Mr. Tavenner. I am sure that would be a very interesting story, but it is not a matter we are investigating in our work here.
After you had that experience how long was it before you returned to the work of the Communist Party?
Mr. Dennett. It was within a very few months because I didn’t know at the time I started to work in the freight-boat industry in Puget Sound that there was an organizing drive of a union to organize the employees and that they had reached the point before I came along where they had entered into an arbitration. And they were awaiting the decision of this arbitrator. Finally the decision came down, I think about 3 or 4 months after I entered the industry, and the decision was so adverse that the men stopped work as soon as the boats got into port.
Mr. Tavenner. What do you mean by saying that a decision came down?
Mr. Dennett. The arbitrator handed down his decision. He was a very long time making his decision. When it finally came down it was very disagreeable to all the employees. In fact, they rejected it; they refused to accept it and called a strike.
When they called that strike they were confronted with a problem of electing delegates to attend a meeting of the union to determine what course of action to pursue.
I was elected a delegate from the crew that I was working with.
When we arrived at this meeting—I believe the meeting was held in the labor temple—we discussed the award, and the union leaders at that time were very frankly disappointed in the results of it.
The sum total of it was that it led to a strike, and the members seemed to like the way I presented their case during the course of the arguments, getting ready for the strike. And when the strike occurred I was elected chairman of the strike committee and chairman of the negotiating committee.
So we were again brought into public attention, and the Communist Party looked me up very quickly to find out what was going on and to try to advise me how to conduct myself in the course of that strike. They really knew very little about it. They learned a great deal from me because I was working with the men. And their advice was I must immediately fight the leadership of the union.