Evening star., 1938-10-19

ly after close OF Congress last
summer. On seperdl occasions,
witnesses hare alleged that Com
n1unist party members or agents
haze connected themselves uith
governmental activities.
By the Associated Press.
The House Committee on Un-Amer-
ican Activities received testimony to-
day that Communists engineered the
first sit.down strike in Michigan-at
the Midland Steel Co. plant in 1886.
Clyde Morrow, an employe Of the
Ford Motor Co. in Detroit, said the
strike was led by John Anderson, Com
munist candidate for Governor in
1884, and Nat Ganley, described by
Morrow as Communist and member
of several unions at one time under
different names.
These men headed the strike with
the aid of Communist nuclei in the
union" he said They kept the
workers at fever pitch by saying
strike breakers would be brought in
to take their jobs and that the mill
tia would come down"
Morrow, who said he had joined the
Communist party for the purpose Of
getting information, asserted he was
on hand when the strike began.
Traces Sit-down Idea.
The witness, speaking rapidly despite
cautions to slow down, said the tech
nique of sit-down strikes was worked
out first at the Hudson Motor Car Co.
plant. where "the Communist party
experimental with the idea" late in
1888 and in 1884. In the Hudson
plant, he said departmental lines were
stopped until demands were met and
in one month there were perhaps 200
stoppages and they just couldn't run"
In response to questions, Morrow said
the Trade Union Unity League was an
organization of red industrial unions"
up to 1884, and that the leading one.
Communist-controlled, was the auto
workers union.
1T led the Briggs strike in 1882" he
said; the Motor Products strike the
same year, and participated in a
hunger march on the Ford plant in
which five men lost their lives
Imported Tactics, Is Charge.
The committee received testimony
yesterday that Communists had i'm
ported into the United States the same
sit-down strike tactics they had used
in France and Italy prior to 1920
In other testimony, William P.
Gernaey of Detroit connected investi-
gators of the Senate Civil Liberties
Committee with his expulsion from the
Communist party after he had spied
on it for seven years
Scholarly and youthful in appear
ance, Gernaey said one of the mvesti-
gators, who hailed Communist party
members as comrades" predicted he
would be killed because of his exposure.
Expelled From Party.
The witness testified he confessed
and was expelled from the party when
copies of expense vouchers proving he
was spy were produced at a special
meeting of Detroit Communists in
January, 1887.
In the lobby of Communist party
headquarters Immediately afterward.
Gernaey said. Harold Cranefeld and
Benjamin Allen, whom he identified as
investigators for the Civil Liberties
Committee, appeared and were told by
one of the Communists: We'll, We
got him"
Gernaey quoted Cranefield as saying:
Comrades, this mans life is not worth
two cents. He is of no more use to
the capitalist class and his life will
be destroyed"
Won't Name Company.
A company which he would not
name paid him to spy on the Com
munlst party, Gernaey testified.
Senate committee aides said Allen
still is committee employe and that
Cranf1eld once was an investigator,
but now is connected with the Ma
tional Labor Relations Board.
Gernaey repeatedly emphasized dur
ing his testimony that the evidence
which the Communists had of his
spying had been in the mails, and Rep
resentative Mosier, Democrat, of Ohio
said he wanted Ito find out If these
men intercepted his mail and took it
to the Communist party"
THE Communist party had these
reports and they had been nowhere
except in the mail" the witness re-
piled. Where could they have got
them?"