Raid on the Worker

Outside a shabby, nine-story office building on Manhattan's East Twelfth Street one day last week four nattily tailored men climbed out of a taxicab, moved quickly across the sidewalk and into the grimy lobby. There they wedged themselves into the tiny elevator and rode to the eighth floor, headquarters of the Communist Party's biggest propaganda machine, the Daily Worker (circ. 9,000). At exactly 1 p.m. the four men trooped into the Worker's dingy newsrooms, identified themselves to Office Manager Dorothy Robinson as U.S. Treasury tax agents, and presented a lien of $46,049 for unpaid income taxes in 1951-53 (at the same moment similar liens were presented to the Communist Party--see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). Said the agent in charge: "Take your belongings and leave."

Managing Editor Alan Max instead told the eight staffers then in the office to stick to their desks. Then staffers put in calls to the Daily Worker's Lawyer Harry Sacher and New York newspapers that "we're being raided. Send a man over." While 40 reporters and TV cameramen crowded into the office, the Worker's reporters batted out copy for the 6 p.m. deadline. But an hour before deadline the T-men shooed everybody out and padlocked the Worker's offices. Staffers walked two stories downstairs to the offices of Morning Freiheit (the Communists' Yiddish-language daily) and went back to writing. By 5:30 p.m. all the Worker's copy was closed and sent to the composing room of F & D Printing Co., the separate corporation in the same building that prints the Worker. Crowed the Worker's banner headline next morning: OUR

OFFICE SEIZED HERE WE ARE.

To dailies across the country, the seizure of the assets of the Daily Worker and the Communist Party was Page One news, and the Worker took quick advantage of all the free publicity. It boosted its press run and claimed it was selling 5,000 extra copies daily. In Detroit, Chicago and other cities, business also picked up. When six T-men showed up at the Detroit Worker office, Editor William Allan refused to accept the seizure order, argued that his paper was owned by a separate Michigan corporation. After an hour's discussion, the T-men left. Though Chicago Editor Carl Hirsch was shut off from his typewriter and copy paper, he moved over to another small Communist office, went back to cranking out the local news he writes for the Illinois edition of the Worker. After two days of the circulation windfall, the New York headquarters, which prints all six editions of the weekend Worker,* decided to run off 34,500 copies instead of the usual 23,000.

Reds in the Red. The Worker insists that it has regularly filed its income tax returns, and just as regularly reported year-end losses. As far as any outsider knows, the Worker has turned no profit since it was founded in 1924 with a $35,000 loan from the old Comintern. Said Editor in Chief John Gates: "We have never been out of the red. The paper lost about $200,000 last year." The deficit, he said, was made up by contributions and loans. Only nine months ago, said the Worker, T-men went through its books and demanded that it name those who gave or lent it money. (Under the law, both individuals and companies must list on their tax returns the names of everyone who loans or gives them money. If they do not, Treasury agents can take their records as part of their assets.) But there had been no warning that the paper's assets would be seized. The seizure notice did not come until 21 hours after the raid, which was ordered by downtown Manhattan's Internal Revenue Director Donald R. Moysey.

Despite the Worker's reported losses, the T-men fixed its tax bill at $46,049. In the Worker's safe, the T-men found only $48 in cash. And the total value of its creaky desks, battered typewriters and addressing machines was put at no more than $2,500. The Worker's lawyer promptly offered to put up cash bond to cover the value of the seized property, thus permit staffers to go back to work in their own offices. Said Moysey: "We don't care whether they publish or not." But Moysey did permit Worker mail clerks to enter their padlocked offices and run off on their addressing machines enough mail wrappers to last for a week or so. After the clerks finished, T-men bundled up the subscription lists and filled five wastebaskets with invoices, receipts and account books and carted them all away, saying that they would bring them back in a few days.

"Silly." The raid was condemned by many a U.S. newspaper. If the Government was looking for information about Communists, said the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a raid is more properly a function of the FBI. The New York Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch clucked at Moysey for tramping on the toes of press freedom; Cowles's Des Moines Register called the raid "silly," asked that "responsible Government officials make it clear that they do not countenance" such tactics.

As a result of the raid, the Worker seemed to be winning far more sympathy than it had ever got before. The big reason was that virtually all of the talking about the case was being done by the Worker. Internal Revenue had clammed up tight, since they are forbidden by law to discuss any details of tax returns.

*New York, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and national.

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