The Dies Committee: An Appraisal

I

TAX reduction excepted, there is no more sure-fire political subject than patriotism, especially when our country is at war or in danger of war. This has been amply demonstrated by the popularity of the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities and Propaganda under the chairmanship of Martin Dies, conservative Democrat, of Texas, which, if newspaper polls can be taken at face value, has achieved the extraordinary distinction of being supported by three fourths of the American people. No other committee in recent years has scored such widespread approval.

Whether this support is justified is debatable, although Congress probably will bow to such samples of public opinion and extend the life of the committee for at least another year. Resentment is increasing, however, over the committee’s disregard of due process and the rules of evidence, and there is a strong demand that the committee members and subordinates shall follow Chairman Dies’s original pledge that the committee would not permit ‘character assassination’ or the ‘smearing’ of innocent people.

President Roosevelt has publicly rebuked the committee several times for its ‘sordid procedure,’ a view also held by many newspaper men who have followed the proceedings, but Chairman Dies has merely retorted that the investigation has been opposed from the beginning by the New Deal. Each attack on the committee’s methods has brought further buffoonery, turbulence, and undisguised prejudice.

This is not to say that the committee has not accomplished some good with the $125,000 put at its disposal. It has forced the Department of Justice to expedite prosecutions against users of fraudulent passports and against unregistered foreign propagandists; it has exposed many embarrassing alliances between prominent individuals and Soviet or Nazi organizations; it has caused organized labor groups and even governmental departments to search their rolls for outright Communists and Communist sympathizers, and it has made many liberals think twice before joining numerous organizations with humanitarian titles masking subversive purposes.

From a long view the committee’s methods have had two disturbing effects. The one-sided and at times undignified procedure has gone far to discredit Congressional investigations, and the combination of the investigation with the European war has been a serious setback to the liberal cause in this country.

Two widely separated instances of the last-named effect are typical. The editor of an Eastern financial paper who boasts of his conservatism in politics and economics recently said that for the first time in his life he was tempted to turn ‘liberal.’ He explained that the Dies Committee and the Nazi-Soviet agreement had so discredited liberals and liberalism that now, if ever, the progressive cause must be kept alive to act as a check on the increasing reactionary sentiment throughout the country. The experience of an editor in a small Missouri town corroborated this view. This prosperous editor-politician has called himself a liberal for half a century. He is well informed on national and international affairs, he belongs and contributes to several liberal organizations, and is a highly respected citizen of his state. But today he declares he is almost afraid to advocate the progressive programs with which he has been identified ‘because the Dies Committee has made people believe that every liberal is working, wittingly or unwittingly, for the Moscow Communists.’

The integrity of Congressional investigations is another phase of the same question. Despite their great contributions to democratic government, they have rarely been popular with business men or voters generally. Woodrow Wilson declared that the most important function of Congress was its power of investigation. With some exaggeration, the late Senator Couzens of Michigan observed that the country would be better off if Congress would devote one tenth of its efforts to legislating and nine tenths to investigating.

Yet the investigating committees which uncovered the greatest scandals and accomplished the most permanent reforms were models of decorum and impartiality in developing their findings. There were minor lapses, but on the whole Senator Walsh of Montana in the Teapot Dome inquiry, Senator Wheeler in his investigations of the Department of Justice under Harry Daugherty and, more recently, of railroad reorganizations, Senator Fletcher and his counsel Ferdinand Pecora in the Wall Street study, and Senator La Follette in the current Civil Liberties examination, all gave both sides fair and complete hearings with counsel present if desired.

Chairman Dies himself promised rigorous adherence to this procedure. In his opening statement, in May 1938, he declared: —

The Chair wishes to reiterate what he has stated many times — namely, that this committee is determined to conduct its investigation upon a dignified plane and to adopt and maintain throughout the course of the hearings a judicial attitude.

We shall be fair and impartial at all times, and treat every witness with fairness and courtesy. The committee will not permit any ‘character assassination’ or any ‘smearing’ of innocent people. We wish to caution witnesses that reckless charges must not be made against any individual or organization. The Chair wishes to make it plain that this committee is not ‘after anyone.’

The committee’s subsequent record soon violated this laudable announcement and partly fulfilled Capitol gossip of a ‘Southern plot’ to discredit the left wing of the New Deal, to prevent a third term for President Roosevelt, to besmirch the Congress for Industrial Organizations, and to build up the political reputations of the individual committee members.

II

House inquiries along the lines of the Dies investigation were not new — or notably fruitful. In 1930 and 1931, Representative Hamilton Fish, Republican, of New York was chairman of a special committee to bring to light Communistic activities in this country. This committee held hearings in fourteen cities, listened to 275 witnesses, and returned a voluminous, vehement, and now forgotten report. Three years later, when the Democrats came into power, Representative John W. McCormack, Democrat, of Massachusetts was named chairman of a committee to investigate Nazi and other propaganda. It took 4320 pages of testimony and presented a dignified and exhaustive report on February 15, 1935.

On the McCormack committee, however, was Representative Samuel Dickstein, Democrat, of New York, who itched for continuance of the investigation. Denied this, he relieved his emotions by anti-German diatribes on the House floor, including in his remarks long lists of citizens whom he accused of being Nazis. These speeches displeased many prominent Jews, who felt the New Yorker was doing more harm than good, and irritated many Congressmen. To the latter came a flood of affidavits from constituents swearing they were not Hitler agents.

Had the McCormack committee been revived, Dickstein, a vice chairman, would have been a member. To prevent this, it was decided to create a new committee. A resolution of May 26, 1938, was copied verbatim from that authorizing the McCormack committee, but with one significant change. The first text authorized an investigation of ‘subversive propaganda instigated from foreign countries.’ To this was added ‘or of a domestic origin.’

Dies was selected to offer the resolution, which meant that he would be named chairman. Up to that time he had been known principally as the ‘President’ of the ‘Demagogues’ Club,’ a jocose and unofficial organization of House members addicted to flamboyant speeches saturated with hokum. Like many Southerners, he had been opposed to enactment of the Wages and Hours law and was especially bitter against sit-down strikes. Though more genial than Fish, he had Fish’s love of the spotlight; not so intense as Dickstein, he had Dickstein’s reluctance to verify charges.

As expected, Speaker Bankhead appointed him chairman of the committee. The other members were a surprise, for the committee turned out to be five to two and often six to one against the Roosevelt Administration. The conservative Democratic members were Chairman Dies, Representatives Joe Starnes of Alabama and Harold G. Mosier of Ohio, the latter a bitter antiNew Dealer. With them were aligned the Republicans, Representatives Noah M. Mason of Illinois and J. Parnell Thomas of New Jersey. Representative Arthur D. Healey, Democrat, of Massachusetts, voted first with one faction, then with the other. The one out-andout New Dealer was Representative John J. Dempsey of New Mexico.

The committee was given an appropriation of $25,000, and it immediately began its search for subversive activity and propaganda ‘of a domestic origin.’ Targets included the Department of Labor, the Works Progress Administration, the Federal Theatre and Writers’ Projects, the National Labor Relations Board, the Wages and Hours Division, the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee, Governor Frank Murphy of Michigan, the Congress for Industrial Organizations, the Civil Liberties Union, the American League for Peace and Freedom, the Workers’ Alliance of America, the International Labor Defense, and the National Negro Congress.

From the start, photographers were given the run of the committee room, and, as unsupported charges by witnesses made the most spectacular headlines, rules of evidence and due process were soon forgotten. Spectators and witnesses exchanged taunts and often committee members shouted insults at each other. Several times audiences were permitted to rise and cheer pronouncements by the chairman, and not long ago policemen prevented Representative Starnes from assaulting Fritz Kuhn, Führer of the German-American Bund, who had given Starnes the lie.

Chairman Dies and his investigators soon disregarded the custom of examining the character of witnesses and seeking to substantiate their testimony before presentation in public. Irresponsible witnesses with personal or political motives were permitted without check to incriminate scores of respectable citizens, who were given no immediate opportunity to reply. The most outstanding example of this occurred when two disgruntled Republicans were allowed to assert that Governor Frank Murphy, then seeking reëlection, had been guilty of treasonable activity in his handling of the sit-down strike in the Flint, Michigan, automobile plants in January 1937.

Realizing the political effect of such biased testimony, President Roosevelt in a long formal statement declared that ‘the Dies Committee made no effort to get at the truth, either by calling for facts to support mere personal opinion or by allowing facts or personal opinion on the other side.’

At a later press conference, when asked to comment on the committee’s procedure, the President said a real story could be obtained from reporters covering the investigation. Several newspapers made this poll, and the ballots were unfavorable to the committee. Several reporters declared that from their observation an understanding seemed to exist between Dies and his supporters that each should have his try at the day’s headlines. By turns committee members attempted to make a ‘story,’ no matter how irrelevant, and, of course, played havoc with a dignified inquiry. Such an incident occurred when a witness mentioned the Elizabethan poet, Christopher Marlowe.

‘Is Marlowe a Communist?’ asked Representative Starnes.

III

In its first report to Congress the majority announced as a prime accomplishment the same findings as those of the Fish and McCormack committees — namely, that the American Communist Party and the German-American Bund were branches respectively of the Soviet and German governments. There were further unsupported charges that Communists held key positions in federal agencies and projects, that they had seized strategic positions in various units of the CIO, and that the Labor Department had contributed to un-American activities by failing to carry out deportation laws.

Unofficially Dies announced that he had refused offers amounting to $500,000 from private individuals to finance further investigations, and that he had received 75,000 letters in support of his proposal to form a ‘League for Peace and Americanism,’ a group he claimed would eventually have ten million members. He abandoned the League idea as ‘impracticable,’ and little more was heard about the half million dollars of voluntary contributions.

The Roosevelt Administration opposed continuation of the committee, but when it became certain that Dies would win on a rollcall vote the New Dealers compromised by cutting down the proposed appropriation from $150,000 to $100,000 and extending the life of the committee only one year instead of two. The chairman was also forced to accept a change of membership. In place of Mosier, who had been defeated for reëlection partly because of his record on the committee, Representative H. Jerry Voorhis of California, an advanced New Dealer, was selected. Healey resigned to become a member of the House committee to investigate the National Labor Relations Board, and was succeeded by Representative Joseph E. Casey of Massachusetts, a New Deal sympathizer. Thus Dies’s majority became four to three, and he promised to reform his methods. He employed several former Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, and engaged as counsel Rhea Whitley, who had ten years’ experience with the FBI.

Without much change in the disorderly procedure, the committee shifted the area of its investigations from governmental agencies and organized labor units to the more obvious organizations and individuals usually associated with ‘American’ or ‘un-American’ activities. These included Fritz Kuhn; MajorGeneral George Van Horn Moseley, U.S.A., retired; George Deatherage, commander of the Knights of the White Camelia; Benjamin Gitlow, charter member of the American Communist Party, who was ‘broken’ by Stalin; Maurice L. Malkin, former Communist organizer; Robert Pitcoff, former official of the Soviet trading organization, Amtorg; Walter G. Krivitsky, former chief of Soviet military intelligence in Western Europe; William Z. Foster, chairman of the American Communist Party; David Dubrowsky, head of the Russian Red Cross up to 1935; Sam Carp, brother-in-law of Soviet Premier Molotov; and Earl Browder, general secretary of the American Communist Party.

As might be expected, the former Stalinists berated the Moscow régime without producing much tangible evidence of subversive activities in this country, while the loyal Stalinists took great credit for their work here. The committee struck pay dirt, however, when Browder admitted that he had traveled on irregular passports. This resulted in his indictment for passport fraud.

The committee has been continuing old methods in recent months. In October, Dies made public the Washington ‘membership and mailing list’ of the American League for Peace and Democracy, insinuating that these persons were coöperating with the Third International. It was this procedure which President Roosevelt decried as ’rather sordid.’ The original chairman of this league was J. P. Matthews, now an investigator for the committee, and, whatever its original purposes, there can be no doubt that many Washington officials enumerated as members or on the mailing list sincerely believed they were connected with a worthy liberal institution in which the Third International had only a minor representation.

Chairman Dies and Matthews on their own authority issued a ‘report’ in December on ‘Communist Work in Consumer Organizations,’ attacking by name such organizations as the Consumers’ National Federation, Consumers’ Union, the League of Women Shoppers, the Milk Producers’ Protective Committee, and the Consumers’ Counsel of the Department of Agriculture. Until recently Matthews was vice chairman and managing editor of Consumers’ Research, an organization whose chief competitor is the Consumers’ Union.

The brief transcript of the ‘hearing’ covering the ‘report’ revealed that it was made by a ‘subcommittee’ composed of no other committee member than Chairman Dies, and that Matthews had merely presented a report prepared by unannounced persons. Voorhis, the ardent New Deal member of the committee, immediately charged that Dies had been guilty of ‘undemocratic procedure’ in making public a report which said that some of the consumer groups were Communist ‘transmission belts,’ a phrase used by Browder to claim credit for many organizations with liberal aims.

Declaring that the ‘report’ was ‘purely and simply the opinion’ of Matthews, Voorhis asserted that ‘it was released to the press by a suddenly appointed oneman subcommittee before other members even knew such a report was in process of preparation.’ He added that ‘not a single hearing has been held on any of these matters’ contained in the report and that none of the persons mentioned had ever been called to the stand.

IV

The question may well be asked: ‘Does the committee deserve to be continued with an appropriation of $100,000, as requested by Chairman Dies?’

President Roosevelt and many other liberals will oppose extending its life even if Chairman Dies promises, as he did last year, that he will revise his methods. A compromise might again result, with the enlarging of the committee to include three or four members who would insist on fair play to all sides, dignified procedure, and constructive reports. Attorney-General Murphy, who has no personal reason to approve the activities of the committee, has announced that such investigations have an ‘educational value.’ But this is true only if all sides are given an opportunity to testify and, if necessary, to answer charges previously made. Newspapers have been criticized for exploiting the committee’s one-sided presentations, the usual contention being that ‘reactionary publishers’ have welcomed this ‘witch hunt’ among the ‘liberals.’ This criticism errs in the same manner as the Dies Committee. When sensational news comes pouring into a newspaper office with the imprint of a Congressional committee, editors, relying on the good faith of the committee members, are by the nature of their profession forced to give it prominence. If all sides are represented, the newspapers, no matter how ‘reactionary,’ will give their readers the news.

The fault lies with the committee members. Much was expected of Voorhis when the young Californian joined the committee, but he has had too many other irons in the fire to insist that witnesses substantiate their charges.

Last year Healey and Dempsey were deterred from submitting a minority report when Chairman Dies surrendered to their demand that he insert a paragraph disavowing responsibility for the credibility of the committee’s witnesses and admitting that much of their testimony had been ‘exaggerated’ and ‘biased.’

The Nazi-Soviet pact and the Russian invasion of Finland have been enormously helpful to Dies and his faction. During the first few months of its existence the committee was a subject of jest and scandal. Today it enjoys unprecedented popular support. Nothing seems too fantastic for belief in these war times, and, since it is not possible to depose Dies from the chairmanship, some means appear necessary to keep the inquiry within the bounds of truth and decency. Increase of the committee membership, whether by conservatives or liberals, seems the logical solution, provided the new members are seeking facts, not headlines. Otherwise the committee may demonstrate that as many crimes can be committed in the name of Americanism as in the name of liberty.

The prime function of a Congressional investigation is to obtain information for the legislature and the public — to ascertain facts upon which intelligent action may be taken. Although the procedure of the Dies Committee has been properly criticized, it has exposed definite subversive movements in this country. But since the committee members have not exercised self-restraint, definite limits could well be set on the area of its investigation and on its methods.