Mr. O’Connell. We didn’t take the Congressional Record. There are many things in the Congressional Record, as you well know, that you just don’t take as it’s the Bible.
Mr. Tavenner. Actually you were not interested to see whether or not the money which you were paying out was for the promotion of Communist Party projects?
Mr. O’Connell. That didn’t enter into our consideration, the fact that an organization came to us with a specific application for a specific purpose to do a certain job, and if we thought it ought to be done and thought it was in the provisions of the will we granted it. We didn’t think it was incumbent upon the trustees to make any kind of an investigation into these organizations as far as the political opinions and beliefs of their leaders or their members, whatever they might be. We just didn’t do it. It just wasn’t particularly being done by private individuals or private trusts.
Mr. Tavenner. Did your foundation make grants totaling $1,500 to the Southern Conference for Human Welfare?
Mr. O’Connell. Yes, sir.
Mr. Tavenner. That is, through 1942 and subsequently increased to a grand total of $14,000.
Mr. O’Connell. I am sure, I don’t know whether that total is correct, but I am sure we made grants to the Southern Conference for Human Welfare.
Mr. Tavenner. Did you look into that organization or the formation of that organization?
Mr. O’Connell. No. From my own information they were doing an excellent job in the field of promoting Negro rights, in the field of organizing of labor unions, and so on in the South, and particularly asked for the grant, if I remember correctly, to employ a labor secretary to develop that particular part of the conference or group.
Mr. Tavenner. This organization was cited as Communist-front which received money from the Robert Marshall Foundation, one of the principal sources of funds by which many Communist-fronts operate, Special Committee on Un-American Activities reported March 29, 1944.