Page 8 - Report on the National Lawyers Guild, legal bulwark of the Communist Party

2 THF^"^ : TIONAL LAWYERS GUILD
of the violation of human rights as found in Soviet slave labor camps and in the series of Moscow trials, which shocked the civihzed world.
The National Lawyers GuUd was formally organized at a conven- _
tion held in the Washington Hotel in Washington, D. C, on February 19-22,1937. NationalheadquarterswereestablishedintheNation's Capital, where they remain today.
Commanists publicly hailed the founding of the National Lawyers Guild. NewMasses,aweeklypublicationoftheCommunistParty, featured an article entitled "Defense for the Counsel—The Need for the National Lawyers Guild" in its issue of June 14, 1938 (pp. 19-21). This
article,
by
Charles
an —
Recht, attorney for the Soviet
written
Government and a member of the guild, observed that
With the growth of the American Labor Party in New York, and kindred progressive movements throughout the United States, the lawyers, who in many of the smaller communities are the nerve centers of pohtical activities, will be an invaluable aid in galvanizing the latent liberal elements of the country into a pohtical force. The National Lawyers Guild can and will form one of the most important adjuncts to a progressive movement representing the interests of the workers and farmers.
The International Labor Defense, which was cited by former
Attorney General Francis Biddle as "the legal arm of the Communist
Party," also enthusiastically welcomed the new front, the Nat—ional Lawyers Guild. The ILD stated in its 1936-37 yearbook that
The emergence of the National Lawyers Guild is regarded by the International Labor Defense as a heartening expression of the devotion of thousands of American attorneys to the American principle of democracy, and a concrete step on their part in the struggle to maintain and enlarge democratic rights (p. 64).
Earl Browder, testifying before the House Committee on Un-
American Activities on September 6, 1939, in his capacity as general secretary of the Communist Party, admitted that the National Lawyers Guild was a Communist transmission belt.
This has been corroborated by Louis F. Budenz, former member of the National Committee of the Communist Party and one-time managing editor of its official newspaper, the Daily Worker. Testi- fying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities on April 3, 1946, Mr. Budenz described the National Lawyers Guild as a working ally of the Communist Party and stated that members of the guild would be under the influence of the party while "officers would be Communists or fellow travelers." Testifying again before the committee on July 20, 1948, Mr. Budenz said:
In the National Lawyers Guild there is a complete dupMcate of the Communist Party's hopes and aspirations in that field, although there are a number of non- Communists in the National Lawyers Guild. In fact, some of their lawyers locally are not Communists, but they play the Communist game either wittingly or unwittingly.
INTERCEDES FOR INDIVIDUAL COMMUNISTS
The National Lawyers Guild, as an organization, has intervened in the major court cases which have involved individual Communist leaders or officials of Communist-front organizations or unions. In every instance, the guild has interceded on the Communist side.
The guild submitted a brief amicus curiae in the case of Robert Wood, an Oldahoma Communist official who was convicted of criminal syndicalism in that State in 1940. When, in the same year, avowed Communist Ben Gold and other leaders of the Communist-controlled