See how it looked in 1931

“Red” Menace Active House Inquiry Finds

Reports Communist Purpose in U.S. Is to Destroy the Government

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 –

A long list of specific recommendations for the drastic curbing of Communist activities in the United States was made to the House of Representatives today by its special committee of inquiry into this problem.

The sweeping program of restrictions has the approval of the entire committee, Hamilton Fish Jr. (R), Representative from New York, chairman, Carl G. Bachman (R), Representative from West Virginia, Edward E. Eslick (D), Representative from Tennessee, and Robert S. Hall (R), Representative from Mississippi.

Among the chief recommendations made are, making the Communist Party an illegal organization in the United States, expanding the authority of the Department of Justice to scrutinize the activities of the Communists, strengthening immigration laws to prevent the admission of Communists and to expedite their deportation; amend the naturalization laws to prohibit citizenship to Communists and to cancel it to those who already have obtained it.

Also to withdraw postal and other privileges for the transportation of “red” literature, placing of an embargo on the importation of manganese from Soviet Russia, and that the Treasury Department, through the State Department, “request permission to send inspectors to investigate Russian prison camps and lumber camps” concerning alleged prison and forced labor in these places.

Puts It Up to Russia

“If the Soviet Government,” the report says, “should refuse such a reasonable request as sending American inspectors to investigate the use of convict labor in the production of lumber and pulpwood when approximately 1000 Russian engineer[s] and Soviet subjects are roaming about at will in the United States gathering all kinds of information in our factories, mills and mines, then the committee recommends that the Treasury Department prohibit the entry of Soviet pulpwood and lumber, until such time as the agents of the Treasury Department are permitted by the Soviet Government to make a thorough investigation and report.”

A recommendation originally contained in the list urging that the four officials of the Amtorg Trading Corporation, Peter A. Bogdanoff, Andrew C. Mamary, Feodor M. Ziaskin and Gregory B. Graipen, be denied future extensions of stay in the United States was stricken out in the report made to the House. So, too, was the suggestion that Louis Bebritz, editor of the Hungarian daily, Uj Elore, be deported, eliminated.
The list of recommendations is concluded with the warning that the purpose of the Communists is to overthrow the Government and gain control, by means of “force and violence” in order to set up a “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
These facts, the report declares, “have been repeatedly substantiated at the hearings of the committee.”

Covers Entire United States

The committee’s inquiry has taken it to practically every part of the United States where communities were reported active. It heard 273 witnesses and examined a vast quantity of documents and written evidence. Its report opens with the history of Communism from its enunciation by Karl Marx, describes the formation of the three Internationals and the world organization of the Communist Party.
It then turns to the United States, covering the formation of the party here, its aims, its political strength, its publications, its activities in industry, among youth and Negroes, in the army and navy. The effect of Soviet competition on American producers is fully discussed and in conjunction the story of the Five-Year Plan is told.
The Communist’s view of religion and the part he plays in immigration, the activities of the Amtorg Trading Corporation and the Soviet police are touched upon. The report concludes with a description of various organizations and agencies in the United States, held by the committee, to be allied with Communism.
No inclination on the part on the Communists to hide their fundamental purposes was discovered by the committee. The following is formulated by the committee as its definition:

What Communism Is

“A world-wide political organization advocating hatred of God and all forms of religion; destruction of private property and inheritance; promotion of class hatred; revolutionary propaganda through the Communist International, stirring up Communist activities in foreign countries in order to cause strikes, riots, sabotage, bloodshed and civil war; destruction of all forms of representative or democratic governments, including civil liberties, such as freedom of speech, of the press, or assembly, and trial by jury; absolute social and racial equality, the ultimate and final objective is world revolutions and the dictatorship of the so-called proletariat into one Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, with the world capital at Moscow.”

While for diplomatic reasons the Soviet Government denies that it is responsible for the propaganda that emanates from the Communist International, Mr. Fish’s committee holds that the International is “actually part and parcel of the Russian Communist Party and the Soviet Government.” The pretense of separating the two, the report says, “has about run its stupid course.”

The Communist Party of the United States, according to the report, is “thoroughly and highly organized, nationally and locally, and is extremely active.” Until 1925, when the Department of Justice had actual authority to scrutinize their activities, it is explained, the movement remained comparatively stationary and innocuous. Since 1925 the Department of Justice has had no authority or funds for Communist investigations, the report adds.

The voting strength of the Communists increased 229 per cent from 1929 to 1930 in the 16 states where the party appeared on the ballot, the committee found. Communist votes cast in these states in 1930 numbered 82,61 as compared with 36,017 in 1928. Although the off year vote is fully 30 per cent less than during the presidential campaign, the 1930 vote for Communist state officers was approximately double the presidential vote of 1928, or about 100,000 votes.

70 Per Cent Are Aliens

The exact number of Communists and active sympathizers in the United States the committee finds it impossible to state, but it is its belief that there are possibly 500,000 or 600,000. About 70 per cent of them are aliens and therefore cannot vote, it points out. The total number of dues-paying Communists in this country is estimated not to exceed 12,000.

The actual value of American export trade to Russia has been “grossly exaggerated” by sources favorable to the Soviets, the report declares. It shows that in 1929, the last year for which complete figures are available, American exports to Russia totaled only $84,725,205. Imports from Russia were $22,555,714.

“Although the balance of trade is in our favor,” the report adds, “the actual amount of cash that has been paid by the Soviet Government in the last few years has not averaged over 50 cents on the dollar, because of the long-time credit extended by American firms.”

Any ultimate success by the Communists in the United States, the report finds, is to be predicated upon capture and control of all large labor organizations. The report charges that strikes such as that at Gastonia, N.C., in 1929 were fomented by Communist organizers. The report credits “loyal American labor leaders and the rank and file of the American Federation of Labor” with having withstood the brunt of the attack of Communism upon the American labor movement.

All Industries Affected

“Nuclei” to communicate any dissatisfaction or revolutionary symptoms which workers might have expressed, penetrate to some extent into practically all the large industries, the committee says. They are reported as constituting a threat among certain groups, among them textile, garment, fur, food and leather workers, coal miners, lumberjacks, building trades, marine workers and, to a lesser degree, among employees in rubber factories, and automobile plants.

“The Communist strike leaders,” says the report, “pretend to be in sympathy with the aims of the strikers for higher wages and shorter hours and better working conditions, but invariably oppose any settlement or adjustment of the dispute because they want to have the strike continue as long as possible to promote class hatred and a revolutionary spirit among the workers. The Communist leadership has never won a big strike in the interest of the employees.”

Principals of schools where there is indication of Communist activities among the children have been successful in preventing the Young Pioneers from getting an effective foothold in the public school system, the committee found. Young Pioneer summer camps, however, it says, have grown from two in 1925 to 20 in eight states in 1929.

No Law to Prevent “Treason”

“There is no law prohibiting such camps teaching disloyalty and practically treason to thousands of healthy and bright young future Americans, and they are permitted to exist and continue to warp the minds of immature children whose parents have fled from countries where they were oppressed to a land of freedom and of equal opportunity,” the committee stated.

The purpose of these camps, it adds, is to prevent children from being drawn into the Boy Scouts and other such organizations that teach patriotism.

Up to the present the Communist effort to line up Negroes has not met with great success, according to the report.

Turning to trade relations with the Soviet Government, the committee declares that “wheat, next to cotton, has been our biggest export crop, but is now on the way to the scrap heap, as it cannot compete with wheat produced in Russia on confiscated lands by labor receiving 14 cents gold per day, backed by American tractors, combines, credit and brains.”

Soviet lumber and pulpwood, of which 144,000,000 board is reported imported into the United States in 1930, also can undersell lumber produced by free American labor in the world markets, it states. The manganese industry is pictured as practically ruined by Soviet dumping and the depression in American oil industry is seriously increased by competition from the Soviet Government, which pays nothing for leases on land.

Present Law Impotent

Under present immigration laws there is nothing to exclude Communists from the United States. “The only way by which a Communist may be prevented from entering the United States,” the committee points out, “is [through] our [detention] at the point of origin. This, however, in itself is not sufficient, because it is almost impossible for the consular officers to know of the beliefs and affiliations of the many immigrants applying for admission to this country.”

The American Civil Liberties Union is held by the committed to “be closely affiliated with the Communist movement in the United States,” and 90 per cent of its efforts are said to be on behalf of the Communists who have come into conflict with the law.

The report is concluded with a tribute to the police of New York, Chicago and other metropolitan centers “for affording protection against the lawless and revolutionary activities of the Communists.”