Mr. TAVENNER. Now, let us go to the third and last division of the activities of your group-that of fund raising. Now, will you tell the committee what the activities of your group were in that respect? Mr. DAVIS. The party was extremely greedy for money. Not only did we pay quite large dues, but extra donations or assessments were constantly being made. All sorts of means were being used to raise money, by having parties, dances, lectures, and so on. This was a very large part of our activity. Mr. TAVENNER. What were the dues that you paid? Mr. DAVIS. As I recall correctly, they were 5 percent of one's salary. Mr. TAVENNER. Why, they charged you more than they did the directors in Hollywood. It was only 4 percent there. Mr. CLARDY. The directors' salaries were slightly larger than yours, weren't they? Mr. DAVIS. Yes. Mr. TAVENNER. Did all the members of your group pay 4 percent of their salary while members? Mr. DAVIS. It may have been graduated according to the size of the salary. That I don't remember; but, in my own case, it seems to me 5 percent was the amount. Mr. TAVENNER. Then, were special assessments made for particular projects of the Communist Party? Mr. DAVIS. Constantly. It was always represented that the Daily Worker or some other magazine was in a state of emergency and that extra efforts must be made to obtain money. Mr. TAVENNER. Well, who was the contact with your committee on matters of that kind? Mr. DAVIS. Whoever was moving between us and the central office of the party-people like the ones I mentioned this morning, such as Hy Gordon or Margot Clark. Mr. TAVENNER. How do you spell Clark? Mr. DAVIS. C-1-a-r-k. Then, also, we raised money for Spain, but a good deal of that, I suspect, went actually to the party, not to Spain. Mr. TAVENNER. What reason do you have for stating that much of the funds raised for Spain or Spanish relief were used by the Communist Party for its own purposes? Mr. DAVIS. I didn't know at that time. It was just as a result of subsequent revelations. Mr. TAVENNER. Tell us a little more in detail about these special assessments for the benefit of the Daily Worker and other— Mr. DAVIS. Sometimes Mr. TAVENNER. Communist Party enterprises. Mr. DAVIS. Sometimes it was a definite assessment. That is, each member was expected to give the equivalent of his dues-I mean an additional amount the equivalent of his dues. Sometimes it was voluntary, just asking for money; sometimes members were instructed to approach sympathizers and ask them to give money-not to the party, but to some cause, like a magazine or Spanish relief. Mr. TAVENNER. At an earlier point in your testimony you identified Bill Parry as a person who was known to you to be a member of the Communist Party. What was the basis of your knowledge? Mr. DAVIS. Participation in unit meetings. Mr. TAVENNER. Was he a member of your individual group? Mr. TAVENNER. Were you acquainted with Jack Rackliffe Mr. TAVENNER. R-a-c-k-l-i-f-f-e? Mr. DAVIS. Yes. Mr. TAVENNER. Was he a person known to you to be a member of the Communist Party? Mr. DAVIS. Yes. Mr. TAVENNER. On what do you base your information, your knowledge? Mr. DAVIS. Appearance at a large number of Communist unit meetings. Mr. DOYLE. Which meetings you also attended Mr. DAVIS. Yes. Mr. DOYLE. With him? Mr. DAVIS. Yes. Mr. TAVENNER. Was that your own group or cell of the Communist Party which you previously identified? Mr. DAVIS. Yes. Mr. TAVENNER. Were you acquainted with a person by the name' of John Henry Reynolds? Mr. DAVIS. Yes, and I recall that one of the emergency meetings I spoke of that occurred after the pact was held at his house. Mr. TAVENNER. And I should ask you at this time if you know of your own knowledge that any of these persons have since terminated their affiliations with the Communist Party, that you should state so. Mr. DAVIS. I surely will. Mr. TAVENNER. Up to this point, you have no knowledge? Mr. TAVENNER. Yes. Daniel J. Boorstin? Mr. DAVIS. He was a member, but I know he has broken long since. Mr. TAVENNER. And, Mr. Chairman, Dr. Boorstin, according to our investigation, did withdraw many years ago from the Communist Party and has cooperated and is cooperating with this committee in giving it the benefit of information he has and, like this witness, has been an outstanding opponent of communism since taking that action. Richard Schlatter?" Mr. DAVIS. Yes; he was also a member. Mr. TAVENNER. Of this same group? Mr. DAVIS. Yes. Mr. TAVENNER. And what I had to say about Mr. Boorstin stands equally for Richard Schlatter. Were you acquainted with Richard Goodwin? Mr. DAVIS. Yes; he also was a member of the group of the Communist Party. Mr. TAVENNER. Do you have any information as to whether or not he has withdrawn from the Communist Party? Mr. DAVIS. I don't know directly, but all impressions I've gathered would lead me to suppose so. Mr. TAVENNER. Were you acquainted with a person by the name of George Mayberry? Mr. DAVIS. Yes; he was a member of the group. Mr. TAVENNER. Of this same group? Mr. DAVIS. Yes. Mr. TAVENNER. Are you acquainted with Israel Halperin? Mr. TAVENNER. H-a-l-p-e-r-i-n-Halperin. Mr. Davis. I am. Yes, I was. He was a member of the group. Mr. TAVENNER. When did you first become acquainted with him? Mr. DAVIS. I'm not sure. I don't think he was a member when I first joined. It must have been the next academic year. Mr. TAVENNER. Was there anything outstanding or unusual about his contribution to the work of the Communist Party in your group, while you were a member? Mr. DAVIS. No; I don't recall any. I remember him very well. I know he was interested in the foundation of the magazine of Science and Society, but was also very critical of the editors of it. Mr. TAVENNER. Do you know where he is now? Mr. DAVIS. I know of his subsequent history from the accounts of the Canadian spy investigations. I know he was involved in that case but not convicted. Mr. TAVENNER. He is in Canada today now? Mr. DAVIS. I assume so. Mr. TAVENNER. Herbert Robbins? Mr. DAVIS. He was a member the first year I belonged. He left Harvard the second year. I have every reason to believe, on the basis of a long conversation with him 3 years ago, that he broke perhaps before I did. Mr. TAVENNER. Were you acquainted with Rubby Sherr-S-h-e-r-r? Mr. DAVIS. Yes; he was a member of the group for a comparatively short time, but I think he was still a member when I left. Mr. TAVENNER. Or Wendell Furry-F-u-r-r-y? Mr. DAVIS. I knew him very well. He was a member of the group. Mr. TAVENNER. Was he a member of the group when you left Harvard? Mr. DAVIS. Yes-not when I left Harvard. I have no way of knowing when I left Harvard because I left Harvard 3 years after I left the party, nearly 4 years. Mr. TAVENNER. Oh, yes, but was he a member of the party when you left the party? Mr. DAVIS. Yes. Mr. TAVENNER. Are you acquainted with the Henry Thoreau professional section of the Communist Party? Mr. DAVIS. No; I never heard of that, to my knowledge. Mr. TAVENNER. During the period of your experience in the Communist Party did you learn whether members of the Communist Party from England, who were in attendance at universities in this country, on any occasions would have their membership transferred to the Communist Party of the United States? Mr. DAVIS. I recall a Henry fellow, I believe he was called-a Henry fellow-who came to our unit when he was doing graduate work at Harvard. I do not recall his name now. Mr. TAVENNER. Do you know of any other occasions when students from England were transferred to membership in the Communist Party in the United States! Mr. DAVIS. There may have been two of these Henry fellows, of that I can't speak certain, but that is the only connection I recall. Mr. TAVENNER. Now, I asked you in the beginning of your testimony whether or not you had been active in your opposition to the Communist Party since you withdrew, as you have indicated. What in general has been the nature of your work against the Communist Party? Mr. DAVIS. It's been partly organizational, but mostly literary. I resigned in protest from the League of American Writers early in 1940, because of their attitude toward Hitler and the war. When I went to Smith, I joined the Teachers' Union and struggled against the group there, led by Dorothy Douglas and Katherine Lumpkin, but the union took an increasingly Wallacite position in the later forties, and I resigned from the union in protest in 1948, I was one of the 88 intellectuals who signed the statement published in the New York Times on March 24, 1949, calling attention to the true nature of the Waldorf Scientific and Cultural Conference.1 I have been from the beginning a member of the Committee for Cultural Freedom, headed by Sidney Hook, and have contributed to Partisan Review of the Commentary and the New Leader, all magazines which have for years fought Stalinism with informal intensity. I have written for the New York Times regularly for the book review section over the past 10 years, and I have here quotations from articles which state my present devotion to democracy in unqualified terms. I wrote for the magazine, Commentary, only a year ago, in May 1951, an article on Soviet psychiatry, showing the relationship between Soviet psychiatry and the destruction of the individual. May I read three sentences from that? Mr. TAVENNER. Yes, sir. Mr. DAVIS. There is a review of a book by Dr. Wortis called Soviet Psychiatry, and I say: But what Dr. Wortis's book emphatically demonstrates-if it needed demonstrating-is the iron logic behind communism's utter extinction of the individual self. This logic is orthodox in theory-it is explicit in Marx, Engels, and Leninand it has been appallingly proved and demonstrated in practice. The confessions of opponents of the regime at Communist trials show that by "immediate pressure of the environment-" That is quote by torture, narcosis, hypnosis, and indoctrination in various combinations, the self's organic past can actually be negated, and that it can be made to "reflect" completely the party-partisan view of reality. Since those who do not come to reflect this reality are considered ultimate enemies of the people, there is no moral limit to the use which may be made of these psychological, physical, and medical means of extinguishing the self. And then I say later on at the end of the article: A genuine struggle against Russian antihumanism should require our putting as much effort as we possibly can into discovering what social and political grounds still exist-or can be made to exist-in our contemporary society for the survival of what David Riesman calls the autonomous individual. And then I go on to develop that view. 1 Scientific and Cultural Conference for World Peace, arranged by the National Council of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions, held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, March 25, 26, and 27, 1949. Mr. TAVENNER. When was that written? Mr. DAVIS. That was written in May 1951, but I have citations of earlier articles along the same line. Mr. TAVENNER. Mr. Chairman, I think that is all I desire to ask, unless the witness has something else to add that he may want to add Mr. DAVIS. No. Mr. TAVENNER. To his testimony. Mr. DAVIS. As I said this morning, I think such investigations are necessary, if they are carried out fairly and scrupulously. All I am afraid of is that so much energy, political energy, may be directed toward a preoccupation with the past, that we may not have enough left to find creative solutions for problems that face us in the future. I think, for instance, that it's right to go back into the history of China and find out why that disaster occurred, and whether it occurred as the result of espionage of improper influence by Communists within the Government, but we want to be sure that this will help us to solve the problems of India and Africa, for instance. It's not enough to discover what went wrong in China. We've got to keep the same thing from happening in other parts of the world, and it is this danger with which I, myself, am preoccupied at the present time. Mr. CLARDY. You mean we should profit from our past mistakes? Mr. DAVIS. We've got to profit from our experience and not let India, Africa, and Europe go as China went. Mr. VELDE. Mr. Davis, we certainly do appreciate your coming before the committee. Are those documents which you have there available to the committee for its files or references? Mr. DAVIS. Yes. Mr. VELDE. We will be glad to accept those into our files for study of our investigators and counsel whenever necessary. Now we have another witness to appear this afternoon, but I think some of the members might want to ask you a few questions, Mr. Davis, and the Chair would very much appreciate it if the members of the committee would limit their examination of Mr. Davis so that we might hear the other witness. Proceed with the questions you might have. Mr. Jackson. Mr. JACKSON. I shall try to make my questioning brief, Mr. Chair man. Mr. Davis, I am not asking you to enter into the realm of opinion, but out of your own experience in the Communist Party during the period of time you were a member-to what extent would you say that one submits himself to the expressed or implied discipline of the Communist Party? Mr. DAVIS. This is often, I believe, a motive for joining because those who join desire certainty. They want a line which will give them a sense of significant action. The Communists always have an answer to everything. The answers aren't always very good, but he does have an answer. This is part, unquestionably for many peoplethe part of the psychological satisfaction of being a Communist. Mr. JACKSON. In the event of a mental conflict, having to do with some philosophical position, what resolution of the problem would be expected by the Communist Party? |