Page 37 - Report on the National Lawyers Guild, legal bulwark of the Communist Party

Investigate the Federal Bureau of In- vestigation because of "vicious assaults upon civil liberties" Editorial, Daily
Worker, March 13, 1940, p. 6).
An article in the Daily Worker indi- cated that the FBI had gone beyond the scope of its authority in conducting general intelligence investigations. Ref- erence was made to the increase in the FBI's appropriation over a period of years, and it was alleged that because
* * * the National Lawyers Guild in convention assembled opposes the GestapoactivitiesoftheFederalBureau of Investigation, calls for the removal of its Director, and urged Congress to re- duce its appropriations so as to restrict its jurisdiction to the field of federal crime and to deprive it of authority to act in matters which affect labor or civil rights (National Lawyers Guild Convention Resolution, Maj'-June
THE NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD 31
COMMUNIST PARTY, U. S. A. NATIONAL LAWYEES GUILD
tences. This unprecedented procedure Lawyers Guild {Daily Worker, Sep- in an American court is not only an tember 12, 1949, p. 3).
attack upon the rights and duty of the
legal profession faithfully to defend
their clients, but it deprives the defend-
ants, who were rushed to jail without
bail, of the indispensable services of the lawj'ers most familiar with the case to
carry forward their appeals (Elizabeth Guriey Flynn in Introduction to In Defense of Your Freedom, by Eugene Dennis, New Century Publishers, New York, October 1949).
5. Federal Bureau of Investigation
of its Director's "absorbing interest in 1941; Lawyers Guild Review, vol. 1, No.
investigating alleged subversive activi- ties" the FBI was falling behind in its
regular job of dealing with other types of specific Federal violations {Daily
Worker, March 25, 1940).
The Nazi Gestapo is Hoover's Model
of Conduct for FBI {Daily Worker,
December 19, 1940, p. 5, columns 5, 6, and7).
Federal Bureau of Investigation Di-
4, June 1941, p. 66).
* * * the FBI has taken upon
rector J. Edgar Hoover was referred itself the role of a political police on the
to as "Chief of the national thought Continental model * * * -phe Guild
***"
(Editorial, Political believes it is not the province or function
police
Affairs, January 1948, p. 10).
of the FBI or other police agencies to maintain dossiers of individuals' lawful political activities. The Guild requests
It seems that the FBI * * * jg
worried that the American people may
-
getwisetoitsrealfunction—whichis theCongresstoconductaninvestigation
thought control on the Gestapo and into the activities of the FBI * * * Japanese police model (Editorial, The (National Lawyers Guild Convention Worker, June 6, 1948, p. 6). Resolution, February 1948; Lawyers
Guild Review, February 1948, p. 320). The FBI and the Department of Jus- The American people are entitled to tice have developed into a secret political full information on the extent to which
police which exists outside the law and the FBI has developed into a dangerous, beyond the U. S. Constitution. * * * secret police. * * * The National An aroused nation must stop the FBI Lawyers Guild recommends "a compre- effort to replace the American Constitu- hensive investigation into the operations tion by the reign of the political spv and methods of the FBI" (National LaW' (Editorial, Daily Worker, June 13, 1949, yers Guild release, Daily Worker, June p. 7).
Continuationof * * * protestscan turn the rumors about J. Edgar Hoover's resignation into actual and heartening fact (Editorial, Daily People's World, June 16, 1949, p. 6).
The FBI's "undercover network" is a menace to the internal security of the nation * * * The American people
20, 1949, p. 4, c3).