Page 29 - Report on the National Lawyers Guild, legal bulwark of the Communist Party

APPENDIX
COMPARISON OF GUILD PROGRAM WITH COMMUNIST PARTY LINE
Through resolutions of its conventions, declarations of its national
executive board, and statements of its officials, the National Lawyers
Guild has expressed its position with regard to many foreign and domestic issues. Some high Hghts of these pronouncements are com- pared in the following pages with statements on the same issues as found in the Daily Worker, Daily Peoples World, New Masses, The Communist, and Political Affaii's. The first four publications men- tioned were identified as Communist in the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, United States House of Representatives, report dated March 29, 1944, while the last was similarly described in the sanie committee's Report No. 1920 dated May 11, 1948, pages 5 and 6.
The only striking example of conflict with the Communist Party line occurred when the guild's executive board denounced the Russian invasion of Finland in Decemberl939, when it still included a sizable number of non-Communists who have since resigned. This resolution was, however, not widely publicized.
A. Domestic Issues
1. Aliens
(Explanatory Note.—Many members of the Communist Party, U. S. A., are aliens subject to deportation proceedings. In some cases Russia has refused to accept Communist deportees from the United States. The Hobbs bill (H. R. 10) therefore provided for the internment of such aliens, just as was done with Nazi deportees during World War II.)
COMMUNIST PARTY, V. S. A. NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD
Defeat the Bill for Concentration * * * The National
Camps * * * We are referring to Guild in convention assembled opposes the fact that the "Concentration Camp" passage of the Hobbs Concentration Bill introduced by Congressman Hobbs, Camp Bill, or any similar legislation ofAlabama,hasjustbeenreportedoutof which would establish concentration Committee. camps in America (Lawyers Guild Re-
* * * The reactionaries behind it view, vol. 1, No. 4, June 1941, p. 64). hope to sneak it through before the
people have a chance to act. The Bill
provides that all foreign-born non-
citizens shall be imprisoned for life in concentration camps if they have no passports to the countries of their birth. Such persons will be seized without trial, and without any possibility of appeal to higher courts.
***
wrg uj.gg ^Yia,t you wire your Congressman now, and urge him to vote "No" to the Hobbs Bill (Daily Worker,
April 27, 1939, p. 1).
H. Kept. 3123, 81-2-
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Lawyers