At that particular time 2 outstanding people came to the Northwest. In fact, 3 came at one time. One of them was another person who had just returned from the Soviet Union having spent 2 years’ study at the Lenin Institute. His name was Hutchin R. Hutchins, a Negro who had done some outstanding work here before going to the Soviet Union. But when he returned here he ran into difficulty.
Then there was Mr. Lowell Wakefield, who had achieved national prominence for having discovered the Scottsboro case in the South, and had carried a large part of the responsibility of conducting the organization of the defense of the Scottsboro boys.
It was Lowell Wakefield who got hold of the mothers of these boys and prevailed upon them to go on national speaking tours in behalf of their boys under the auspices of the Communist Party.
Mr. Lowell Wakefield was an especially able man because he could raise finances and organize mass meetings and do almost impossible tasks, at least tasks which the rest of us seemed to be very inept at. He was very skillful.
Another person who came at that time was Mr. Alan Max. I noticed from the masthead of the Daily Worker a couple of years ago that Mr. Alan Max was the editor of the Daily Worker. Mr. Alan Max spent considerable time here then.
I became very well acquainted with each of the men. However, they were unable to solve the problems that were rising here in this district, and the central committee was not satisfied with even their efforts.
Following a national hunger march some time in 1933 a Mr. Morris Rappaport,[1] better known to us as Rapp or Rapport.
Mr. Tavenner. Will you spell his last name, please.
Mr. Dennett. Our use of it was R-a-p-p-o-r-t, and I believe the full spelling is R-a-p-p-a-p-o-r-t or something like that.
Mr. Rappaport came into the district with a great deal of suspicion and alarm on the part of us local people because we thought he was an easterner who didn’t understand the ways of the West. We were quite surprised to find that he had originally come from the West. He came from California. And he, like Mr. Noral, had been a part of the Foster delegation or a part of the Foster faction. Although he had not been a delegate to the Sixth World Congress in Moscow, he learned a great deal more about it than Mr. Noral did because when he came here he had an unlimited reserve of energy and tremendous flexibility in application of the party line and party policy. He was not the least bit afraid of anything. When a veterans’ organization here in town tried to raid a school and destroy it here, Mr. Rappaport had the courage to be among those present when it was attacked, and he caused a great deal of publicity.