Mr. Tavenner. You mean that the union members were going to demand——
Mr. Dennett. I heard the Communist Party members in that union were going to make a demand in that union that my former wife be removed from office and be removed as a member of that union because the party had disciplined her.
The situation in that union was very peculiar. It was a union of about 65 members, and there were no more than a half-dozen persons in it who were not members of the Communist Party.
That seems incredible, but the reason for it is that most of the persons who were members of the union were working as secretaries in various union offices, or were working for some individual employer with whom there were no collective-bargaining contracts and there were no regular functions of a union. It was simply a home where these people could pay dues and use the union label wherever they wanted to for their own convenience. As a matter of fact, that is the reason why the Communist Party usually uses the union label on its circulars or letters, because it has members in the Communist Party office who were members of that union.
This particular expulsion drew the attention of the Communist Party to us, and especially to my former wife. They knew that the steelworkers union was bitterly anti-Communist. They didn’t dare to try to make any approaches to the steelworkers union to have me thrown out, but they did have absolute control, they thought, in the office workers union, and they thought they would take their revenge on my former wife by proceeding against her.
When I learned of this I went to the office of the party and asked for the district leadership to give me an audience.
They treated me like scum under their feet when I went in their office because I had just been expelled. However, I did speak to them and advised them that I heard this rumor, that I urged them not to be as foolhardy as that because to do so would attract public attention. And if that was done it would do irreparable harm to that union and might also bring down a great deal of criticism on the entire labor movement for something for which the labor movement itself was not at fault but was something for which the Communist Party was at fault.
I, therefore, asked them if they would be so considerate as to allow my former wife to resign her position if it was inconvenient for them to have her in that position.
She had no desire to remain in it any longer than necessary. She thought she was rendering them a service and thought she was rendering the union a service by holding that position.
But they said they would not take their advice from expelled members.