The CHAIRMAN. Is this the whitewash report? Mr. RORTY. That is the whitewash report, which bears no relation to the facts, but which shows the red flag in the Imperial Valley. The CHAIRMAN. I do not think the committee wants that. We have got the Glassford report, and I do not think we need that report. Is there anything else, Mr. Rorty? Mr. RORTY. Unless the committee has further questions to ask me, I think I have detailed my own experience there sufficiently. The CHAIRMAN. You have given some very valuable statements, and I think they will help to show the conditions not only in industry but among the growers and workers out there, and I think will be valuable to the membership of Congress to read it. If there are no further questions Mr. WOOD. Mr. Schneider asked a question awhile ago. He asked the gentleman if he made demand upon the authorities that he be permitted to stay and have protection Mr. RORTY. I made no such specific demand. Mr. WOOD. He asked you if you made any such demand. I judge the reason why you did not make any demand was the fact that the authorities had already decided to deport you? Mr. RORTY. They so stated. Mr. WOOD. And you could not expect much protection if you stayed, because it was not their intention to protect you, but to deport you? Mr. RORTY. They said they intended to deport me, and they said they were only waiting until they could get enough deputies together to give me an escort. Mr. WOOD. Evidently, if you had stayed Mr. RORTY. If they had said, “Go out of jail", I would have had a fat chance of getting out of that valley without being beaten up. Mr. MARCANTONIO. The fact that you went there voluntarily was evidence of the fact that you wanted to stay, if you could? Mr. RORTY. Yes. (Mr. Rorty submitted the following for the record:) SAN ANTONIO, TEX, March 4. Not until I arrived in San Antonio a few hours ago did I learn of the excitment caused by my arrest in El Centro and expulsion from the Imperial Valley. I am delighted at the prospect of a congressional investigation. In fact I am convinced that nothing short of such an investigation will, first, establish the facts; and, second, lead to the restoration of the Imperial Valley to the United States of America. Its present status is that of a feudal barony, ruled by a small group of grower-shippers. For all practical purposes the police, the sheriff, the courts, and the county administrative officials take their orders from this group, whose mouthpiece is Chester B. Moore, secretary of the Western Growers Protective Association. The orders are, in effect, that nothing and nobody count in the Imperial Valley except the big grower-shippers and their profits, which are sustained by the most degraded form of labor peonage I have encountered in a 5-month tour of the United States, with the possible exception of the onion weeders of McGuffey, Ohio. Not only does this group dominate the forces of law and order, but it also mobilizes, controls, and gives orders to the various vigilante groups such as the Anti-Communist League, whose membership consists of automobile salesmen, bank clerks, and small business men, who are forced oftentimes against their will and inclination, to do the sadistic dirty work of the big shipper-growers, on pain of losing business or jobs. I make this statement on the authority of Gen. Pelham D. Glassford, whom I interviewed in Phoenix, Ariz., the day following my expulsion from the Imperial Valley. Red-baiting in the Imperial Valley is a racket, known to be a racket by the grower-shippers who finance and direct it, and by the cheap middle-class bullies who do the kidnaping and beating-up in which the lawenforcement officers assist and connive. General Glassford went into the Imperial Valley in April 1934 as special conciliator representing the United States Department of Labor, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the National Labor Board. At the conclusion of his investigation, in a report signed at Brawley, Calif, 14 miles north of El Centro on June 23, 1934, he wrote: "After more than 2 months of observation and investigation in Imperial Valley, it is my conviction that a group of growers have exploited a Communist hysteria for the advancement of their own interests; that they have welcomed labor agitation, which they could brand as "red", as a means of sustaining supremacy by mob rule, thereby preserving what is so essential to their profits-cheap labor-that they have succeeded in drawing into their conspiracy certain county officials who have become the principal tools of their machine." Coming from a former Army officer of high rank and a representative of the Federal Government, this is strong language Back of it lies the personal experience of General Glassford and his secretary, now Mrs. Glassford, during their 2 months' stay in the valley. Their telephone line was tapped. They had reason to believe that the confidence that is supposed to surround telegraphic communications by Western Union and Postal Telegraph was violated. During their brief stay in the valley they lived surrounded by an atmosphere of fear and of espionage. Few persons would talk; those who did insisted that they be not quoted. Those who wrote did not sign their communications. Mrs. Glassford told me that only after they had left the valley did she feel able to draw a free breath-this, from the assistant of a special investigator acting with the full authority of the Federal Government. My stay in the valley was too brief to get the full flavor of this terror. But I saw and heard enough. Within a half hour of our arrival in town, I and my companion were approached in a restaurant by a drunken stool pigeon who assured us that if we stuck with him we would have a wonderful time-liquor, cheap women, and everything. I have reason to believe that my car, which was being repaired in a local garage, was rifled the day after we arrived in town. The morning after my arrival I interviewed Captain Cunningham, who shares offices with the National Reemployment Service in El Centro and who represents the United States Department of Labor. Captain Cunningham surmised that I was what is loosely described as a "red." I stated briefly and specifically whom I represented, what was my business in the valley, and the general nature of my political and social views, pointing out that the latter had nothing to do with the case, since my business in the valley was purely journalistic. Even if I had been a member of the Communist Party, reporting for the Daily Worker, I would have had a perfect right to enter the valley, interview a Government official, and expect him to answer frankly and accurately questions having to do with matters of public record. Captain Cunningham, with whom I had two interviews, behaved as a decent Government official would normally be expected to behave. He gave me a variety of statistical information, practically all of which was strikingly at variance with that contributed by Chet Moore, secretary of the Western Growers' Protective Association. I suggest that the House Labor Committee summon Captain Cunningham and ask him to present all the information he has collected-I was permitted access to only a small part of it. I suggest further that Captain Cunningham be asked if it is true, as he intimated to me, that he is about to lose his job; why he thinks he is losing his job; who he thinks is getting him fired. I suggest, finally, that General Glassford be summoned and asked, among other things, why he apprehends, as he told me, that he won't be able to save Captain Cunningham his job. I also urge that the House Labor Committee summon John B. Lestner, deputy commissioner of agriculture of the State of California, with offices in El Centro. In my opinion, which is shared by General Glassford, he knows more about the sources of the fantastic political corruption of the Imperial Valley than any other man; his records, if spread on the minutes of a congressional inquiry, would show that at the end of every harvest season his office is deluged with complaints by both shed and field workers having to do with the chiseling of bonuses to which they were properly entitled. From May to August, 90 percent of the claims filed in Lestner's office involve charges of chiseling by labor contractors. I urge, further, that Mr. Lestner be asked why, when General Glassford writes him, he uses his home address; also why the general suggested that if I write Lestner I use his home address and a plain envelop. In the basement of the courthouse, immediately across the hall from Mr. Lestner, is the office of Deputy Agricultural Commissioner B. A. Harrigan. Concerning this tough perennial politician, General Glassford wrote in his report: 66 Standing within the power of the board of supervisors is the removal from office of Mr. B. A. Harrigan, agricultural commissioner. In my opinion, he has not always made fair and impartial use of his powers. Several who claim to be victims of his tyranny and unfairness have come to me with their stories. Fearing reprisal, they have exacted my promise not to reveal their names of accusations." Fearing reprisal. Every honest man in the Imperial Valley fears reprisal if he tells the truth about the peonage racket run by the grower-shippers and the red-baiting racket which serves as a smoke screen for their peonage racket. I feared reprisal myself while I was in jail at El Centro. Frankly, I was afraid Chet Moore was planning to frame me on criminal syndicalist charges, as in my opinion, the 16 Communist Party members and one member of the Workers' Party of the United States are likely to be framed and convicted at Sacramento. When, after arresting me without warrant, rifling my personal possessions, fingerprinting me, mugging me", and refusing me any opportuniuty to communicate with a lawyer or with friends, Sheriff Ware told me that I and my companion where to be escorted from the valley by his deputies; I said that I considered it advisable. I said this because I was confident that if we had been turned loose on the street we should have been almost instantly seized and probably beaten by the local vigilantes. In that sense, therefore, the police escort was furnished at our request. But the illegal deportation was the sheriff's idea. 66 I shall be glad to testify before the House Labor Committee concerning these and other things. I urge that my companion Charles Malemuth also be summoned, and asked particularly to testify concerning conditions in the El Centro jail, and the probability that several of its present inmates have been framed. Finally, I should be glad to return to the valley-with a company of marines, perhaps and complete my investigations. The CHAIRMAN. If there are no further questions, we thank you, Mr. Rorty. The committee will meet at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning and hear the representatives of the automotive industry. (Thereupon at 1 p. m., the committee recessed until 10 a. m., Thursday, Mar. 14, 1935.) LABOR DISPUTES ACT THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1935 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, The committee met at 11 a. m., Hon. William J. Connery, Jr. (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. The first witness will be Mr. Leonard Simms, the manager of the Industrial Department of the Detroit Board of Commerce. STATEMENT OF LEONARD SIMMS, REPRESENTING THE DETROIT BOARD OF COMMERCE Mr. SIMMS. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I came down to Washington in response to an invitation from Congressman Lesinski to testify with reference to the 30-hour week bill. I have my statement and a resolution prepared, which I should like to file with the committee, with respect to that bill, if I am not too late. The CHAIRMAN. No; that is all right. Mr. SIMMS. I understand that the hearings being had now refer to H. R. 6266 and not the 30-hour bill. The CHAIRMAN. We have not had any hearings on the 30-hour-week bill at this session. We had them on the Connery bill for equal labor representation on the codes, and if the material you have would be pertinent to that, it could go into those hearings. Mr. SIMMS. Shall I file it with the secretary? The CHAIRMAN. Yes; if you will; or you may read it into the record. Mr. SIMMS. There are before Congress two 30-hour work week bills; Black bill, S. 87, and Connery bill, H. R. 2746. These measures are proposed as a panacea for the reemployment of approximately 10 million workers now out of jobs in the United States. A comprehensive study of this proposed restriction of work hours shows many serious defects in the line of reasoning of its sponsors. With these bills adopted and the 30-hour restriction in effect, there would be an increase in the cost of manufactured goods due to the fact that the reduction in working time would be effected without any decrease in wages; that the increased production costs would be passed on to the ultimate consumer-if the consumer would and could pay them. With the average workmen and other individuals hard pressed at this time to meet the steady increase in the cost of food and other necessities of life, an added financial burden would be effective which would more than offset any gain made possible by the shortening of the work week. The small businessman, who has been unable to secure adequate loans from the Government to meet the cost of materials and pay rolls, would even be in |