Page 18 - Report on the National Lawyers Guild, legal bulwark of the Communist Party

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THE NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD
of which the National Lawyers Guild is an affiliate. The international group will be dealt with in a later section of this report.
Apparently the guild conffict between Titoites and Stalinists is not too serious at the present time, for the Daily Worker, official organ of the Communist Party, continues to promote and publicize the National Lawyers Guild. The Daily Worker attributed the guild's pro-Tito resolution to "O. John Rogge, who is admittedly on the payroll of the Tito regime" and gave this warning to the guild:
If the progressive attorneys who courageously challenged the cold-war black- out of civil liberty here will get the facts on the Tito conspiracy, they will have no difficulty seeing that in falling for the Tito bait they fell for bait planted by the reactionary forces they are opposing (Daily Worker, May 11, 1950, p. 7).
Included in the appendix to this report will be found an exhaustive
analysis of propaganda issued by the National Lawyers Guild and that issued on the same subject by the Communist Party. This analysis shows that the guild and the Communist Party have taken the same and sometimes simultaneous stand on a host of important issues and should resolve any doubts regarding the fealty of the guild for the lino of the party.
Another early front for lawyers was the International Juridical Association. • This was formed in 1931 and its members were closely interlocked with the International Labor Defense as well as the NationalLawyersGuild. AmongitsprommentmemberswasAlger Hiss,
INTERNATIONAL JURIDICAL ASSOCIATION
In 1922, the Communist International established the International
Red Aid with the idea that it would have sections in various countries
oftheworld. Thepurposeofsuch—organizationsinthelanguageof the Communist International was
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to render material and moral aid to the imprisoned victims of capitalism (Resolutions and Theses of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International, published for the Communist International by the Communist Party of Great
Britain, p. 87).
In plain language, this meant that the Communists wanted to provide an agency which would protect their subversive agents whenever they ran into difficulties with the law of the various countries in which
they were operating.
An American section of the International Red Aid was established
in 1925 and it was Imown here as the International Labor Defense. The International Labor Defense continued to function until 1946, when it merged into a new subversive organization known as the Civil
The International Juridical Association cooperated closely with the International Labor Defense,
The following leaders of the National Lawyers Guild have been actively associated with both the International Labor Defense and theInternationalJuridicalAssociation: JosephR.Brodsky(deceased), a charter member of the Communist Party; David J. Bentall, Osmond K. Fraenkel, Walter Gellhorn, Herman A. Gray, Abraham J. Isserman, Paul J. Kern, Carol Weiss King, Edward Lamb, Louis F. McCabe, and Maurice Sugar.
The International Juridical Association actively defended Com- munists and consistently followed the Communist Party line. The Special Committee on Un-American Activities cited the organization as a front in a report dated March 29, 1944.
Rights Congress.