INVESTIGATION OF COMMUNIST ACTIVITIES IN THE

FORT WAYNE, IND., AREA

TUESDAY, MARCH 1, 1955

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON

UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES,

Washington, D. C.

PUBLIC HEARING

The subcommittee of the Committee on Un-American Activities. met, pursuant to recess, at 10 a. m., in the caucus room, 362, Old House Office Building, Washington, D. C., Hon. Morgan M. Moulder (chairman) presiding.

Committee members present: Representatives Morgan M. Moulder (chairman), Clyde Doyle, and Gordon H. Scherer.

Staff members present: Frank S. Tavenner, Jr., counsel; Donald T.
Appell, investigator; and Thomas W. Beale, Sr., chief clerk.
Mr. MOULDER. The committee will be in order.

The committee wishes to announce Mr. Cover is excused as a witness.
Will you call Mr. Gojack.

TESTIMONY OF JOHN THOMAS GOJACK, ACCOMPANIED BY COUNSEL, FRANK DONNER-Resumed

Mr. TAVENNER. Mr. Gojack, in the course of the hearing at Dayton in September 1954, testimony was received that during the progress of the Univis Lens strike in 1948 in Dayton, the Communist Party sent to Dayton certain of its functionaries to aid and counsel the strike committee which had been set up by the union to conduct that strike. Do you have any knowledge of your own of the manner and extent of Communist participation in that strike?

Mr. GOJACK. In 1948, to the best of my recollection, I was working in various areas of Indiana and Michigan where UE locals affiliated with District Council 9 are located. Upon occasion down through the years since I left Dayton in 1941, I visited my family. I have brothers and sisters residing in Dayton and a father there who is a patient in the chronic patients hospital home I visited upon occasion. I never had occasion to be near the Univis Lens strike or to consult with anyone actually in that strike.

I read about it in the newspapers and that is all the information I have, what I have read in the press, commercial press and union press. Mr. MOULDER. Were you in Dayton during the Univis strike?

Mr. GOJACK. I don't even recall how long the strike was. I might have been in Dayton visiting my father or brothers and sisters some time, but I have no recollection of it.

Mr. SCHERER. You would remember, I am sure, if you had been in Dayton at the time of the Univis Strike because there was a great deal of violence connected with it. Was not that the strike in which the National Guard was called out, Mr. Tavenner?

Mr. TAVENNER. Yes, sir.

Mr. GOJACK. Mr. Scherer, I am positive I was not there at the time of the alleged violence, for if I had been I would have been on that picket line just as I have walked on CIO and AFL picket lines as recently as a few weeks ago. As an active trade unionist I never pass up an opportunity to help any union that is in struggle for its right to strike or its right to economic gains. I participated in a number

of them.

Mr. SCHERER. There were Communists on that picket line.

Mr. GOJACK. I was not in Dayton at the time or nowhere near the Univis Lens strike. If I was in Dayton during the strike it must have been when the strike was at its quite early stages, but I am not sure of that.

Mr. TAVENNER. Did you participate in any manner in the conduct of that strike?

Mr. GOJACK. None whatsoever.

Mr. TAVENNER. I am not speaking of the mere question of walking the picket line. That is a minor phase of it.

Mr. GOJACK. I think walking a picket line is a major part of the strike.

Mr. TAVENNER. It wasn't in that strike, according to the testimony we had.

Mr. GOJACK. It is in every strike I have been engaged in.

Mr. TAVENNER. I am speaking of the plans that were formed by the strike committee for the discussion of that strike. Did you have anything to do with that?

Mr. GOJACK. No, I didn't, sir.

Mr. TAVENNER. According to the testimony, organizers from the UE were sent into the area to participate in the conduct of that strike from various areas. Were any sent from your district?

Mr. GOJACK. There were no organizers from the UE district council 9 who were assigned to district council 9 who were loaned or transferred or sent to the Univis Lens strike. None whatsoever, sir.

Mr. TAVENNER. Were you acquainted with Mr. Arthur Garfield? Mr. GOJACK. At what period, sir?

Mr. TAVENNER. During 1948.

Mr. GOJACK. I don't recall. I knew Mr. Garfield, I kept in touch with him, he was in it, I knew him before the war, I kept in touch with him when he was in the Pacific and Philippines, I was at his wedding when he came back from the service. I don't remember 1948.

Mr. TAVENNER. Did you know him in 1948?

Mr. GOJACK. I knew of him. Whether I met Arthur Garfield in 1948 or not, I don't recall. I rather doubt it.

Mr. TAVENNER. Had he been assigned as an organizer in your district prior to 1948?

That is, district No. 9.

Mr. GOJACK. No, Arthur Garfield was never assigned to district council 9 any time I was there.

Mr. TAVENNER. Well, apparently you did become acquainted with him later.

Mr. GOJACK. Sir, I knew Arthur Garfield in 1940. He organized the shop I worked in. I came to know him personally as an associate in our union work. As I testified, I kept in touch with him occasionally when he was in the service. As a matter of fact, my wife baked cookies for him.

Mr. SCHERER. Why were you in doubt a few minutes ago about your knowing him in 1948? You indicate you may have known him in 1948. Now you tell us you have known him since 1940.

Mr. GOJACK. Mr. Scherer, I was not in doubt and I resent the implication here that I am in doubt just as much as I resent the evil insinuations brought out by Mr. Tavenner and Members of Congress here yesterday which resulted in the radios of my community suggesting something insidious in the fact that a previous witness, Miss Julia Jacobs, happened to be a house guest of my wife at a period I was mainly gone. My wife has a brother in the Fort Wayne Hospital. Her father is a respected, notable minister in a nearby community, and I resent this.

I resent it deeply and I think that it ill becomes and ill behooves a committee of Congress to allow its counsel to cast these evil insinuations and prey upon suggestive matter such as this.

Mr. SCHERER. It was the witness, your friend Julia Jacobs, who brought it out. It wasn't Mr. Tavenner. I remember the testimony very well. She brought it out, volunteered the information, not this committee.

Mr. GOJACK. The record will show that the counsel and the committee played upon the theme that she was a guest of the Gojack family, kept repeating the address, for whatever evil insinuations I don't know happened to be in your minds. I think it is dirty.

Mr. MOULDER. Mr. Gojack, I cannot think of anything, either, that you can construe as evil as a result of her being a guest or staying in your house, other than your own conclusions that you might draw from it.

Mr. GOJACK. You folks know how you feed your things to the press. You know how this committee stages its affairs.

Mr. MOULDER. Like Shakespeare, methinks you protest too much about it. I saw nothing evil about it. They were interrogating her about the address on the application for a passport. Any conclusions you have reached about it are your own. It just related to the application for the passport.

Mr. GOJACK. I resent it.

Mr. TAVENNER. The only purpose for asking the question was the witness had testified she did not live in Fort Wayne, that she lived at some other place in the State of Indiana, and we were wondering why the Fort Wayne address had been given on the application for passport. It appeared to be a false statement. It was the only purpose in the world, there was no personal relationship, as you indicated, that we had in mind at all. You are the only one I know of that suggested it.

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Mr. GOJACK. I am happy to hear that, Counsel, and I think that I am just as entitled to the resentment I drew from that just as you were to my remark yesterday that all of you folks up there voted yourself a $10,000 raise and it ill behooves you to make snide remarks about wages paid to union office secretaries.

Mr. MOULDER. I am sorry you brought that up again. That will just about make me break even as a Member of Congress, almost. Mr. GOJACK. You might treat your witnesses better, too. Mr. MOULDER. That is not relevant to this hearing.

Mr. SCHERER. The only trouble you got yourself in was your own contemptuous conduct yesterday and it is well planned. We have been baited before by the Communists and union leaders who associate themselves with that group. It has been followed all over the country. So we expected you to do what you did. You do it as a show for the people back home.

Mr. GOJACK. You stage your shows with lunatics like Cecil Scott and paid liars like Matusow and Strunk.

Mr. MOULDER. Mr. Doyle, a member of the subcommittee, is excused. It is necessary that he be absent from the hearing for approximately 20 minutes because of necessity of his appearance with Congressman Walter before the Committee on Rules.

(Representative Clyde Doyle left the hearing room.)

Mr. TAVENNER. I believe, according to your earlier testimony, you resided in Fort Wayne in 1946, is that correct?

Mr. GOJACK. That is correct, sir.

Mr. TAVENNER. While you were residing in Fort Wayne, was there a strike conducted in General Electric by a local of the UE? Mr. GOJACK. Yes, sir; there was.

Mr. TAVENNER. What was the number of the local?

Mr. GOJACK. It was at that time UE Local 901.

Mr. TAVENNER. Did the Communist Party participate in any manner in the conduct of that strike?

Mr. GOJACK. That strike was voted by the membership of local 901. The membership voted upon a plan of strike action which included the establishment of committees for various activites in the conduct of the strike.

Each chairman of the various strike committees made up what was known as a strike strategy committee. That strike strategy committee met every morning in the office of UE Local 901. The entire conduct of that strike was in the hands of that strike strategy committee, the various stewards and picket captains meetings that were called and also the special membership meetings that were called.

Mr. TAVENNER. Who was the secretary of local 901 at that time?
Mr. GOJACK. If I remember correctly, Miss Bertha Scott.
Mr. TAVENNER. Were you a member of the strike committee?

Mr. GOJACK. No, sir; I was a member of another GE local at the time, but I served in a helpful capacity assisting the local in the conduct of the strike.

Mr. TAVENNER. Did you attend its meetings?

Mr. GOJACK. Some of them, sir.

Mr. TAVENNER. Do you recall attending a meeting on January 16, 1946, at which you presented a letter that had been written to you by the secretary of the Communist Party?

Mr. GOJACK. I don't recall presenting a letter myself.