The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-09-26

it seems that the prominence that lt has brought to the Communists In It's ranks is It's greatest weak ness. The Communists are Q total loss Go the labor movement. That they are not sincere trade unionists Is evident from the record. Per- sonally I have no doubt that in Communistic controlled local unions there will he little respect for the voluntary nature of the PAC's re quest for funds from members of the CTO and, because of their conn plete lack of respect for the liber- ties that we hold sacred in Amer lea, I believe that they will attempt to use and abuse every endorsed policy of the PAC to favor their ends,
 This of course is unfortunate. But shall we place the blame on the CIOp The CIO, both in Its officers and its rank and file, has little sympathy for the Communists, but when the apathy and indiffer- ence of rank and file membership allows these parasites in some places to win control of local and inter- national unions, the CIO and the pAC must deal with the represen- tatives of It's members,
 On this point believe that I can speak with confidence for Con- necticut. We do have some Com munist- controlled local unions of the CIO in Connecticut, but the leader ship of the CIO in Connecticut has no sympathy with the aims and activities of the Communists in the ranks of organized labor, During the past few years, after aope- full bid for power, the Communists In the Connecticut CIO have been gnashlng their teeth In Q small corner of the organization and I have complete confidence in the de- termination of the present leader ship of the CIO in Connecticut to keep them there.
 IS HILLMAN A COMMUNIST?
 Sidney Hillman has fought the Communists with enviable success In the Amalgamated Clothing Workers union of which he is preSi- dent, and he has publicly and rec peatedly declared war on the Con- munists in the ranks of the Cto, Today where Communists have been allowed by the rank and file to win control of Q few CIO unions Hill- man, as chairman of the PAC, must do business with the Com munists,
 WILL THE FAC
 DICTATE THE VOTES?
 Before the Congressional investi. gating committing MT. Hillman de- clared:
 We have no illusions that We can control the vote Of Q single American either within or with out the ranks of the CIO. We are neither so arrogant nor so foolish as to make the attempt"
 Any other policy would be stupid, No American should allow anyone to tell him how he must vote, and few will
 IS THE PAC BUYING
 AN ELECTION?
 Is the CIo out to buy the cleo, l ton with $S,000,000 extracted from its membership?
 The national PAC has put cell Ing of $l,50o,o00 on the amount 1t seeks for It's activities, This fund 1t hopes will be raised by contrlbu- tons of one dollar from the mem- bership of CIO. Half of this dol- lar will be kept by the local com mittee and half will be used by the national committee.
 Will the contributions be volun- tary2 The PAC emphasizes them as voluntary. But because this charge has teen thrown around so reekleSSly I inquired of the Con. nectieut State Council of CIO about the manner Of their contributions and I received from them the in- struction sheet sent out by the State Council to all local unions Of the CIO in Connecticut inaugur- Rting the drive for funds. Through out its two pages the voluntary na- ture of the contributions is empha- sized and reemphasized and the last paragraph which is set in type four times the size of the rest of the text reads as follows;
 WV WAbH VI ESiteEuVe tiaut tIle
 collection of funds from your
 membership must be on a strict
 ly voluntary basis, and all union
 officials regardless of rank must be SO instructed"
 EACH AMERICAN DECIDES
 These as know them are the program and policy of the CIO- PAC. The items of social reform listed in the program should be the common goal of postwar Amer lea, Whether one approves or dis approves of the means adopted by the PAC to attain this program is for each American to decide. That decision, however should not have to be built on misrepresentations.