Dies-pelley Link Charges Stir Storm in Congress

The controversy raging around the allegedly forged letters linking Representative Martin Dies, chairman of the House Committee Investigating un-American Activities, with Silver Shirt leader William Dudley Pelley, exploded on the floor of the House today.

Representatives Eugene Cox and Frank Keefe demanded that Representative Frank Hook expunge from the Congressional Record the speech in which he introduced the letters. The office of the Dies committee announced yesterday that David Mayne, Pelley’s Washington agent who had purportedly received the letters from Pelley, had testified in an executive session of the committee yesterday that the letter were forgeries.

Hook, who did not appear on the House floor, was accused by Keefe of being the tool of a group of conspirators attempting to assassinate the character of Dies. Later Hook’s secretary released a statement in which the Michigan Congressman said that he had an affidavit from Mayne asserting that the letters were genuine.

The Dies committee met in executive session again today, questioning Gardner Jackson, attorney for labor’s Non-Partisan League, who gave the allegedly forged letters to Hook, and Harold Weisberg, former LaFollette Committee investigator who purportedly persuaded Mayne to give the letters to Jackson.

Representative Joe Starnes, acting committee chairman, in a statement today said that the committee had numerous affidavits “showing that certain parties in New York City had offered large sums of money for the purpose of obtaining documentary evidence showing a connection or collusion between Chairman Dies and the Christian Front.”

Jackson, in a counter statement, charged the committee’s statement was “an attempt to distract attention from Dies’ participation in meetings promoted and attended by the Christian Front and his active working with Merwin K. Hart, prominent collaborator of the Christian Front.”