Red Hunt (cont.)

To the warnings of Grover Aloysius Whalen, New York police chief (TIME, May 12) and of Pope Pius XI against Soviet activities in the U. S., there were added last week, in a release by the National Civic Federation, a warning and an exhortation from no less a personage than Elder Statesman Elihu Root, onetime (1905-09) Secretary of State. Said he:

"We have reason to believe that an assault is being made by secret means, supported by the resources of a great empire, aimed at the destruction of our system of government. . . . The Federal Govern- ment has no police force available for our protection. ... A force ought to be provided."

To Manhattan last week, to begin their coast-to-coast search for Red material, went Congressman Hamilton Fish and his special House committee (TIME, June 2).

Schoolchildren. Dr. William O'Shea, Superintendent of New York's schools, was one of the first witnesses called. He said he was "quite certain this thing is dangerous." Three of the city's 810 schools, he said, had been circularized with pamphlets telling children to become "class soldiers for a class war." Some of his principals exhibited pamphlets found on their pupils which read: "Down with the schools, the flag, the principals!" They told how scholars played hookey on May Day, played "escape from prison" in place of hide-&-seek. Viewed with alarm was a 15-year-old caught on the subway with books by Lenin, Scott Nearing and Harvard's Professor Felix Frankfurter.

The Young Pioneers of America, a Communist children's club paralleling the Boy & Girl Scouts, was discussed, described. Young Pioneers are taught allegiance to the Red flag, which follows summer camps. Charles G. Wood, Commissioner of Conciliation in the Department of Labor, testified that at the Wing- dale, N. Y., camp customs include: 1) a slogan: "Wipe God from the skies;" 2) a table request: "God damn it, pass the bread." The Committee resolved to visit Wingdale and other Young Pioneer camps.

Total membership of the Young Pioneers, the witnesses said, is about 2,500 children.

Strikes by Communists, or led by Com- munists, were Witness Wood's chief topic. He said the needletrade walkouts at Passaic, N. J. (TIME, March 15, 1926 et seq.), at New Bedford, Mass. (TIME, June 2, 1928), at Gastonia, N. C. (TIME, April 15, 1929 et seq.) were started by Reds who appealed to "parlor pinks" for "relief funds," but who disappeared when such money stopped coming in. He urged strict anti-Red legislation but discounted the affects of the Reds among U. S. work- ingmen: "They never won a strike in the U. S. . . . So far as taking this country over--that's all poppycock. When you look at the wild-eyed crowd of half-baked human junk constituting Communism . . . you will know that there's not a chance in the world."

Far more alarmed about Red strikes was Matthew Woll, vice president of the American Federation of Labor, who brought a 1,000-page manuscript on the subject prepared by the late Samuel Gompers and supplemented it by his own up-to-the-minute observations. "The Communists have become a serious police problem. . . . Why should the labor unions be compelled to bear the brunt of this work?"

New York City Communists number about 15,000, according to most of the testimony; Communists elsewhere in the U. S. some 20,000.

Negroes. President Phillip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Pullman Porters testified that lynchings and the War Department's segregation of Negro Gold Star mothers (TIME, June 9) had helped the Red cause among his people. Asked how many Negroes belong to the Communist Party, he said: "About 50."

Amtorg and OGPU. In the anti-Red announcements of whilom Police Chief Whalen the most important name mentioned was Amtorg, the Soviet trade com-mission in the U. S. Mr. Whalen took the stand to repeat his belief in the genuineness of revolutionary documents alleged to have been photostatted from Amtorg's files during his police regime. Mr. Whalen's assistant in this work was Inspector John A. Lyons of the Radical Bureau. Inspector Lyons took the stand to read an article by a disgruntled Red official alleging that Amtorg disburses propaganda money from Moscow; that with Amtorg works OGPU, the Soviet spy service, receiving $60,000 per year, for its work in the U. S. Witnesses Wroll and Wood concurred in the substance of these charges.

Present at the hearings were lawyers representing Peter Bogdanov, board chair-man of Amtorg, who was to be given opportunity to reply this week. Peter Bogdanov's point: Mr. Whalen's damning documents are Tsarist forgeries.

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