Court Opinion

ID: 9445147
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:20:51.107483+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:08.547691
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Chief Judge,
with whom BAZELON, Circuit Judge, joins, dissenting.*
The appellant has been convicted of refusing to answer certain questions before a subcommittee1 of the Committee of the House of Representatives on UnAmerican Activities. He told the Committee he had cooperated with the Communist Party from 1942 to 1947. He did not plead the Fifth Amendment. Asked whether he knew certain persons as Communists, he answered freely concerning all whom he believed to be Communists at the time of the hearing. He refused to answer concerning other persons. As the District Court said in sentencing him, he did not “attempt to impede the committee in any respect, other than his refusal to answer questions dealing with persons who, to use his words, ‘may in the past have been Cqmmunist Party members or otherwise engaged in Communist activities, but who to my best knowledge and belief have long since removed themselves from the Communist movement.’ ” We have to decide whether his refusal to expose their past history was a crime.
Since 1953 he has been a United Automobile Workers organizer. From 1935 to 1953 he was employed by the International Harvester Company at East Moline, Illinois, but from 1942 to 1953 he was on leave and worked for the Farm Equipment Workers, CIO, and its successor. At a hearing of the Committee in 1952, one Spencer named him as having been a member of the Communist Party between 1943 and 1946. At a hearing of the Committee in Chicago in March 1954, one Rumsey testified that in 1942 or 1943 Watkins recruited him into the Party and collected his Party dues.
In April 1954, in response to a subpoena, Watkins appeared and testified before the Committee in Washington. He said: “I am not now nor have I ever been a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. Rumsey was wrong when he said I had recruited him into the party, that I had received his dues * * *. Spencer was wrong when he termed any meetings which I attended as closed Communist Party meetings.
“I would like to make it clear that for a period of time from approximately 1942 to 1947 I cooperated with the Communist Party and participated in Communist activities to such a degree that some persons may honestly believe that I was a member of the Party. I have made contributions upon occasions to Communist causes. T have signed petitions for Communist causes. I attended caucuses at an FE convention at which Communist Pax*ty officials were present. Since I freely cooperated with the Communist Party I have no motive for making the distinction between cooperation and membership except the simple fact that it is the truth. I never carried a Communist Party card. I never accepted discipline and indeed on several occasions I opposed their position.
“In a special convention held in the summer of 1947 I led the fight for compliance with the Taft-Hartley Act by the FE-CIO International Union. This fight became so bitter that it ended any possibility of future cooperation.”
He was asked: “ * * * with whom did you participate in the Communist Party in [its] activities * * * ?” He named several people. Mr. Kunzig, Committee counsel, said: “Now, I have here a list of names of people, all of whom were identified as Communist Par*689ty members by Mr. Rumsey during his recent testimony in Chicago. I am asking you first whether you know these people.” He did not know the first three. He knew the fourth, who was Spencer, and the fifth, one Harold Fisher. He was asked, “Do you know Harold Fisher to be a member of the Communist Party ?”2 *****8 He consulted his counsel and then read this statement to the Committee: “I would like to get one thing perfectly clear, Mr. Chairman. I am notj going to plead the fifth amendment, but I refuse to answer certain questions that I believe are outside the proper scope of your committee’s activities. I will answer any questions which this committee puts to me about myself. I will also answer questions about those persons whom I knew to be members of the Communist Party and who I believe still are. I will not, however, answer any questions with respect to others with whom I associated in the past. I do not believe that any law in this country requires me to testify about persons who may in the past have been Communist Party members or otherwise engaged in Communist Party activity but who to my best knowledge and belief have long since removed themselves from the Communist movement.
“I do not believe that such questions are relevant to the work of this committee nor do I believe that this committee has the right to undertake the public exposure of persons because of their past activities. I may be wrong, and the committee may have this power, but until and unless a court of law so holds and directs me to answer, I most firmly refuse to discuss the political activities of my past associates.”
After testifying that Joseph Stern, one of the men on the Committee’s list, had carried on Party activities, he said: “In regard to the other names that you have read, I will not answer, based upon the statement that I read into the record * * The Committee directed him to answer. He refused again. The Committee did not question him further.
He was indicted in November 1954 and tried in May 1955. He waived a jury. The government called only one witness, the Committee counsel, who put into the record the transcript of the Committee’s examination of Watkins. The court found Watkins guilty, fined him $500, sentenced him to a year’s imprisonment, suspended the sentence, and placed him on probation.
I
The Committee on Un-American Activities is a standing committee of the House of Representatives. The Committee and its subcommittees are authorized by an Act of Congress “to make from time to time investigations of (i) the extent, character, and objects of unAmerican propaganda activities in the United States, (ii) the diffusion within the United States of subversive and unAmerican propaganda that is instigated from foreign countries or of a domestic origin and attacks the principle of the form of government as guaranteed by our Constitution, and (iii) all other questions in relation thereto that would aid Congress in any necessary remedial legislation.” 60 Stat. 812, 823, 828.
A witness before a congressional committee is guilty of a misdemeanor if he “refuses to answer any question perti*690nent to the question under inquiry * * * ” 2 U.S.C.A. § 192, R.S. § 102, 52 Stat. 942, as amended. Pertinence is part of the government’s case. In order to convict, the government must plead and prove that the questions the witness would not answer were pertinent to an inquiry Congress had authorized. Sinclair v. United States, 279 U.S. 263, 296-297, 49 S.Ct. 268, 73 L.Ed. 692; Bowers v. United States, 92 U.S.App.D.C. 79, 80, 202 F.2d 447, 448; Keeney v. United States, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 366, 369, 218 F.2d 843, 845.
An important preliminary question is whether the authorizing Act is to be construed broadly or narrowly for the purpose of deciding whether the questions Watkins would not answer were pertinent to the inquiry authorized. The Act must be construed narrowly if a narrow construction avoids a serious constitutional question. United States v. Rumely, 345 U.S. 41, 73 S.Ct. 543, 97 L.Ed. 770.
If the questions Watkins would not answer were pertinent to the inquiry authorized by the Act, we should have to decide whether they were within the constitutional power of Congress. Like the question in the Rumely case, this question is serious, as we shall presently show. It follows that, for the purposes of this case, the Act must be construed narrowly if the questions Watkins refused to answer would otherwise appear pertinent.
“There can be no doubt as to the power of Congress, by itself or through its committees, to investigate matters and conditions relating to contemplated legislation. This power * * * is indeed co-extensive with the power to legislate. * * * It cannot be used, to inquire into private affairs unrelated to a valid legislative purpose. Nor does it extend to an area in which Congress is forbidden to legislate. Similarly, the power to investigate must not be confused with any of the powers of law enforcement; those powers are assigned under our Constitution to the Executive and the Judiciary. Still further limitations on the power to investigate are found in the specific individual guarantees of the Bill of Rights, such as the Fifth Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination * * Quinn v. United States, 1955, 349 U.S. 155, 160, 161, 75 S.Ct. 668, 672, 99 L.Ed. 964. (Emphasis added.)
The only limitation dealt with in the Quinn case was the privilege against self-incrimination. The fact that the Supreme Court called attention to other limitations, including the necessity of a “valid legislative purpose”, suggests that the Court shares the “wide concern, both in and out of Congress, over some aspects of the exercise of the congressional power of investigation.” United States v. Rumely, 345 U.S. 41, 44, 73 S.Ct. 543, 545.
It is very questionable whether exposure of individuals to public contempt or hostility is a “valid legislative purpose”. Since Congress has “no powers of law enforcement” it would have no power, in the absence of a valid legislative purpose, to expose former Communists, even if there were a law requiring that for-er Communists be exposed. If we were obliged to decide what the Committee’s purpose was in asking the questions Watkins would not answer, we might be forced to conclude that the Committee asked them for the sole purpose of exposure.
By “exposure” we mean injurious publicity. The fact that Rumsey, at Chicago in March, publicly called Fisher a Communist, does not mean that if Watkins had done so at Washington in April, this new publicity and its repetition in and out of the press would not have been injurious. Obviously the new publicity would have been injurious. As the law of slander and libel recognizes, the fact that a derogatory statement has been made previously does not make it harmless. And the fact that Rumsey had called Fisher a Communist does not show that the Committee sought to serve some other purpose than injurious publicity when it asked Watkins “Do you know Harold Fisher to be a member of the Communist Party?”
*691II
The government argues that the Committee’s purpose in asking the questions was to investigate Communist infiltration of labor unions, in order to determine the need for pending legislation to deprive Communist-infiltrated unions of the use of the National Labor Relations Board.3 But several aspects of the Committee’s examination of Watkins tend to show that the Committee did not ask these questions for that purpose, or for any purpose except exposure.
(1) The Committee made no attempt to learn from Watkins either the total number of Communists in his union, or what positions Communists held in the union, or whether or how, or how far, or in what direction, they influenced the union. The Committee showed no interest in anything but a list of names. Whether Communist infiltration of unions creates a need for legislation would seem to depend on the number, and the nature, extent, and effectiveness of the activities, of Communists in unions. Watkins named several people, who apparently had been fellow-members of his union, as having been Communists while he cooperated with the Party. If the Committee had been questioning him for a legislative purpose, it could hardly have failed to question him about what, if anything, these Communist members of the union did.
(2) It is not clear, and the government does not suggest, how the questions Watkins would not answer could have served the purpose the government now attributes to the Committee.
These questions concerned the presence of Communists in a union between 1942 and 1947. Their presence or absence in unions then had little or nothing to do with the question whether, at the time of the Committee hearing in 1954, Communists in unions were so numerous, so active, and so effective as to create problems that called for legislation. This is true partly because of the lapse of time, but chiefly because times had changed and legislation had changed.
Communist affiliation betwen 1942 and 1947 did not mean what Communist affiliation meant in 1954. In December 1941 the United States joined Russia in the war against Germany. President Roosevelt wrote to Admiral Land in January 1942: “I am still terribly disturbed about the fact that an adequate number of ships are not available for Russia.
* * * This Government has made a firm pledge to Russia and we simply cannot go back on it.” In February 1942 General MacArthur honored the 25th anniversary of the Red Army with a message in which he said: “ * * * the hopes of civilization rest upon the worthy banners of the courageous Russian Army. * * * ”4 Friendly relations between the United States and Russia continued throughout the war and did not cease immediately at the end of the war.
*692The Labor Management Relations Act, which requires non-Communist affidavits from officers of unions that use the National Labor Relations Board, was not passed until 1947, close to the end of the period to which the Committee’s questions relate. Whether the Act is adequate or requires strengthening would seem to depend upon what has happened since, not what had already happened. Likewise the Internal Security Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act, passed in 1950 and 1952, were in effect at the time of the Committee hearing but not at the time to which the Committee’s questions relate.5
(3) When Watkins refused to answer the Committee’s questions, saying he thought their purpose was “public exposure of persons because of their past activities”, the Committee was under no obligation to reply. However, the chairman chose to reply. His reply did not suggest that the questions had a legislative purpose related to unions. It did not mention unions. Instead, it claimed for the Committee unlimited authority to question Watkins concerning his knowledge of former Communists. The chairman said: “This committee is set up by the House of Representatives to investigate subversion and subversive propaganda and to report to the House of Representatives for the purpose of remedial legislation. The House of Representatives has by a very clear majority, a very large majority, directed us to engage in that type of work, and so we ■do, as a committee of the House of Representatives, have the authority, the jurisdiction, to ask you concerning your .activities in the Communist Party, concerning your knowledge of any other persons who are members of the Communist Party or who have been members of the Communist Party, and so, Mr. Watkins, you are directed to answer the question propounded to you by counsel.”
(4) The Committee seems to have had in its possession, before it questioned Watkins, the information about other persons which it asked him to supply.5a
(5) The purpose the government attributes to the Committee, and practically any other purpose except exposure, might have been served by questioning Watkins in a closed session. But the Committee questioned him at a public hearing.
Ill
Words and conduct of the Committee on other occasions go far to confirm the inference that its purpose on this occasion was exposure.
“The Committee and its members have repeatedly said in terms or in effect that its main purpose is to do by exposure and publicity what it believes may not validly be done by legislation.” 5b
At the trial, the defense offered in evidence “excerpts from House committee reports, House committee hearings, Congressional Record statements and newspapers, going to the point that the House committee asserts an independent power all apart from legislation to expose persons to public knowledge.” The court excluded these excerpts as evidence, but they are in the record as an offer of proof. They cover some 64 printed pages.6 They show beyond doubt, and it is not disputed, that the Committee on *693Un-American Activities claims an independent power of exposure and sometimes investigates for the purpose of exposure. We give a few illustrations.
Mr. Dies, the first chairman of the Committee, said during debate in the House on his resolution for the appointment of such a Committee, “I am not in a position to say whether we can legislate effectively in reference to this matter, but I do know that exposure in a democracy of subversive activities is the most effective weapon that we have in our possession.”7*
The Committee said in 1951: “Exposure in a systematic way began with the formation of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, May 26, 1938. * * * The House Committee on UnAmerican Activities was started on its way May 20, 1938, with instructions from the United States House of Representatives to expose people and organizations attempting to destroy this country. That is still its job, and to that job it sticks.” 78
Mr. Velde, the Chairman of the Committee in the 83d Congress, who presided at the Watkins hearing, said at another hearing: “we feel that we have a duty and that duty has been imposed upon us by Congress not only to report to Congress for the purpose of remedial legislation but to inform the people who elected us about subversive activities. * # * ” 9
Chairman Walter said in 1955: “Unlike most congressional committees, in addition to - the legislative function we are required to make the American people aware if possible of the extent of the infiltration of Communism in all phases of our society.” 10
The Committee has publicized the names of persons identified to it as Communists or former Communists. Its Report for 1952 devotes 54 out of a total of 89 pages to the names and addresses of such persons. Its Report for 1953 devotes 59 out of 193 pages to a similar list.
Though the Committee’s Report for 1954, the year of the Watkins hearing, does not contain a list of names, it points to exposure as the Committee’s function. It says, e. g., that in 1952 the Committee “reported that during its investigation the identity of over 600 individuals as Communist Party members was obtained. * * * During the committee’s investigation, it uncovered members of the Communist Party holding influential positions in the school systems of Detroit and other communities. * * * Most of the teachers called have been suspended or permanently removed from their positions. The Committee on Un-American Activities approves of this action * * 11 In a separate pamphlet issued in 1954 the Committee said: “This committee and the special committee have over the past 16 years held hundreds of hearings and issued and distributed throughout the United States hundreds of thousands of reports exposing the operations of the Communist Party and its fronts.” 12
The District Court ruled that express claims of an independent power of exposure, made without particular reference to the Watkins hearing, do not tend to prove that the Committee’s purpose in the Watkins hearing was exposure. In *694our opinion this was error. Although general propositions do not decide concrete cases, they help to decide them. Intentions tend to result in acts. By claiming that it had the authority and duty to expose, the Committee implied that it intended to expose. And as the Fifth Circuit recently said, “of course it may be inferred from a person’s statement that he intended to do something, that he later actually did it. Mutual Life Ins. Co. of New York v. Hillmon, 145 U.S. 285, 295, 12 S.Ct. 909, 36 L.Ed. 706.” Shurman v. United States, 1955, 219 F.2d 282, 290, footnote 9.13
IV
In our opinion the questions Watkins refused to answer are not pertinent to the inquiry authorized by the Act, even if the Act is not construed narrowly. If it is construed narrowly, the questions are clearly not pertinent.
The key words of the Act are (i) “extent, character and objects of un-American propaganda activities”; (ii) “diffusion * * * of subversive and unAmerican propaganda”; and (iii) “questions in relation thereto that would aid Congress in any necessary remedial legislation.” The questions do not relate in any clear or direct way to the extent, the character, the objects, or the diffusion, of any propaganda, subversive and un-American or otherwise. The government has not shown that in asking these questions the Committee was seeking, even indirectly, information about the extent or character or objects or diffusion of propaganda. It has not shown that Watkins, or his union, or the persons about whom the Committee inquired, engaged in propaganda, or that the Committee sought to learn whether they did.
As to clause (iii) of the Act: possibly questions concerning Communist Party membership might be considered “questions in relation” to the “extent, character and objects” or the “diffusion” of propaganda, if the phrase “in relation” were construed very broadly, but these questions certainly cannot be so considered if the phrase is construed narrowly. Moreover, clause (iii) contains the further requirement that the questions “would aid Congress in any necessary remedial legislation”. If a mere theoretical chance of very slight aid were to be considered sufficient, possibly it might be thought that the questions “would aid”. But that would be a broad construction of those words. Construed narrowly, the words require more than a theoretical chance. The questions Watkins would not answer plainly do not meet this requirement.
“The United States suggests that the presumption of regularity is sufficient without proof. But, without determining whether that presumption is applicable to such a matter, it is enough to say that the stronger presumption of innocence attended the accused at the trial.” Sinclair v. United States, 279 U.S. 263, 296, 49 S.Ct. 268, 273. We conclude that the government failed to show, either beyond a reasonable doubt or even by a preponderance of the evidence, that the questions Watkins would not answer were pertinent to any investigation the Committee was authorized to malee.
Barsky v. United States, 83 U.S.App.D.C. 127, 167 F.2d 241, is not to the *695contrary. The court held that, in the circumstances of that case, Congress and the Committee on Un-American Activities had “power to make an inquiry of an individual which may elicit the answer that the witness is a believer in Communism or a member of the Communist Party.” 83 U.S.App.D.C. at page 136, 167 F.2d at page 250. But the circumstances of that case and of this are very different. (1) As the court pointed out, Barsky and his co-defendants “were not asked to state their political opinions. They were asked to account for funds”. 83 U.S.App.D.C. at page 130, 167 F.2d at page 244. (2) As the court pointed out, the Congressional Committee had been informed that Bar-sky’s organization, the Joint AntiFascist Refugee Committee, was engaged in “political propaganda”. 83 U.S.App.D.C. at page 129, 167 F.2d at page 243. It has not been shown that the Congressional Committee had any comparable information in this case. (3) The question Barsky refused to answer related, though indirectly, to his present Communist membership. The questions Watkins refused to answer related to Communist membership of other persons at a time long past. To hold, as Barsky does, that the Committee may inquire whether members of an organization shown to engage in propaganda are now Communists, does not imply that it may inquire whether members of a union not shown to engage, or to be likely to engage, in propaganda were once Communists.14
We need not consider appellant’s other contentions.

 This opinion is nearly identical with one which, as the majority of a division of the court, we filed January 26, 1956, and which was superseded when a rehearing in banc was ordered.

. We shall call the subcommittee the Committee.

. As to all except Fisher and one other, the Committee’s questions were expressly about past Party membership. As to those two persons, the questions were phrased in the present tense. But in view of the earlier testimony of Rumsey and Spencer, who set the dates of appellant’s Party affiliation from 1943-46, and appellant’s uncontradicted statement that he had ceased cooperation with the Party in 1947, it is plain that the Cornmittee was questioning appellant about the past. He did not refuse to testify about the present. His statement which we proceed to quote shows that when he replied to a question about present membership by standing on the statement, he was in effect denying that he knew the named individual to be a present member of the Party and refusing to answer about past membership.

. In opening the hearing in Washington at which Watkins testified, on April 29, 1954, the chairman said nothing directly about purpose. He said: “The hearing this morning is a continuation of the hearings which were held in Chicago recently * ® In opening the Chicago hearings, in March 1954, the chairman said Congress had directed the Committee “to ascertain the extent and success of subversive activities directed against those United States”, and mentioned bills of two sorts as pending before the Committee, one of which would make evidence “secured from confidential devices” admissible in “cases involving tlie national security”. Another, ho said, “would provide that the Subversive Activities Control Board should, after suitable hearings and procedures, be empowered to find if certain labor organizations are in fact Communist-controlled action groups. Following this action, such labor groups would not have available the use of the National Labor Relations Boai’d as they now have under the provisions of the Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947.”

. Quoted in Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, p. 496, 497 (1948).

. 64 Stat. 987, 50 U.S.C.A. § 781 et seq.; 66 Stat. 163, 8 U.S.C.A. § 1101 et seq. The Communist Control Act of 1954 is not pertinent in this connection, since it was passed in August 1954, after the Committee hearing. 68 Stat. 775.

. Cf. Slochower v. Board of Education, 350 U.S. 551, 76 S.Ct. 637.

. Dissenting opinion in Barsky v. United States, 83 U.S.App.D.C. 127, 142, 167 F.2d 241, 256. A footnote quotes many such statements.

. Counsel stipulated that the excerpts from official sources are accurate and that those from newspapers are “true and correct quotations, digests or reports as the case may be of the statements and events reported therein.”

. 83 Cong.Rec. 7570 (May 26, 1938). Quoted in Robert K. Carr, The House Committee on Un-American Activities (1952) at p. 15.

. 100 Things You Should Know About Communism (3951), 82d Cong., 1st Sess., House Document No. 136, pp. 19, 67.

. Hearing Before the Committee on UnAmerican Activities, House of Representatives, 83d Cong., 1st Sess., p. 3106.

. U. S. News and World Report, August 26, 1955, p. 71.

. Committee on Un-American Activities, Annual Report for the Year 1954, pp. 14-15, 17.

. This is YOUR House Committee on UnAmerican Activities, p. 25.

. Morford v. United States, 85 U.S.App.D.C. 172, 176 F.2d 54, 56, reversed on other grounds, 339 U.S. 258, 70 S.Ct. 586, 94 L.Ed. 815, is not to the contrary. Morford refused to give the Committee on Un-American Activities the financial records, and the names of the publications committee, of the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, which had put out “a flood of propaganda * * * of the nature described in the Resolution”. Unlike this case, the Committee’s questions were clearly pertinent to its authorized investigation and nothing in its examination of the witness suggested that it did not ask the questions for that purpose. The presumption of a legislative purpose, which resulted, “cannot be rebutted by impugning the motives of individual members of the Committee.” 85 U.S.App.D.C. at page 176, 176 F.2d at page 58. No one’s motives are impugned by showing the Committee’s concept of its duty.

. In Lawson v. United States, 85 U.S. App.D.C. 167, 176 F.2d 49, the Committee ask-'d each of two “prominent writers” in the motion picture industry “whether or not he was or had ever been a member of the Communist Party”. Though this question included past as well as present membership, neither the briefs nor the opinion of the court show consideration of the fact. The court's ruling, as expressed, is limited to questions regarding present membership: “we expressly hold herein that the House Committee on Un-American Activities, or a properly appointed subcommittee thereof, has the power to inquire whether a witness subpoenaed by it is or is not a member of the Communist Party or a believer in Communism * * The court held that since motion pictures “are, or are capable of being, a potent medium of propaganda dissemination”, the question was pertinent. 85 U.S.App.D.C. at pages 170, 171, 176 F.2d at pages 52, 53.