Another person whom I knew was Charles Daggett. Charles Daggett I knew in several different capacities. At one time he was the city editor of the Seattle Star, a paper which went out of business in Seattle a great number of years ago.
Mr. Daggett later was known to me as an official in the inlandboatmen’s union,[9] having become elected business agent in the San Francisco branch of the organization, and got into financial difficulties there; later went to Los Angeles. That is the last I heard of him.
Mr. Tavenner. We have seen him since then, and he has testified before this committee and admitted his Communist Party membership.
Did you know him in this area in any activity within the newspaper guild?
Mr. Dennett. Yes, I knew him in the newspaper guild, but I was not certain of his Communist Party activity at the time that I knew him then. I knew him as a Communist just as he left here.
Mr. Tavenner. Was he active in that field in Los Angeles?
Mr. Dennett. Yes, he was. He was very active as a newspaperman. He had a great deal to do with three other newspaper people whom I became closely acquainted with because of the official position that they held in the organization.
The first was a person by the name of Ellen McGrath. I have heard since that she is deceased. But Ellen McGrath was a sort of business agent for the newspaper guild when it was first organized here, and I knew her both in the official capacity as a representative of the newspaper guild and as a Communist actively operating in that field.
I knew her successor in that field, a man by the name of Claude Smith. Claude Smith was also known to me at that time as a Communist.
(The witness confers with his counsel.)