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)

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2356 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES One of the charoes that Mr. Sorrell made was that counsel for the lATSE on the west coast — Messrs. Bodkin, Breslin, and Lnddy — were also counsel for the lATSE during the time or a portion of the time that Messrs. Browne and Bioff were involved with the lATSE. From that he gathered that therefore the regime continued. That is on a par with Mr. Sorrell's charges against IMr. Denham ; on a par with Mr. Sorrell's charges against the National Labor Relations Board ; on a par with Mr. Sorrell's charge against one of the most honorable judges in the United States, the senior district judge of the Southern District of Georgia, Hon. John C. Knox, when Mr. Bodle seemed to indicate in a mos^t Sorrellian smear tactic that there was some strange deal whereby Judge Knox participated involving Browne and Bioff getting a reduced sentence. I happen to know Judge Knox. We are not on the same side of the political fence, but there is no more honorable, no more able judge in all the courts of our country than John C. Knox. That type of swear ought to be rejected by any committee investigating Mr. Sorrell, because now we have gotten to the l^oint where we ought to continue the investigation of Sorrell, and not worry too much about the jurisdictional labor dispute. What did he say about Mr. Luddy, Mr. Breslin, and Mr. Bodkin ? Anyone in California knows they are among the most outstanding lawyers in California. Mr. Breslin was president of the Los Angeles (Calif.) Bar Association. But it doesn't make any difference to this man Sorrell. He brought up something about the fact that the lATSE was continuing to pay some bills for Browne and Bioff. I want to tell you something about that. A California law\ver or tax expert by the name of Russell presented a claim against the lATSE shortly after Mr. Walsh became president. That claim resulted from the fact that he had represented the lATSE or represented Browne during the period that Mr. Browne was president. I think the claim was for something like $10,000. Far from paying it, Mr. Walsh asked me to instruct our counsel in California to contest it. He refused to pay it. The courts decided that the lATSE had to pay it, and we paid it only after judgment had been taken against us. My point is that Mr. Sorrell knows these things and when he quotes a portion of a newspaper or has his lawyer do it and ignores the fact that that same newspaper says Bioff is not welcome in the lA; when he ignores other facts which he knows, that to me is a clear indication of the policy and tactics of Mr. Sorrell, who has been flinging charges against the lATSE and thinking that he can live by those charges without proof, since 1941. Now, an interesting thing happened. Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen of the committee, which I want to bring to your attention, on the basis of Mr. Sorrell's testimony, because he made a great play about it. You will remember that when I first testified before you, I presented a dozen or a score of recognized Communist fronts in which Mr. Sorrell participated. He glibly had an explanation for each of them. One of them was, he was a friend of the fellow who brought him in. The other one was, that he was not a friend of the other fellow. In other words, he was brought in to one because he was a friend of Isserman ; he was brought in to support the Communist, McCormick, because he did not like Jack Tenney. There was always some excuse;