate thoroughly and completely that both the 1935 strike under the leadership of Sorrell and the 1946 strike under his leadership, were filled with violence of the worst character; that innocent people were hurt, that innocent people were beaten up; that these strikers under his leadership massed people around these studios in numbers up to a thousand and that nobody could go through those lines to get to and from work. I think the pictures shown by these newspaper accounts, by these affidavits and by the court orders, and by the records of arrest — I do not have them available at the moment but I would like to submit later a complete record of arrests and convictions for violence and disorder in violation of court decrees. There were hundreds of people arrested, put in jail, and fined. Mr. Sorrell also was arrested. He bragged about his criminal record. He admitted he was in jail many times. I think this committee ought to have as a part of its records here a pretty complete story of the violence which Sorrell led, the kind of mass picketing, and the kind of intimidation that was carried on by him, because one of the fundamental purposes of Public Law 101, despite the fact that State laws are intended to take care of things of that sort, you put a specific provision in Public Law 101 prohibiting unions from engaging in coercion or intimidation. The record of your debates and the record of your reports indicate clearly that one of the objectives of this was to stop the practice of unions — and you referred to it yourself, Mr. Chairman, when you talked about the