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HEARINGS ON LEGISLATION TO OUTLAW CERTAIN. UN-AMERICAN AND SUBVERSIVE ACTIVITIES

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 1950

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES,

PUBLIC HEARING

Washington, D. C.

The committee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10:30 a. m. in room 226, Old House Office Building, Washington, D. C., Hon. John S. Wood (chairman) presiding.

Committee members present: Representatives John S. Wood, Francis E. Walter, John McSweeney (arriving as indicated), Harold H. Velde, and Bernard W. Kearney.

Staff members present: Frank S. Tavenner, Jr., counsel; Louis J. Russell, senior investigator; John W. Carrington, clerk; and A. S. Poore, editor.

Mr. WOOD. The committee will be in order.

The record will disclose that Messrs. Walter, Velde, Kearney, and Wood are present.

Mr. TAVENNER. Mr. Chairman, we have two witnesses here this morning in hearing further the legislative matters that have been pending here for several weeks. The first is Father Clarence Parker. If you will be sworn, please, sir.

Mr. WOOD. Will you please stand, Father Parker. You swear the evidence you give this committee shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Father PARKER. I do.

Mr. WOOD. Have a seat.

TESTIMONY OF FATHER CLARENCE PARKER

Mr. TAVENNER. Father Parker, will you please state your full name and address?

Father PARKER. Clarence Parker, 4595 Oakenwall Avenue, Chicago. Mr. TAVENNER. Are you a representative of the Civil Rights Congress?

Father PARKER. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAVENNER. Father Parker, will you please state your full name and address?

Mr. TAVENNER. Are you aware that the Civil Rights Congress has been declared a subversive organization by the Attorney General of the United States and also by this committee?

Father PARKER. I am aware of that.

Mr. TAVENNER. Father Parker, it has been the policy of the committee to ask each of the witnesses testifying concerning proposed legislation whether or not they are now or have ever been a member of the Communist Party. Would you mind answering that question?

Father PARKER. I will answer the question, but I should like the record to show that I do so under protest for the reason that I consider it an invasion of my constitutional rights. I never have been and am not now a member of the Communist Party.

Mr. TAVENNER. Do you have a prepared statement?

Father PARKER. Yes, sir.

Mr. TAVENNER. Mr. Chairman, at this time I suggest that Father Parker be permitted to read his statement, and if there are questions, that they be asked at the conclusion of his statement.

Mr. Wood. If that is agreeable to the witness.

Mr. VELDE. Do we have copies of the statement?

Father PARKER. I am sorry; I did not prepare any extra copies. Mr. WOOD. Suppose, then, Father, you go ahead and read your statement, then perhaps the members of the committee or counsel might desire to interrogate you with reference to some features of it.

Father PARKER. Very well. This statement incorporates matter prepared by Thomas G. Buchanan, our legislative director.

The bill under consideration purports to be directed against Communist political organizations, primarily, and these are identified not only by the titles they themselves assume, but also by the degree to which they do not deviate from the views and aims of a foreign Communist dictatorship.

The bill is aimed as well at Communist-front organizations, and these are identified in part by the degree to which they do not deviate from the views and aims of those organizations which have been identified, as indicated above, as Communist political organizations.

There are other tests as to whether an organization is a Communist political organization or a Communist-front organization, but this one seems to be paramount: Does your organization differ sufficiently in its views and aims from "the foreign government or foreign governmental or political organization controlling the world Communist movement"? The Civil Rights Congress is a nonpartisan organization whose members share certain common views on the protection of constitutional liberties and the extension of democratic rights, particularly to Negroes and other oppressed minorities. These members have divergent views on other political issues beyond the scope of the Civil Rights Congress, such as their attitude toward communism.

In the Civil Rights Congress we have found it possible to work together on civil rights questions, regardless of political, religious, or other differences. It would be improper for any spokesman of this organization to appear before this committee in the role of a partisan of any particular political party or other group within the Civil Rights Congress. This organization has asked for time to present the views of its membership as a whole. Therefore, I speak here not on the issues that divide us, but on the common grounds which unite us. I speak not as an individual, but as a spokesman for an organization. However, my personal views coincide with those I here present.

The Civil Rights Congress is opposed to the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950 for the following reasons:

First, registration of organizations under this bill is equivalent to their destruction.

Section 2 (1) establishes as a legislative finding the existence of a— world-wide revolutionary political movement whose purpose it is, by treachery, deceit, infiltration into other groups (governmental and otherwise), espionage, sabotage, terrorism, and any other means deeemd necessary, to establish a Communist totalitarian dictatorship.

* * *

Section 7 provides for compulsory registration of organizations alleged to be part of this "world-wide revolutionary political movement." By the act of registration, organizations complying with such an order would acknowledge guilt of the crimes listed in section 2 (1). Since there are numerous statutes covering acts of "espionage, sabotage, and terrorism," an organization proclaiming its violation of these statutes could not expect to avoid prosecution under the appropriate laws we have now. An act which presents the alternative of disbanding an organization for noncompliance, or prosecuting_the organization for compliance with a registration order, is clearly a measure providing for self-incrimination. If that interpretation be correct, the act is unconstitutional.

Not only does registration under the act guarantee prosecution under existing laws, but an organization complying with a registration order would face prosecution under section 4 (a) of the act itself. This section makes it a crime "to combine, conspire, or agree with any other person to perform any act which would substantially facilitate or aid in the establishment within the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship" under foreign control. The phrase “under foreign control" I think condenses, but correctly interprets, other statements in this connection.

Yet the act which is listed in section 4 as a crime, punishable by 10 years' imprisonment and $10,000 fine, with the abrogation of the existing statute of limitations, is substantially identical with the criteria listed in section 14, by which the Subversive Activities Commission would determine that an organization must register under the act.

In addition to the legal penalties resulting from an order to register under the act, the maintenance of a public blacklist is designed to destroy any organization so listed.

The Senator from South Dakota, in his testimony last year opening the subcommittee hearings-I believe it was in 1948-described as the "first great contribution" to be derived from passage of the bill, that it would make it easier for private industry, in Hollywood and elsewhere, to fire employees who are members of blacklisted organizations. It is appropriate to point out that the group to be blacklisted under the proposed legislation includes not only the rank and file members of "Communist political organizations," but also the rank and file of "Communist-front organizations," to which I made reference at the beginning.

Section 7 provides that the latter must account for all the sources of the money they receive, and consequently they would have to list their dues-paying members and all contributors, as well as their officers. For this reason, it is safe to predict that if the bill now under

consideration by this committee becomes law, the consequences will be very serious for a large number of people, for the collective membership of the organizations so threatened runs into the millions.

The bill makes it "subversive" to associate with certain proscribed groups for legitimate objectives.

Failure to "deviate" from the views of the "world Communist movement" is regarded in the bill as evidence of a "Communist political organization," and failure to "deviate" from the position taken "from time to time on matters of policy" by such an organization is held to be an indication of a "Communist front."

Thus an organization which pursues lawful objectives, by lawful means, even, will be held to be "subversive" if it cooperates with proscribed individuals or groups even toward accomplishing such lawful objectives.

(Representative McSweeney enters hearing room.)

Father PARKER (continuing). During the last 12 months-coming now to the Civil Rights Congress and the way in which we would obviously be affected by such a bill-the Civil Rights Congress, among other activities, has engaged lawyers to defend members of the Communist Party indicted under the Smith Act; it has carried on a campaign to raise funds for the defense of six young Negroes indicted in Trenton, N. J.; it has urged the passage of a Federal antilynching bill, and an anti-poll-tax bill; it has called for an end to segregation in the Armed Forces, and abolition of discrimination in civil service and private industry; it has opposed the Taft-Hartley law, and the bill to legalize wire tapping; and it opposes the legislation now before this committee.

The Communist Party, as well as many organizations that do not share the Communist philosophy, have cooperated with us in each of these campaigns. I would ask if any one of these campaigns is regarded by this committee as subversive? If not individually, how can they collectively be so regarded? Yet the Mundt-Nixon bill makes it clear that any organization, not only the Civil Rights Congress but any other organization that may have cooperated in those activities, would be listed as a Communist front, and on a good deal less evidence than I have mentioned.

Mr. WALTER. What section of the bill would provide that, Father? (The witness examines papers and H. R. 7595.)

Mr. WALTER. Mr. Chairman, I will withdraw that question now. We will get around to it after you complete your statement, Father. Father PARKER. Very well, sir.

We object to the establishment as a national policy of the doctrine of guilt by association. We feel that we are in consonance with Americans generally as they come to know about this legislation or any similar legislation in expressing the opinion that it is repellent to the American tradition of individual responsibility; and that tradition, of course, has been frequently expounded by the Supreme Court.

If this bill is restricted to the control of overt acts, it is redundant. If, as we contend, it applies to mere opinion and advocacy, it is unconstitutional.

Mayor William O'Dwyer, of New York City, has been quoted many, many times. I would like to read a quotation from him that no doubt has been heard here before:

We already have laws

said he

that punish treason and other criminal acts against the security or safety of the Government; laws against individual acts or conspiracies to overthrow the Government; and laws that require the registration of agents of foreign governments and of foreign principals. But this bill provides a dangerous short cut to thought-control and police-state regulation. It empowers a Government officer to interpret and censor people's thoughts and opinions and permits him to determine the subversiveness or disloyalty of any political, civic, or religious organization. Its terms are so broad, and yet so vague, as to subject innocent citizens to * ** * heavy penalties, not by reason of any act on their part, but for being members of an organization suspected of entertaining dangerous thoughts. It would thus establish the undemocratic and dangerous principle of guilt by mere association, without proof of actual guilt, and without the safeguard of a jury trial. This is precisely the pattern of legislation set by the Nazis and police-state governments for accomplishing the destruction of the rights of the people.

The Senator from Michigan, in a former hearing on this bill, I believe, pointed out that the Government was finding it difficult to prove that the Communists then on trial under the Smith Act had actually committed, or conspired to commit, any specific acts of force and violence. He argued that passage of this bill would permit the Government to prosecute Communists without the necessity of presenting evidence of force and violence. Failure to register would be sufficient ground for prosecution.

We regard this as confirmation of our charge that the proposed legislation is designed to punish criticism of existing institutions, and of the policies being carried out at any time by Government officals. Sitting here, I added a note which I hope I may read, and which I will turn over with the copy.

The proponents of this legislation-I use that term "proponents" in a broad sense, not applying strictly and limitly to the actual presenters in the Congress-the proponents of this legislation must now find it increasingly urgent, in view of the embarrassing failure of the socalled containment policy, especially in connection with what has happened and what is happening in China, and in view of the questioning of the American voter that is now focusing on the whole implementation of what has been termed, not by me but by persons notably conservative, as Operation Rathole, and similar operations now under way. For since it is clear that no more laws than those we now have are required to deal with acts of disloyalty, why else should free association among the people of America, free expression of their opinions, whether they be for or against the policies of any administration, and even the opinions which they seek to establish for themselves, be at this time subjected to inquisition and threat?

The proponents of this bill would create a new kind of treason, and a new kind of loyalty. They would establish a false identity between the United States of America and the economic or political views of the politicians who administer our Government at any given time. With the ignoble exception of the Alien and Sedition Acts, we have always adhered to the rigid definition of treason given in article 3, section 3, of the Constitution:

Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

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