Now, if I were a Communist and I wanted to destroy the freedom of America, I would try to do it with force of arms. I would destroy the productiveness which, in turn, destroys our strength, which, in turn, will end in the loss of our freedom. It is almost an algebraic formula that you reach the freedom through an attack upon the production. Therefore, my own guess is-you asked the last preceding witness where the danger is-my own guess is that the most immediate danger in the event of more serious international troubles is in the field of production. That infiltration of communism into the departments of Government which, I think, is fairly well established, is the second danger; but the third and over-all long-term danger is the intrusion into our educational system because that poisons the well of our youth. Mr. VAIL. No further questions. Mr. NIXON. Mr. McDowell, do you have any questions? Mr. MCDOWELL. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman, This statement made by the distinguished jurist from Pennsylvania was born in the battle that once raged at Brandywine. The spirit of Brandywine is still dancing in Delaware County, and I am very proud to see it that way. Thank you very much. Mr. CHADWICK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen. Mr. NIXON. The committee will recess at this time until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. (Whereupon, at 4: 35 p. m., the committee adjourned, to reconvene at 10 a. m., Friday, February 20, 1948.) 71315-48- -26 HEARINGS ON PROPOSED LEGISLATION TO CURB OR CONTROL THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1948 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION OF THE COMMITTEE Washington, D. C. in The subcommittee met, pursuant to adjournment, at 10 a. m., room 225, Old House Office Building, Hon. Richard M. Nixon (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Subcommittee members present: Representatives Nixon, Vail, and McDowell. Staff members present: Robert E. Stripling, chief investigator, and Robert B. Gaston, investigator, for the Committee on Un-American Activities. Mr. NIXON. The hearing will come to order. The record will show that Mr. McDowell, Mr. Vail, and Mr. Nixon are present. Mr. Stripling, will you call the witness, please. Mr. STRIPLING. Dr. Maurer, the committee has a policy of swearing all witnesses. You have no objection to being sworn, do you? Dr. MAURER. No, sir. Mr. NIXON. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? Dr. MAURER. I do, sir. Mr. STRIPLING. Do you desire to stand? Dr. MAURER. If I may, yes. Mr. STRIPLING. Yes; that will be all right. TESTIMONY OF DR. ROBERT A. MAURER, WASHINGTON, D. C. Mr. STRIPLING. Would you please state your full name and present address for the record? Dr. MAURER. My name is Robert A. Maurer. My address is 2029 Park Road, NW., Washington, D. C. Mr. STRIPLING. Would you give the committee a brief résumé of your professional background?" Dr. MAURER. I am a member of the bar of the State of Wisconsin. I have not been in active practice there or here and I have been a member of the faculty of Georgetown University Law School for many years, first as an instructor in my younger days and then as an assistant, and then I have been a full-time professor there in the field of public law generally since 1923. I have had some public work on the side, and I have been a member of the Board of Education here for about 10 years, but that is, of course, not of any particular significance here. Does that answer your question? Mr. STRIPLING. I think that is sufficient. Do you have a prepared statement, Dr. Maurer? Dr. MAURER. I have a little memorandum here of some of the thoughts that I would like to give you in response to the letter which was sent to me by Chairman Nixon, and I am not going to make my statement very formal. I have tried to visualize the situation as it now is in the light of the law as it has developed in the past and in the light particularly of the present-day situation. I hope that I will have accomplished something constructive along that line. My understanding of the true character and aims of the Communist Party in the United States is based upon what I have read about it. I have no personal knowledge of the subject. Our public records show us quite clearly that in the 1920's Communists openly, brazenly, in writing, and in public speeches, advocated the overthrow of the Government in this country by force and violence. So widespread was this evil at that time that many of our States enacted the criminal anarchy laws which forbade and provided punishment for such advocacy. Then when the Communist violators of these laws were brought into court, their defense was that their rights of free speech and free press under the Constitution of the United States were being violated. The United States Supreme Court settled that part of the problem of control of subversive activities in this country by holding in the Gitlow case (Gitlow v. the People of New York, 268 U. S. 652), a 1925 case, that A State may punish utterances endangering the foundations of organized government and threatening its overthrow by unlawful means. The Communist manifesto in that case used language of direct incitement to action for the overthrow of government by force, violence, and unlawful means. The Supreme Court pointed out that the State statute of New York did not penalize the publication or utterance of abstract doctrine or academic discussion having no quality of incitement to any concrete action. Quite recently in 1943 the late Chief Justice Stone in his dissenting opinion in the Schneiderman case (Schneiderman v. the United States. 320 U. S. 118, 187) reviewed the aims of the Communist Party in the 1920's in impressive and convincing language. He said: As I have said, it is not questioned that the ultimate aim of the Communist Party in 1927 and the years preceding was the triumph of the dictatorship of the proletariat and consequent overthrow of capitalistic or bourgeois government and society. Attachment to such dictatorship can hardly be thought to indicate attachment to the principles of an instrument of government which forbids dictatorship and precludes the rule of the minority or the suppression of minority rights by dictatorial government, but the government points especially to the methods by which that end was to be achieved to show that those who pursue or advocate such methods exhibit their want of attachment to the principles of the Constitution. Methods repeatedly and systematically advocated in the Communist Party literature, to which I have referred, include first a softening-up process by which the break-down and disintegration of capitalistic governments was to be achieved by a systematic, general resort to violation of the laws and, second, the overthrow of capitalistic governments by force and violence. It was proclaimed that And here is a quotation from the conditions of admission to the Communist Internationale adopted by the Second Congress of the Communist Internationale in 1920 * * The "For all countries, even for most free legal and peaceful ones, in the sense of a lesser acuteness in the class struggle, the period has arrived when it has become absolutely necessary for every Communist Party to join systematically lawful and unlawful work, lawful and unlawful organizations. class struggle in almost every country of Europe and America is entering the phase of civil war. Under such conditions the Communists can have no confidence in bourgeois laws. They should create everywhere a parallel illegal apparatus which at the decisive moment should do its duty by the party and in every way possible assist the revolution. In every country where in consequence of martial law or other exceptional laws the Communists are unable to carry on their work lawfully, a combination of lawful and unlawful work is absolutely necessary." [See pp. 18, 28 of Statutes, Theses, and Conditions of Admission to the Communist International. Adopted by the Second Congress of the Communist International, July 17 to August 7, 1920.] That is the end of the quote the Chief Justice takes from their literature. Here is another quote taken from the Fourth National Convention of the Workers Communist Party of America held in Chicago in 1925: "Opposition in principle to underground illegal work and an unwillingness to understand the absolute necessity for a Communist Party of combining legal with illegal work" was in fact one ground for expulsion from the party of a minority faction. (See p. 94 of the 4th National Convention of the Workers (Communist) Party of America. Held in Chicago, Ill., August 21-30, 1925.) Advocacy of illegal conduct was generally accompanied— says the Chief Justice by advocacy of particular types of illegality. The party was instructed to arouse workers to "mass violation" of an injunction "whenever and wherever an injunction is issued by courts against strikers." In the literature of the period now in question unlawful tactics were particularly to be directed toward Government-armed forces. In addition to "systematic unlawful work," it is especially necessary to carry on unlawful work in the Army, Navy, and the police. [Statutes, Theses, and conditions of Admission to the Communist International, p. 19.] That is taken from the same source. That is, that convention reference that the other quote is taken from. Then, he goes on to say: Refusal to participate in "persistent and systematic propaganda and agitation" in the Army was "equal to treason to the revolutionary cause, and incompatible with affiliation in the Third Internationale [Ibid, p. 28]— And this because "it is necessary, above all things, to undermine and destroy the Army in order to overcome the bourgeoisie." [ABC of Communism, p. 69.] The Chief Justice says: There is abundant documentary evidence of the character already described to support the court's finding that the Communist Party organizations, of which petitioner here was a member, diligently circulated printed matter which adVocated the overthrow of the Government of the United States by force and violence and that petitioner aided in that circulation and advocacy. From the beginning and during all times relevant to this inquiry there is evidence that the Communist Party organizations advocated the overthrow of capitalistic governments by revolution, to be accomplished if need be by force of arms. We need not stop to consider the much-discussed question whether this meant more than that force was to be used if established governments should be so misguided as to refuse to make themselves over into proletarian dictatorships by amendment of their governmental structures or should have the effrontery to de |