to promote the program of the party. When I say "take part," I mean as the Communist Party, but the party is tied up with the Communist International of the world, with the Communists of the world, and they use the politics to bring out the phase of the party, to bring out the program of the party, or to bring out some struggle that the party is interested in. The party not only works as a unit as the Communist Party, but within each of the political parties in America.

When I was the acting president of the Young Communist League for a few months, I had the responsibility of directing the fraction down in Los Angeles, a meeting of the fraction with the Young Democrats and meeting with the people who worked in the Young Republicans, and so the party not only works as the Communist Party itself, but it works that way.

Further, the party is tied up, and I think we showed it this morning, with the Soviet Union and therefore it is not a party in the sense, but it is a part of the conspiracy whose major aim is the overthrow of capitalism throughout the world, and of course, in understanding Leninism, Lenin teaches the party under all kinds of conditions how to work. You will see that the party in America does not work like the party in France. In France and in Italy the main drive is to elect people to the French parliament, the French Government, but in America it is all right, but this is not the important thing in America, but the party takes part as the condition arises as to how the party works. Sometimes the party's program in the election is for legal work there on the ground, but as a political party in America, no, because there are so many-well, the party has all types of organizations.

In a union they have the open Communists and then they have the hidden Communists like in other organizations. This is true all over. Right now the Communists have Communists out in the open, and then they have the underground.

Mr. TAVENNER. Now, you have spoken of the purpose of the Communist Party through its instructions to the Young Communist League to infiltrate various organizations.

Did you participate in any of those programs of infiltration?

Mr. ROSSER. Yes, in 1936 when in California we were fighting to make the party legal, it was decided in a meeting of the state committee of the Young Communist League that in southern California we had the best opportunity to establish a legal front, established either by the county council or board of supervisors or some governmental agency, and so therefore we planned to call a conference. We worked out a plan where we were able, through our fellow travelers and our people around the party who had prestige, to get the board of supervisors to call a meeting on the problems of underprivileged youth, and because this meeting was called by the board of supervisors, we had every type of youth organization in southern California: Baptist, Methodist, Catholics, trade unionists, YMCA, Elks, Masonic Youth, Boy Scout leaders- all types of youth organizations, and the Young Communist League. It was only out of about 400 peoplethere were only officially about 5 members of the Young Communist League there. One member came from Hollywood. He was a young budding actor. I was there, only as a representative of the county committee of the Young Communist League. We had a person by

the name of Elsie Monjar, who came from the Christian Youth Council, and a person by the name of Mort Newman, who came from the Methodist Youth. He was a leader in the Communist underground, Young Communist League, in the Methodist Youth, a hidden Communist.

At that meeting we were able to sway these 300 young people and the board of supervisors to set up a county youth commission. The job of this youth commission was to make a survey of the problems of youth and make suggestions as to what the board of supervisors could do. In the election of the committee, the county youth commission, I was elected by the majority of young people there as one of the members of the Los Angeles County youth commission.

Now, the main thing that this did to us, it gave the Communists an opportunity to use the official stationery of the Communist Party to really start the building of the California youth legislatures and other things in California. We sent out calls on the official stationery, and my name was on there, member of the Young Communist League, and all these other people.

I also worked in the building of young Democratic clubs. I also worked in the building of the Communist groups in the YMCA and the Negro organizations and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. We maneuvered that the president was a Young Communist League member and so forth. I had quite a bit of experience.

Mr. JACKSON. Mr. Rosser, you mentioned the five members of the Young Communist League. One, I believe you said, was a young budding actor. Who was that?

Mr. ROSSER. His name was Maurice Murphy.

Mr. JACKSON. Did you name the others by name?

Mr. ROSSER. Yes.

Mr. JACKSON. Thank you.

Mr. DOYLE. May I ask this question, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. VELDE. Mr. Doyle.

Mr. DOYLE. Who was responsible for negotiating the arrangements for this meeting of the board of supervisors in Los Angeles County? Mr. ROSSER. Well, one of the top leaders in the Christian Youth Council who had contact with all the ministers and churches, Miss Elsie Monjar, and Mort Newman. She was a member of the Young Communist League; Mort Newman, who was one of the leaders of the Methodist Youth; and the people that they were able to contact, and some of the people of the Communist Party through the trade unions and so forth.

Mr. SCHERER. I would like to go back to that phase of your testimony about which Congressman Jackson asked you a few moments ago. When you said that when it suited the party's purposes, they sabotaged efforts to get Negroes jobs and accomplish those other programs which were for the betterment of the Negro race, what was your reaction to that at that time?

Mr. ROSSER. Well, I was in a confused state ever since the national training school. For the first time since I had been in the party, at the national training school I came up face to face with that thing that they call Communist Party discipline. I had never met it really

before. I had heard about it, and I had seen people disciplined, and I had been in meetings where people had been chastised for not doing this and not doing that, but I had never really run up against it like a stone wall where all these people you felt were your friends all at once look like they are ready to shoot you.

Christmas Eve, the night before that, a couple of days before that, Bob Minor or somebody had spoken on the question that if Russia attacked, we went to war with Russia, we American Communists would have to turn the guns against our own Government, and Christmas Eve while ice skating I was asking Morgan Hull, the California Communist, and some of the others did they agree with this person on the position, the Communist position, that our first loyalty was to Russia, and he asked me back, who was I loyal to, was I loyal to Stalin or Roosevelt; was I loyal to the Soviet Union or America, and of course, knowing Communist Party politics, I quickly said, "Well, I am loyal to Stalin." So then Morgan Hull saw that we were going to get in an awful thing, and he said, "Well, let's have a Christmas party," and I said okay, and I had been receiving money from some of the top fellow travelers in southern California, Christmas presents, sent me presents of money, so Morgan Hull was getting his check from the Newspaper Guild-he had money.

Mr. SCHERER. You mean these Communists were observing Christmas?

Mr. ROSSER. Well, we-Morgan and I proposed that. So we decided to break-first we broke a decision and went down in the village and bought a lot of food and bought some drinks and came back, and there was about 25 Communist students at the school. The rest had been given permission to go to New York, and we had a party.

The next morning part of the control commission was out at the national training school. They held a meeting, and they discussed with us the breaking of the party decisions. That Monday they held a meeting of the whole student body, and the person that came outI forgot his name now-discussed Communist Party discipline. He said that without Communist Party discipline the party could never carry through a successful revolution.

Mr. SCHERER. What year was this that you began to waver?
Mr. ROSSER. This was in 1939.

Mr. SCHERER. But you stayed in the party until 1944?

Mr. ROSSER. That is right. And so in my group they went after me for about 2 days to make a statement, and finally after hammering it home that I had broken a decision, that I had betrayed the Negro people and the working class, I wrote a statement, and the statement was that I, Lou Rosser, had broken party discipline; I had betrayed the Negro people; I had endangered the security of the national training school and betrayed the working class, and that any decision made by the control commission I deserved it, and that began to make me think.

Mr. SCHERER. What decision did they make then?

Mr. ROSSER. They made a decision that when I got back to Los Angeles, instead of going into a top functionary of the party immediately, I should work in the unemployed movement. That is a dayto-day, hard task that they made

Mr. SCHERER. You mean, that is how you were disciplined?

Mr. ROSSER. That is the way I was disciplined.

Mr. SCHERER. Your punishment.

Mr. ROSSER. But it opened my eyes, because for the first time I saw me on 1 side and 49 other Communists on the other side, besides 3-there were 3 of us in this deal, and so then I began to think, and then when we reached this point where the party-

Mr. SCHERER. Let me interrupt again. That memorandum you signed, that wasn't true, was it?

Mr. ROSSER. What?

Mr. SCHERER. Was it true, that memorandum or that confession you made?

Mr. ROSSER. Well, at that time-that is the party's thinking. After I sat in a group and 6 people just hammering on you all day for 2 days-this line, "You broke a decision; you endangered the national security of the school, the party discipline"-finally I broke down and wrote the decision-wrote the

Mr. SCHERER. You did because of that pressure that was put on? Mr. ROSSER. Well, I guess so. And then when they made this decision that we should see to it that Negroes didn't get jobs, it kind of upset me, and I got worried, and to show you for the records, if we had them here to date, when the Roosevelt Committee on Fair Employment Practice had its first hearing a few months later in Los Angeles, only 38 Negroes had been hired by the defense industries in Los Angeles, and most of the defense industries were under the control of the CIO where the party had an opportunity to stifle the integration of Negroes.

Mr. SCHERER. You found out at that time that the Communist Party actually was anti-Negro, didn't you?

Mr. ROSSER. Well, I began to open my eyes, but when

Mr. SCHERER. That was the first time you began

Mr. ROSSER. Yes, it was beginning. I was beginning to be

come

Mr. SCHERER. It became anti-Negro when it suited its purpose, didn't it?

Mr. ROSSER. That is right.

Mr. SCHERER. You learned that to be a greater truth-call it a greater truth-as years went on then, didn't you?

Mr. ROSSER. Yes.

Mr. SCHERER. This was about when? 1940, you say?

Mr. ROSSER. This was 1939 and 1940.

Mr. SCHERER. How is it you stayed in the party until 1944? That is what I am interested in.

Mr. ROSSER. Well, when Hitler marched on the Soviet Union, the party line changed overnight. The party said:

Every man and every woman, every child, must be used for manpower to gear this big arsenal of democracy. We have to see to it that the Soviet Union, England, France, are given guns, food, ammunition, given all those things that are necessary to destroy Hitler.

And we had to go back to the Negro people and say it is all right to give your blood to the Red Cross because this is a different kind of war; it is a war of liberation; it is a war of freedom; they have attacked the Soviet Union, and in the fight for jobs the Commu

nist Party set down a rule that instead of picketing like we had been doing in 1938, 1939, for jobs, picketing organizations, we had to sit down over the conference table and use the power of the unions and the interested industry with the Government agencies to see that Negroes were integrated through the FEPC Act by Roosevelt into the war industries.

Mr. SCHERER. What caused you then finally to break with the party in 1944? Or am I going too fast for you, Mr. Counsel? Do you have that?

Mr. TAVENNER. Well, we would have reached it, but I guess since you are at this point, we might as well

Mr. ROSSER. What caused me to break with the party: The party raised the point during this period of Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union that we must fight for jobs, but we must see to it that the Negro organizations do not go out of bounds, and to give an example, the Negro press kept present, even during this time, that the FEPC that Roosevelt signed was too weak, Executive Order 8802. It didn't have any teeth in it, and Randolph, a leader of the Pullman porters and the Negro people, and Walter White kept pushing for Roosevelt to put teeth in it, and the Negro press carried a campaign of double V; victory at home and victory abroad. This double V program. The party got sore because the party was carrying a program of open the second front, and the party felt that the program of these Negro leaders and the Negro press the leaders of America would think that the Communists were pushing these programs. So in a meeting of the Negro commission in southern California it was decided that, and I am sure this came from New York, we should put pressure on the Negro press by getting prominent Negroes to write to Roosevelt and to the Justice Department that the Negro press was inflammatory, and it was dividing the war effort; it was against the war effort.

Randolph had threatened to march on Washington during the Hitler pact. He had threatened to march a hundred thousand Negroes to Washington if they didn't sign an FEPC, and after they got it, he threatened again to get teeth in it. The Communist Party said that he had to be muzzled, and he was coming to Los Angeles in 1942, and I and Pettis Perry were given the job of working out a plan how we could discredit Randolph, which the

Mr. SCHERER. Randolph was a Negro?

Mr. ROSSER. Yes, a top Negro. So he was getting a medal that the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People give each year to some outstanding American Negro, white, or any nationality in the field of human relations, and he was getting it for his work of integration of Negroes into industry, and we found out that a fellow traveler, Mrs. Charlotta Bass, was speaking the night before he was speaking. Mrs. Bass' nephew, who was a writer on the paper-she has a paper-had a paper, rather, the California Eagle was a member of the Young Communist League.

We got together with him and convinced him to convince his aunt, Mrs. Bass, who already was close to the Communists, but not that close, to allow us to help with her speech, and she agreed, and we wrote a speech that praised the Soviet Union, that called for the opening of the second front, and that said Randolph was a traitor