Dies and Duty

Fate and Texas gave Martin Dies an impressive physique, a durable voice, a seat in Congress. Mr. Dies lately has given the U. S. a Congressional investigation. By the standards of past masters at inquisition his performance has not been brilliant. Ex-Senator (now Associate Justice) Hugo L. Black was at his best with a hostile witness, knowing well how to bait the trap, when to spring it. Senator Robert M. La Follette also knows the uses of the subtle query. Mr. Dies knows chiefly how to bellow. Last week he had the thrill of seeing his bellowing affect not just the ear of some baffled layman but the tympanums of that knowing politician, the Head of the Democratic Party.

To his investigation of un-American activities Mr. Dies has brought principally a $25,000 appropriation, a willingness (common to Congressional ferrets) to hear what he believes, a succession of renegade leftists, ex-union officers and members turned talebearer, avowed spies, patriotic citizens bursting with information about the Reds. Mr. Dies also has taken testimony about U. S. Nazis and Fascists, has even accepted aspersions against such personages as Tom Girdler. But in the main he has stayed on the Red trail previously traversed by New York's Representative Hamilton Fish.

Democrat Dies recently looked into the automobile sit-down strikes of 1937 in Michigan. The committee and its witnesses lit into C. I. O.'s United Automobile Workers of America as Communist-ridden lawbreakers, into Michigan's Governor Frank Murphy as a weakling official who condoned Communist sit-down tactics.

Circuit Judge Paul V. Gadola of Flint, whose contempt citations against General Motors strikers were ignored at the Governor's order in 1937, testified with much heat. Whereupon Representative Harold G. Mosier of Ohio, who was defeated by C. I. O. pressure in the recent Democratic primary, addressed the judge: ''Let's get this matter straight. Just to show there was no politics in it, Governor Murphy is a Democrat and you are a Democrat.'' "I am not," cried Judge Gadola. "I am a Republican! Until this New Deal coattail parade started, there wasn't a Democratic judge in Michigan!"

Ex-City Manager John Barringer of Flint, who said the city council had accused him of recruiting vigilantes and fired him, was asked by Mr. Dies whether Communists inspired the strikes at Flint. "It would not have been so bad," he replied, "if it had not been for the attitude of the La Follette [Civil Liberties] Committee and the treasonable attitude of Governor Murphy."

That was steamy stuff, not to be compared with the mere wiggling of Reds. Governor Murphy is up for re-election in a key State where the Republicans have a chance to win. He also is a maybe-maybe-not prospect for the U. S. Supreme Court. At all events he is a devoted friend and follower of Franklin Roosevelt. But now one of his pet oxen was being gored. Although politicians have long assured businessmen and others that it is perfectly proper for Congressional investigations to permit biased witnesses to air scandalous charges against honest citizens, in this case Franklin Roosevelt reacted like any indignant businessman.

At a press conference last week United Pressman Fred Storm, whose questions Mr. Roosevelt often expects and is prepared for, asked whether the testimony about Governor Murphy gave the President concern. Mr. Roosevelt said extemporaneous remarks on the subject might not be printable, proceeded to issue an extraordinary written statement for quotation: "I was very much disturbed . . . because a Congressional committee charged with the responsibility of investigating un-American activities should have permitted itself to be used in a flagrantly unfair and un-American attempt to influence an election. . . . On the threshold of a vitally important gubernatorial election, they permitted a disgruntled Republican judge, a discharged Republican city manager and a couple of officious police officers to make lurid charges against Governor Frank Murphy.'' Mr. Roosevelt then complimented the Governor for postponing forcible action while negotiations to end the sit-down strikes without bloodshed were in progress, added: "For that act, a few petty politicians accuse him of treason: for that act, every peace-loving American should praise him."

None other than Mrs. Franklin Roosevelt also spoke up. Her sounding board was the Republican New York Herald Tribune's annual Forum on Current Problems (which also heard Mr. Dies). She spoke by radio from Cincinnati, Ohio, a State where an able Democratic wife could be useful in offsetting the campaign efforts of an able Republican wife. Mrs. Robert A. Taft (see p. 9). Said Mrs. Roosevelt by radio: "I am very much disturbed . . . more women than men write to me suggesting that Communism may be gaining a real hold. There is stress laid upon what to fight against rather than what we should be trying to accomplish. I deplore that attitude. . . ."

All of which served to heighten the display of Dies news in the U. S. press, whose front pages already had demonstrated that whatever political sophisticates might think of the inquiry, the voters of the U. S. were reading about it. Unabashed, Mr. Dies promptly made more news by retorting that the President had not read the record and didn't know what he was talking about. Bellowed the chairman: "I shall continue to do my duty, undeterred and unafraid."

Despite the vain objections of absentee, campaigning Democratic committeemen, Mr. Dies's duty next led him into California affairs. Chief witness from that State was Harper Knowles, who is chairman of the State American Legion's Radical Research Committee. Mr. Knowles is on leave from his job as secretary to the Associated Farmers, an antiunion organization headed by Philip Bancroft, Republican candidate for Senator. Mr. Knowles declared that John G. Clark, Democratic State Campaign Committee chairman, and Ellis Patterson, Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor, are Communist Party members; that Culbert Olson, Democratic candidate for Governor, and Sheridan Downey, for Senator, loyally subscribe to the Communist "Party Line." Whereupon Senator La Follette's Civil Liberties Committee vigilantly awoke from quietus, announced that it would investigate reports that Mr. Knowles's Associated Farmers is window dressing for union-busting bankers, utilities, railroads.

Neatest trick of the week was performed by British Author Evelyn John St. Loe Strachey, barred from the U. S. by Franklin Roosevelt's State Department for being a Communist (TIME, Oct. 24). Bailed out of Ellis Island on condition that he deliver no lectures. Red-stained Mr. Strachey nevertheless managed to throw a dubious kiss at Franklin Roosevelt: "My chief regret is that I cannot now express publicly my support for the New Deal and my detestation of Fascism and Nazism in all their forms."

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