Indelible Red

In all his Red-hunting, Texas' Representative Martin ("Un-American") Dies never put on the stand a real, live, current Communist. This was perhaps intentional. Virginia's Representative Clifton ("Economy") Woodrum last week produced a Communist, and with shrewd design.

Mr. Woodrum is in charge of the WPA investigation ordered by the House when it voted the President another $100,000,000 for relief. Mr. Woodrum set out to explore the Workers Alliance of America--WPA, unemployed & reliefers' union which claims 400,000 members, of whom 150,000 pay 10-c- to $1 monthly dues.* Leaders of the Alliance are shrewd, sharp-nosed President David Lasser and shrewd, sharp-nosed Secretary-Treasurer Herbert Benjamin. Mr. Woodrum put President Lasser on the stand first.

"Are you yourself a Communist?" barked Republican Representative John Taber of Auburn, N. Y.

"I . . . have no connection with the Communist Party in any way, shape or form . . . and never have had," replied Mr. Lasser, who resigned last year from the Socialist Party./-

Next up, Herbert Benjamin was asked the same question. Said he:

"Yes, sir. . . . My membership . . . is no state secret. . . . I see no inconsistency between . . . the philosophy of Communism and . . . the principles of democratic government."

Democrat Woodrum's eyebrows shot up. "You see no difference . . . ?"

"Do you believe in the overthrow of the U. S. Government by force?" thundered John Taber.

"No, sir, I do not," responded Mr. Benjamin, but he explained that, when and if the Communists threaten arrival at their goal by peaceful revolution, he expects the "special privileged minority" to resort to force and violence.

Mr. Benjamin then ticked off the names of two Communist members of the Alliance executive board and a third who "used to be." He professed surprise when Republican Richard Wigglesworth of Massachusetts ticked off the names of three more.

Thus was an indelible Red label pasted on the chief pressure group for bigger WPA appropriations. It immediately put WPAdministrator Francis ("Pink") Harrington on the hottest spot he has been on since he succeeded Harry Hopkins. There was talk in the committee of proposing that no WPA money be paid to any Alliance members unless Colonel Harrington terminates his friendly relations with Alliance leaders. Colonel Harrington coolly retorted that he had noted nothing subversive about the Alliance. "I see no objection," said he, "to having a spokesman for workers discuss wages, hours and working conditions with their superiors."

Madam Secretary of Labor Perkins last week told Commissioner of Immigration & Naturalization James L. Houghteling to proceed at once with hearings on the deportation case of Communist-suspect Harry Bridges, C. I. O.'s West Coast leader. After the Supreme Court's inconclusive ruling (TIME, April 24) that past membership in the Communist Party is not a deportable offense, she guessed the U. S. would have to prove: 1) that Australian-born Harry Bridges was a Communist at the time (March 1938) that his deportation warrant was issued; 2) that Alien Bridges advocates overthrow of the U. S. Government by force.

* In the last 13 months the Alliance took in $56,000 at national headquarters. In 1937, it received $7.000 from United Automobile Workers; in 1937-38, $4,000 from Robert Marshall, a division chief in the U. S. Forest Service.

/- Within the Workers Alliance, Socialists are at war with Communists, accuse their Red brothers of ruining-to-rule, and are in turn accused of factional spite.

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