Mr. O’Connell. It wasn’t sufficient at least in my mind to proscribe that organization, and I think history and subsequent events have proved that it is necessary to go a little further than just to have the Attorney General put organizations on a list.
Mr. Tavenner. You say a little further? You didn’t go any further, did you?
Mr. O’Connell. As far as we were concerned, as I told you when an organization came to us they came to us with the specific application for funds for a specific purpose and we never—as a matter of fact, we never permitted the organization to appear before the foundation or any representative of the organization. We went into the matter ourselves. We conducted no investigations to determine what their political beliefs might be or anything like that.
Mr. Tavenner. You made the awards regardless of the purpose behind the formation of the organization; is that what it comes down to?
Mr. O’Connell. For instance, we never went, we never sent out a group of investigators, never had the funds, as a matter of fact, to do that to find out.
Mr. Tavenner. If you had read the citation of Attorney General Francis Biddle, for instance, which was made on September 24, 1942, you would have learned as follows:
A. Philip Randolph, president of the congress since its inception in 1936, refused to run again in April 1940 on the ground that it was deliberately packed with Communists and Congress of Industrial Organization members who were either Communists or sympathizers with Communists.
Commencing with its formation in 1936, Communist Party functionaries and fellow travelers have figured prominently in the leadership and affairs of the congress. According to A. Phillip Randolph, John P. Davis, secretary of the congress, has admitted that the Communist Party contributed $100 a month to its support.
From the record of its activities and the composition of its governing bodies there can be little doubt that it has served as what James W. Ford, Communist Vice Presidential candidate elected to the executive committee in 1937 predicted: an important sector of the Democratic front sponsored and supported by the Communist Party.
Those are the words of Francis Biddle, Attorney General of the United States, in 1942. Do you say that statement was not worthy of consideration?
Mr. O’Connell. I, of course, didn’t have that statement in front of me.
Mr. Tavenner. It would have been in front of you if you had inquired about it. It was in the Congressional Record.