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2396 MOTION-PICTURE JURISDICTIONAL DISPUTES
Mr. Robinson. No, I don't; liell, no. The names wouldn't mean anything anyway, because I know they would be phony names that they would give me, because they wouldn't use their own names.
They were brought up from Communist headquarters. They were not members of any of the unions involved in the strike.
One of the propositions they submitted to me was that inasmuch as the lATSE was having some difficulty with them — that is beside the point. I was not particularly interested in the jurisdiction out there in Hollywood. That was none of my business. But apparently the I A was opposing what I found out was the Communist group there and every union out there had a lot of Communists in it. There is no question about that. Every damn one of them, including the carpenters' union, and all of them, they all had them.
They were quite influential, however. Although they might not have been very large in numbers, four or five of them rehearsed what they were going to take into a meeting and they could just about control any meeting out there.
Well, it seems they had a little trouble with the lA. To get back with them, they figured in going after them in every theater in the United States.
They submitted the proposition to me that they would stink bomb every theater in the United States if I would give them the word. That is what I had reference to wlien I told tlie boys :
No ; definitely not, because then you would not be hurting the lATSE ; sure you would close up the theaters so that a man would lose a day's work, but wJiat you would be hurting is the public. The public would get so antagonistic i.o you that you would not have a chance of getting anything.
Mr. McCann. So that wasn't done ?
Mr. Robinson. That Avas not done. There were many other things along that same line.
Some things were done that got away from me before I could get hold of them. Understand, there was a lot of sabotage that was cooked up down at Communist headquarters and never even came out to the strike headquarters. Before I knew it. it was pulled and I was called out at all hours of the night to go down and straighten out things. The police would notify me.
I don't want to give the impression that I played with the police, but the police all knew me pretty well, and they knew what my stand was on communism.
Just as soon as they would get in some of our picket lines where they were picketing theaters, if they would start Communist activity there in the picket line, the police would call me, and I would have to go down and get them out of there.
That happened all the time. I not only had to fight to win the strike from the producers, I had always to be alert to the — as I say — the enemy of union labor. That was in the strike itself.
Mr. McCann. What Avas your position there? Were j^ou the chairman of the strike committee ?
Mr. Robinson. No; I Avas not. I actually was not on the strike committee at all. I was an adviser.
Mr. McCann. Adviser to the strike committee ?
Mr. Robinson. That is right. The actual chairman, it Avas brought out, was a felloAv by the name of Lessing. I believe he is a scenic