Page 34 - Report on the National Lawyers Guild, legal bulwark of the Communist Party

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THE NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD
COMMUNIST PARTY, U. S. A.
The drive against witch hunting must take the form of outright abohtion of the Un-American Activities Committee. * * * (Popular Mandate vs. Monop- oly Policy in the New Congress, Max Gordon, Political Affairs, January 1949, p. 82).
NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD
On December 13, 1948, the Guild sent a statement to all House Members de- manding abolition of the House Com- mittee on Un-American Activities. The statement alleged that the "existence and activities of such a committee are inherently inimical to the most funda- mental rights guaranteed by the Con- stitution" (Daily Worker, December 13, 1948, p. 2, Washington Star, December 13, 1948).
The House Committee on Un-Ameri- can Activities * * * should be abolished (Resolution of the National Guild Convention, February 23, 1949, Lawyers Gxiild Review, vol. IX, No. 1, Winter 1949, p. 51).
RAPP-COUDERT COMMITTEE
(Explanatory Note.—The Rapp-Coudert Committee was active in 1940 in investigating Communist activity in the public school system of New York City.)
COMMUNIST PARTY, U. S. A.
Contempt proceedings by the Rapp- Coudert Committee against five mem-
bers of the Brooklyn College faculty are a striking exposure of the fascist character of the committee.
The charge is that the teachers
refused to testify before the Committee.
But actually, they justifiably refused to attend a secret one-man hearing in which they would be denied benefit of counsel * * * {Daily Worker, De- cember 23, 1940, p. 6, editorial).
The Rapp-Coudert Committee, which is taking the lead in the fight to destroy public education in New York State, is this week conducting "little Dies" hear- ings in New York City against the Teachers Union and its membership.
The Rapp-Coudert Committee and the State Legislature have been carry- ing the banners of the Middle Ages particularly high during the past few months. The Committee was created to "investigate, study and review State aid, administration, conduct, methods, subjectmatterandsubversiveactivities in the public schools * * * and every other matter deemed relevant."
What the Committee deemed relevant was to instigate an attack of unprece- dented proportions against progressive education and against the Teachers Union, organization of progressive- minded men and women in the New York's school system {Sunday Worker, December 1, 1940, p. 5, article by Beth
McHenry entitled "Coudert Waves Middle Age Banner in School Attack").
NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD
* * * The National Lawyers Guild in convention assembled con- demns all attacks on academic freedom and particularly condemns the actions of the Rapp-Coudert Committee, the New York Board of Education, the Board of Higher Education, the refusal of the College of the City of New York to review the appointment of Dr. Max Yergan and the termination by Swarth- more College of the appointment of Josephine Truslow Adams {Lawyers Guild Reviexo, vol. 1, No. 1, No. 4, June 1941, p. 63).
Lawvers Guild Raps Coudert Witch- '
Hunt.
Charges Body Failed to Uncover
Activity of pro-Fascists.
Although the Rapp-Coudert Com-
mittee has spent more than a quarter of a million dollars in public funds, it has failed to unearth a single example of fascist or pro-Nazi activity in our public school system, the New York Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild chargedyesterday.
The Lawyers Guild called upon the state legislature to at least give oppo- nents of the Rapp-Coudert Committee an opportunity to be heard before acting upon its extension.
The statement pointed out that the Rapp-Coudert Committee was created to investigate the cost of education in the State and that up to now nothing has bc-en heard of this phase of the inquiry {Daily Worker, March 25, 1942, p. 5).