Staff members present: Frank S. Tavenner, Jr., counsel, and William A. Wheeler, staff investigator.
Mr. Moulder. The subcommittee will be in order.
Let the record show that the Hon. Francis E. Walter, chairman of the Committee on Un-American Activities of the House of Representatives of the Congress, pursuant to the provisions of law creating this committee, appointed Hon. Clyde Doyle of California, Hon. Harold H. Velde of Illinois, with myself, Morgan M. Moulder of Missouri as chairman, a subcommittee to conduct hearings in Seattle, Wash.
The membership of the subcommittee, with the exception of Mr. Doyle, is present. Mr. Doyle has asked that I express his regret that a legislative assignment by the Speaker of the House makes it impossible for him to leave Washington at this time.
Following an extensive investigation by the staff, the Committee on Un-American Activities held hearings here during June 1954, and also in Portland during that same period. These hearings were productive of outstanding results in that the committee was furnished by numerous witnesses with facts reflecting the extent of Communist Party activities in the great Pacific Northwest, and the infiltration methods used in this area by the Communist Party.
Mrs. Barbara Hartle will be remembered as a witness whose knowledge of the Communist movement in the Pacific Northwest was very extensive, and the careful and intelligent consideration she gave to her testimony has been excelled by few if any other witnesses which this committee has heard.
In the time allotted for that hearing the committee could not hear all the witnesses who had been summoned, and could not hear fully some of the witnesses who testified. The committee desires at this time to continue with the hearings begun in June of 1954, last year.
Before calling the first witness I desire to recognize the Hon. Charles P. Moriarty, United States attorney for the Western District of Washington, whose office has rendered outstanding service to the Congress of the United States in matters of importance to this committee which have been referred by the Congress to him.
I also desire to extend the committee’s thanks to Mayor Pomeroy and the board of county commissioners who made it possible for us to use this room as a hearing room, United States Marshal William B. Parsons, also Sheriff Tim McCullough and Chief of Police H. J. Lawrence, and members of their respective staffs for their great assistance to this committee.
I also desire to announce at this time—and I trust that it will not be necessary to repeat it at any time during the course of the hearing—that a disturbance of any kind or audible comment on the part of persons other than witnesses during the course of the testimony, whether favorable or unfavorable to the committee or any witness appearing before it, will not be tolerated by the committee. For any infraction of this rule the offender will be ejected from the hearing room.