Nazis Given Respite As Inquiry Turns Spotlight on Communism

The McCormack Congressional Committee to Investigate Nazi and other Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States yesterday ended four days of public hearings in the Bar Association Building by lending an attentive ear for an hour or so to evidence of Communist activities in the United States.

Archibald E. Stevenson, a New York attorney, was the only witness called to testify, although depositions made by Communist leaders during previous executive hearings of the committee were read into the record.

Stevenson called the attention of the committee to Communist advocacy of the violent overthrow of the present political and social order, despite a promise, made by Soviet Foreign Secretary Maxim Litvinoff to President Roosevelt on the occasion of American recognition of the Soviet government, to “prevent the formation or activities of any group having as its aim the forceful overthrow of the political and social order of the United States.”

Stevenson testified that a month after this agreement had been reached the Third Internationale, meeting in Moscow, and the Central Committee of the United States branch of the Communist party, meeting in Cleveland, acted in a manner contrary to the Litvinoff pledge.

Stevenson presented the committee with copies of the “Communist Internationale,” and referred to the issue of February 21, 1934, in which it was declared that “a general strike and armed uprising constitute the only road over which to conquer capitalism and establish the rule of the proletariat.” The same issue attacked “the Roosevelt program with Fascism and war as objectives” and described the most effective counteractant as “proletarian revolution involving seizure of power.”

Prior to Stevenson’s testimony the deposition of Earl Browder, executive secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist party, was read into the record. Browder described the organization of the Communist party in this country and attributed to it a direct relationship to the Third Internationale, which is a world Communist party.

TENDERS DOCUMENTS

Documents tendered by Browder to the committee included resolutions describing as “the only way out of the present depression a revolution similar to the October Revolution” which unseated Kerensky and established Communism in Russia in 1917.

The testimony of James W. Ford, Negro, who ran as Communist candidate for the vice-presidency of the United States during the last election, was also read into the record, and it affirmed Browder’s previous explanation.

The hearings were attended by a number of Silver Shirts and others, all of whom had hoped to be called to vent their spleen on the “Red menace.” Royal Scott Gulden, head of the Order of ’76, an “ultra-American,” anti-Semitic group, was at hand with armfuls of his order’s propaganda. Ralph M. Easley, head of the National Civic Federation, whose profession is “anti-Communism,” also was at hand but did not testify, Stevenson, attorney for his group, having given full details of that organization’s knowledge of Communist affairs earlier in the hearings.

EARLY ADJOURNMENT

The hearings, in the opinions of many who attended, were adjourned “subject to the call of the chair” prematurely. It was expected that representatives of the Silver Shirts and other groups considered as Fascists would be brought to testify.

Among the outstanding accomplishments of the committee’s open hearings in New York, is proof of the following:

That Ivy Lee, public relations counsel for the Pennsylvania Railroad and Rockefeller interests in the United States, Solvey of Belgium and the Industrial Gesellschaft Farben of Germany, has been advising the Hitler government as to the type and manner of propaganda to disseminate, at a fee of $25,000 yearly.

That German concerns have provided American writers and lecturers, including Karl K. Kitchen and Burton Holmes, with free transportation to and from Germany in hope of favorable publicity.

That the New York National Guard has become a haven for a number of members of the Stahlhelm, German veteran organization, some of whom had not applied for citizenship papers.

LABOR FRONT

That joining the German Labor Front, a National Socialist organization of the Hitler government, has been made mandatory for all German workers in the United States under penalty of ineligibility for work and possible loss of citizenship on their return to the Fatherland.

That the Friends of New Germany maintain a Schutz Staffel, uniformed and functioning in the manner of the group of the same name serving Hitler as storm troops in Germany.

That the Friends of New Germany, while claiming to be an American organization, is under the direct dictatorship of aliens, including Fritz Gissibl, Walter Kappe and Joseph Schuster, who were mentioned during earlier hearings as the “Big Three” of the organization.

That the German Embassy here has cooperated both with the Berlin government and the Friends of New Germany in extending Hitler’s policies to the United States.

That George Sylvester Viereck, well known propaganda writer, has been subsidized by the German diplomatic corps and Germany’s publicity agents.

That German steamship and tourist lines cooperated with the German Government in propagandizing Hitlerism in this country.

And that the Friends of New Germany, American Nazi organization professing to be American, acts under orders from Ernst Wilhelm Bohle, chief of the Nazi Foreign Department in Germany.