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HAPPENING

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BY J»F«N



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https://archive.org/details/itishappeningherOOnoll



IT IS

HAPPENING

HERE

By J. F. N.

Printed and diatributed by Our Sunday Vialter

Hnntinffton, Indiana

U. S. A.

OUR SUNDAY VISiTOP. LiSRARY

HUNTiNGTON, INDIANA



TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 3

Communism in the United States 5

Communist Supporting Organizations 8

1. The American League Against War and

Fascism g

2. The International Labor Defense 10

3. The Farmer-Labor Party 11

4. The American Federation of Teachers - 13

6.

Youth Organizations 17

6. Communist Schools and Summer Camps , 20

7. Communism in Labor Ranks 25

8. The Press of America - 27

9. The League for Industrial Democracy 30

IOl Work Among the Negroes 30

11. Communism and the Churches 31

12. The American Friends of Spanish

Democracy 35

Communism and the Cultured 37

Communism and the Wealthy 40

Morals in Russia 41

Religious Freedom in Russia? 43

Communism Active Everywhere 44

APPENDIX

Our Plain Duty 49

A Catechism on Communism 51

The Antidote 63

The Truth about the Spanish Situation 65



INTRODUCTION

Are some of us alarmists? Read, and decide

for yourself.

If there were question only of counteracting

the influence of the Communist Party as such we

might confidently trust to the traditional sanity of

the American people to keep our country “safe for

Democracy^\

But there is question of the wide encourage-

ment now being given by influential organizations

to the formation of a political “popular front”.

There is question of the direction of all pacifist

organizations, and of the millions of anti-war sym-

pathizing people by agents of Moscow.

There is question of radical domination of many

federated youth organizations.

There is question of many thousands of school

teachers opposing any investigation of Communist

propaganda through the schools on the theory that

there must be no curtailment of “Academic Free-

dom”.

There is question of the increased activity by

radicals to incite labor to violence against industry.

There is question of a large part of the non-

Catholic group being deceived by pro-Communist

propaganda to the effect that the Catholic Church

has created all her own present-day problems by her

reactionary attitudes, and by her support of Fascism

here and abroad.

There is question of successful appeals to the

Intellegensia of the United States effected by a con-

siderable number of well-edited periodicals, and by

( 8 )



an ever-increasing number of special writers in the

American press.

There is question of fully one-half our ix>pula-

tion, reared without any knowledge of religion,

being quite indifferent towards its conservation, and

rather favorably committed to a social life un-

hampered by moral restrictions.

There is question of the anti-Catholic agitators,

organizers and publicists, who, only a few years ago,

succeeded in arousing in millions a feeling of bitter-

ness towards the Catholic Church, now capitalizing

on the new opportunity presented by the Communist

movement.

There is even question of some of the most

influential Protestant Bishops and clergymen in

America espousing the Communist cause and pub-

licly commending its philosophy.

Nowhere in the world has Communism had so

many powerful organizations furthering its cause

—

some wilfully, some unwittingly—as here. Hence
Communism can happen here; we offer proof that

it is happening here.

J. F. N.

( 4 )



COMMUNISM IN THE UNITED STATES

We leave to other authors the analysis of Com-

munist philosophy, and confine our observations to

Communist activities in the United States and the

support they are receiving here. However, in a

Catechism Appendix, many questions concerning

the nature, aims, purposes, and successes of Commu-

nism are briefly answered. Communist objectives,

so widely publicized, may be briefiy summarized as

follows:

“Hatred of God and all forms of religion.”

“Destruction of private property and inheritance.”

“Promotion of class hatred.”

“Revolutionary propaganda through the Communist

International, stirring up Communist activities in for-

eign countries in order to cause strikes, riots, sabotage,

bloodshed and civil war.”

“Destruction of all forms of Representative or Demo-

cratic governments, including civil liberties, such as

freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, and trial by

jury.”

“The ultimate and final objective is by means of world

revolution to establish the dictatorship of the so-called

Proletariat into one world union of Soviet Socialist re-

publics with the capital at Moscow.”—Report 2290 U. S.
House of Representatives by Fish Commission (1931)

You are chiefly interested in knowing whether

Communist principles are being accepted by a suffi-

cient number of Americans to make it an imminent

threat to our democracy, to our institutions, to our

civil and religious liberties, to our inalienable

rights; and we propose to present evidence to you

designed to prove that millions of Americans, who

would greatly resent being charged with pronounced

Communistic leanings, are actually promoting its

(5 )



6 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

apostolate through various organizations and asso-

ciations.

Understand that the Communist Party itself

will never be large. Even in Soviet Russia, only

slightly more than one per cent of the people be-

long to it. The bulk of the population, unfitted to

represent the movement and unprepared to accept

the burdens and personal sacrifices, which member-

ship, following a novitiate lasting from six months

to two years, entails, is not wanted in it.

Outside Russia the Party wants trained men,

who will seek to get into every sort of organization,

interest themselves in it, and work themselves to-

wards the top, so that they may steer it into the di-

rection of Communist sympathy. There are many

such in the United States.

The present Communist strength in the United

States is not to be guaged by the small vote it polls

during an election such as we have just had, because

few Communists, any more than Father Coughlin’s

followers, were willing to throw their vote away,

because the Communist candidate may not be en-

tered on the ballot in most states, and because its

alien membership, and the members of its youth or-

ganizations, both large, are not entitled to vote. In

the recent election Communists were urged to vote

for their own candidates only locally. That was true

even in the election of 1932, when Irving Schwab,

Communist candidate for Judge of the Court of

Appeals in New York City, received 66,247 votes in

five boroughs
;
that Israel Amter, who recently wrote

an open letter to the Pope defending Communism,

received 62,144 votes, and other local Communist

candidates ran as successfully.



COMMUNISM IN THE UNITED STATES 7

If there be so few Communists, how is it that on

short notice 15,000 of them gathered together for a

parade to the German Consulate in New York City

to present a resolution adopted by the Communist

Party against Nazi assistance to the Rebels in

Spain?

If there be so few Communists, how is it that

20,000 Reds gathered in Madison Square Garden on

October 26, 1936, and paid from twenty-five cents

to one dollar admission to receive newly arrived rep-

resentatives of the Spanish Popular Front? At that

meeting $18,000.00 was received at the Box Office,

and $15,000.00 was raised by passing the hat among

the same people—a total of $33,000.00 to that cause.
The paid circulation of Communist papers pub-

lished in the United States, not including hundreds

of local and shop papers, was 350,000 even five years

ago. An officer of the American Coalition, an or-

ganization composed of 109 patriotic, civic and fra-

ternal societies, declared before a special congres-

sional committee investigating un-American activi-

ties, on Dec. 29, 1934, that there are nearly as many

Communists and affiliates in the U. S. as there are

in the Communist Party in all Russia.

How Its Philosophy is Spread

But the seed of Soviet philosophy is sown by

columnists in the daily papers, by clever writers in

magazine articles, by thousands of school teachers

in the classroom, by many a college and university

professor, by the movies, by its own personnel in

Communistic schools and summer camps, and more

particularly through organizations with high-sound-

ing deceptive and even appealing names.



8 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZA-
TIONS

To some of these auxiliaries, or affiliates under

Communist control or encouragement, I would es-

pecially call your attention. There is:

( 1 ) THE AMERICAN LEAGUE AGAINST WAR
AND FASCISM

This organization, with a most attractive

name, has lured into its sympathy all pacifist or-

ganizations, as well as numerous individuals who

oppose a Fascist Government in the United

States. The Hoosier Legionaire recently declared

editorially that eleven professed Communists were

on the Board of Directors of this League. Earl

Browder, General Secretary of the Communist

Party of the United States, and its recent candidate

for President on the Communist Ticket, had this to

say, in the February, 1935, issue of The Communist,

of a meeting of the League Against War and Fas-

cism held in Chicago in September, 1934

:

“An outstanding feature of our united front efforts

was the Second U. S. Congress Against War and Fas-

cism, held in Chicago at the end of September. At this

Congress were 3,332 delegates from organizations with

a total membership of 1,600,000. That represents an

extension of the activities of our movement over about

a million organized persons more than we have ever

before had gathered around us. The quality of this rep-

resentation was higher than ever before.”

This League is promoted by the Communist

Party for the purpose of bringing within the sphere

of its influence the many Pacifists and even patriotic

Americans, who want nothing either of war or of



COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS 9

Fascism, but who would otherwise not come under

Communist influence.-

But has Soviet Russia a PEACE PLAN? It has
a plan to keep one nation from fighting another, be-

cause such wars always mould the people together,

no matter how badly they might hitherto have been

divided among themselves. Soviet Russia is for peace

because it itself is not quite as ready for war as it

should like to be. But Communism is not against

war within a nation, commonly known as Civil

War or Revolution; in fact, the provocation of
such strife is its main objective. But the Peace Plan

of Communism was clearly stated in the Daily

Worker on July 8, 19S5, by its editor, Clarence A.

Hathaway, as follows:

“The peace policy of the Soviet Union is in no sense

a pacifist policy. It is a revolutionary policy, insepar-

able from the policies of the Communist International,

and of the revolutionary policies of the Communist

Parties in every country. This peace policy fits in with

our objective here—that of proletarian revolution in the
United States and the overthrow of the American capi-

talist class.

“It is thanks to its peace policy that the Soviet Union

has been able to carry through its First Five Year Plan

and to advance three years on its Second. Through these

two Plans the Soviet Union has been able to build up,

not only a powerful Red Army, the most powerful mili-

tary force in the world today, but to arm that Red Army

with the most modern implements of warfare, tanks, air-

planes and everything else.

“Just as the peace policy has aided in strengthening

the position of the Soviet Union. . . so the peace policy

has served to give us in the capitalist world the same

kind of a breathing space, the same possibilities of win-

ning more adherents, of building up our Party, of deep-

ening our influence in the mass organizations of the

workers, of raising the political level of our forces of



10 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

the working class movement generally for the civil war

that the working class would inevitably have to wage.”

As an internal policy of the Soviet Republics Paci-

fism is denounced; everywhere else Communists

must promote it vigorously.

As you read on you will note how the officers

and leading promoters of the League Against War
and Fascism interlock with officers and leaders of

many other Communist-controlled movements.

(2) THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR DEFENSE

This organization, like the League Against

War and Fascism, was created by the Communist

Party of the United States. In one of its pamphlets

entitled “What is the International Labor Defense?”

,

published in 193 J/,, we read:

“The ILD is not a legal aid society, which provides

lawyers. The ILD is convinced that legal defense alone

is inadequate; that alone by itself it cripples the main

issues involved—not merely the defense of the individ-
uals accused, but the class character of the case, the

real reasons why those workers are persecuted, is

drowned in a tangle of legal red tape. It is a mass or-

ganization with 200,000 members and affiliates. It imme-

diately mobilizes this membership for action in defense

of victims of the class struggle. These members in

turn, through leaflets, through the press, house-to-house

canvassings, meetings, try to rouse all those within the

reach of their influence and draw them into the defense

movement.”

In another pamphlet, entitled The Communist

Party in Action, published by the Workers Library

Publishers, we find on page 56, this statement:

“In speaking of the importance of transmission belts

between the Party and the masses, we must remember

that besides the unions there are other non-Party mass

organizations, already existing, and others that we

undertake to organize in the course of the developing



COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS 11

counter-offensive of the proletariat. We should refer

here to such non-Party mass organizations as the In-

ternational Labor Defense, the Workers International

Relief, various organizations in the struggle for Negro

rights, the League of Struggle for Negro Rights (L. S.

N. R.), etc. Of course, some of these organizations are

as yet far from being mass organizations. Our task,

therefore, consists in widening them, broadening them

out, and transforming them into real mass movements.”

Let a Communist be executed anywhere outside

Russia, and his brethren throughout the world will

hold protest and denunciation meetings; in Russia

itself, of course, the life of one or many is held for

nought.

(3) THE FARMER-LABOR PARTY

All Communists insist that ours should be a

government of workers and farmers, modeled on the

peasant-proletariat combination in Russia. The very

first article of the new constitution of the Union of

Soviet Republics reads: “The Union of Soviet So-

cialist Republics is a socialist State of workers and

peasants.*'

Communist papers are urging the formation of

Farmer-Labor Clubs everywhere. According to the

National Republic thirty-two such clubs were or-

ganized in Michigan following a Farmer-Labor

Party Conference conducted by Communists in De-

.troit on August 8, 1936. A Communist publication,
named The Education Vanguard, in its issue of

August 19, 1936, urged school teachers to or-

ganize the Farmer-Labor Party, which Commu-

nist leaders hope to see grow into a nation-wide

“popular front” party for the next national cam-

paign in 1940.

We entertained no suspicions that this Party



12 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

was of Communist origin, until we read recently that

George Dimitrov, General Secretary of the Comin-

tern, in Moscow, declared in a speech delivered on

August 6, this year (1936)

:

“Our comrades in the United States have acted cor-

rectly in taking the initiative in creating such a party,

but they must take care that this party should appear

the spontaneous development of the masses themselves.

The question of organizing a Farmer-Labor Party and

its program should take place at a national convention.”

“It is necessary to state that the organization of a

mass party of workers, a so-called Farmer Labor Party,

would best suit American conditions. Such a party

would be a specific form of a popular front party in

America to oppose the parties of the trusts and banks

and growing Fascism.”

On July 26, this year (1936) the executive

committee of the Communist Party urged the Social-

ist party to unite with them in ‘‘rescuing the

Farmer-Labor Party from capitalist forces.”

The July, 1936, number of the New American^ a

Communist sheet, quotes two Minnesota Congress-

men as saying

:

“What we must have is fifty disciplined Farmer-

Labor Congressmen who will fight. They must chal-

lenge the Supreme Court and strip it of power.”

The Minnesota Farmer-Labor party had both

good Americans and Communists on the ballot in

the recent election.

Immediately after the recent re-election of

President Roosevelt, Browder and Foster, the chief

Communist cause promoters in the United States,

declared according to a newspaper report:

“The election results were a mandate also to the

American Federation of Labor, the C. I. O., Labor^s

Non-Partisan League, the Farmer-Labor party of Minne-

sota, the Wisconsin Farmer-Labor Progressive Federa-



COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS 13

tion, California Epic movement, Washington Common-

wealth Federation, American Labor party, and all farm,

unemployed, and progressive organizations, to the So-

cialist and Communist parties “to build the independent

power of the people, to take advantage of the oppor-

tunity which lies ahead to consolidate the progressive

forces and to move forward decisively to a people’s

front, to the national Farmer-Labor party.”

(4) THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF
TEACHERS

A Bulletin issued by the “Teachers Union'’
(Columbia Univ. Summer Session Committee, Vol-

ume one, number two, July 30th, 1936) declares:

“The American Federation of Teachers, chartered by

the American Federation of Labor in 1916, claims a

membership of 30,000, with locals in 500 cities and towns

in the United States. Many prominent educators, in-

cluding professors under whom you may have studied

this summer, are members.

“Every teacher in the United States is invited to join

the Teachers Union. It is the only means by which one

may apply the principles of modern progressive educa-

tion in an organized, effective way. The Teachers’ Union

bridges the gap between education theory and practice.”

The same Bulletin reported a meeting of 800

Teachers at Columbia University, on July 16, which

was addressed by several radicals.

We would not designate all the members of this
organization “Communists”, but the Federation

itself is more than sympathetic toward Commu-

nism, and literature of the Reds is full of praise of

it. The American Federation of Teachers is nothing

else than a Teachers' Union, formed in 1916, into

which the Communist Party has driven several

wedges. In the plea of this Federation for “Acad-

emic Freedom”, in its denunciation of the Teachers’



14 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

Oath, it may have entirely different motives than

the Communist. But the Federation also vehemently

opposes any investigation of Red propaganda in the

schools.

If there were any hesitancy to believe that the

organization known as the American Federation of

Teachers had strong Communistic leanings, it

should be dissipated by the conduct of the delegates

to the Philadelphia Convention held during the latter

part of August this year, 1936. According to a re-

port published by Orvel Johnson, Lt. Col., a member

of the Bar of Oklahoma, the American flag was

denied a place in the Assembly Hall, while a huge

red banner of the Socialist Party bore an arm with

the lighted torch and the legend: ‘‘Workers of the

World, Unite.’' He writes

:

“Socialist, Communist and Communist-controlled or-

ganizations surged in the convention hall with their

elaborate displays of subversive and inflamatory litera-

ture. Thousands of pieces of printed matter, frankly

subversive of American institutions, were furnished the

teacher-delegates to be distributed back home.

“Among the exhibits most popular with the Delegates

were those of the following: American League Against

^Var and Fascism, Socialist Call, New Masses, League

for Industrial Democracy, Scholastic Magazine, Ameri-

can Birth Control League, National Council for the

Prevention of War (which dispensed literature on the

Emergency Peace Campaign), War Resisters’ League,

Social Frontier Magazine and similar organizations. . .

“It was natural that the convention should unanimous-

ly adopt resolutions indorsing the Farmer-Labor Party

(Communist inspired) and calling on teachers every-

where to cooperate.

“Logical it was, too, that the convention should vote

unanimously to cooperate with the American League

Against War and Fascism and another Communist-

controlled organization, the American Student Union. . .



COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS 16

“It was made plain by many speakers that when the

American Federation of Labor expels the Lewis follow-

ers, the teachers will unite with Lewis.

“The new 1,000 teachers were furnished with litera-

ture attacking loyalty oaths, and resolutions, adopted

unanimously, pledged the members of the American

Federation of Teachers to carry on an unrelenting war

on loyalty oaths and all other patriotic legislation. A
radical youngster, just back from Spain, brought an eye-

witness account of the struggle the red Popular Front

is making to continue control of the government. The

convention was called upon to appropriate $5,000.00

immediately to the Spanish reds and to call on all other

labor unions within the American Federation of Labor

to ‘take such action as may be feasible’ in aiding the

Spanish government.

“The Communist Workers’ Schools of Philadelphia

supplied the teachers with literature relating to the

courses of study and text books used while the Com-

munist bookshops furnished the teachers with printed

greetings, setting forth lists of Communist books avail-

able at special rates to teachers. Scores of these books

were purchased and read during the convention sessions.

The book list carried this invitation:
“
‘As an act of friendly solidarity with the aims of the

American Federation of Teachers we have made careful

selection from our large stock of progressive literature

w^hich we offer you at specially reduced prices.’ ”

The American Federation of Teachers elected

as its president at the Philadelphia Convention,

Jerome Davis, until recently a Yale University Pro-

fessor, author of the work entitled STUDIES OF
SOVIET RUSSIA, published by the Communist

Vanguard Press.

The Convention denounced Congressman Blan-

ton of Texas, who had been placed on a sub-com-

mittee to investigate charges that Communism was

taught in the public schools of Washington, D. C.,

and who had declared on the floor of the House



16 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

that the hearings conducted “proved the existence

of a conspiracy or plot to Sovietize school children

throughout the nation.” He had named as “master

minds” of this conspiracy several prominent profes-

sors and authors of text-books used in the schools.

The text-books of Professor Harold Rugg, especially

one entitled The Great Technology, another entitled

An Introduction to American Civilization, and still

another entitled A Changing Civilization in the
Modern World, were singled out for special con-

demnation.

Another text-book condemned was Modern His-

tory by Professor Carl L. Becker.

Quotations selected from all these books made

it clear that the authors were sympathetic towards

Communist aspirations. Karl Marx and his program

are actually praised in some of them, “while the

founders of this nation, its institutions and liber-

ties are belittled.”

“I do not believe that through so-called ‘academic

freedom’ the schools ought to be thrown open to no

control of any sort.”—Mr. E. Brooke Petty, Vice—Com-
mander, American Legion, Southren Maryland Dis-

trict.

(5) YOUTH ORGANIZATIONS

It may surprise you to learn that there is a

Communist organization designed for elementary

grade children in the schools. It is known as

the Young Pioneers of America, These little

children are used to distribute Communist literature,

to oppose honor to the American flag, and are taught

to disobey their parents in all matters relating to

religion.

Another Communist organization for young

people is known as the Young Communist League,



COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS 17

Its members are expected to be big brothers to the

Young Pioneers, They help to organize the little

ones and to furnish leaders for them, and to receive

them into their own organization at the age of six-

teen. The Young Communist League is the American

section of the Young Communist International at

Moscow.

The state of tomorrow will be of the sort which

the youths of today will make it. Hence trained

workers under the Communist program exert their

best efforts not only to be represented in organiza-

tions of young people, but to control them.

The story relating to the manner in which the

Reds got hold of the American Youth Congress is

truly clever and may interest you. It is told in the

National Republic:

“The American Youth Congress was conceived by

Viloa lima. Founding the Congi’ess for what she pro-

claimed was for ‘sound intellectual, spiritual and physical

development of the youth of America,' the first meeting

was called in August of 1934, at the Washington Square

College, in New York City. The first break to the left

came several weeks before the Congress was to convene,

when Professor Harvey Zorbaugh of the Sociology De-

partment of Washington Square College, New York

City, who, in the summer of 1935, served on the Ameri-

can Advisory Council of Moscow State University, be-

came angry at Miss lima for holding liberal and radical

organizations down to a minimum representation. Pro-

fessor Zorbaugh invited twelve organizations to par-

ticipate in the conference, including the ultra-radical

and pacifist groups, the League for Industrial Democ-

racy (Socialist), National Student Federation, Pioneer

Youth (Socialist), War Resisters’ League (ultra-radical

pacifists). Young Communist League and the Young

People’s Socialist League.

“These oppositional organizations held a conference

prior to the Congress and formed a ‘united front.’ This



18 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

‘united front’ was managed by radicals and led, in part,
by Gil Green, national secretary of the Young Com-
munist League, and an instructor in the Workers’ School

of New York City in 1931, national secretary of the
Y. C. L. in 1933, and a member of the national executive
committee of the U. S. Congress Against War in 1933,
and a member of the national executive committee of the
American League Against War and Fascism in 1935.
In 1935 Green made a report of the Youth Movement in
the United States to the Comitern in Moscow. Green

was promoted by Moscow to the Presidium Committee of
the Third (Communist) International for the above

and other ‘united front’ successes in the United States.

“At the conclusion of the Congress, two groups had

emerged—The American Youth Congress, under the
direction of the Communists, and the American Youth

Congress, Inc., under the banner of Miss lima. Shortly

after the final session of the Congress, the ‘New Masses,’

a Communist cultural publication, carried an article con-

ceiving it, and hailed it thus:

“
‘For the first time since the social exodus from the

American League Against War and Fascism, Commu-

nists and Socialists are together again.’

“Aided and abetted by Young Communists, the Con-

gress continued to grow. On May 30, 1935, demonstra-

tions against war, under the auspices of the Youth Con-

gress, were held in all large cities. Constant boosting

by the Communist owned and controlled papers and

Communist leaders indicated all the more clearly that

the integral part of the Congress was Communistic.”

The American Youth Congress held its second

conference at Detroit from July 4-7, 1935. Report-

ing on the same before the Comitern Congress in

September 1935, Gil Green told how a ‘united front’

had been organized with a membership representing

over one million youths. Speaking of the first Con-

gress, Green said:

“We defeated the enemy and turned the Youth Con-

gress into a broad, united front.”



COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS 19

He continued:

“Since the Second Congress, the American Youth

Congress has been very active in different parts of the

country. Meetings have been held in New York City,

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania; Philadelphia, Detroit,

Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and

other large cities.”

William W. Hinckley was chosen National

Chairman of the Third American Youth Congress,

held in Cleveland, Ohio, July 3, 4, and 5, 1936. In

an invitation to this Third Youth Congress, an offi-

cial Communist organ observed that 3,444 delegates

from 1,500 organizations, having 2,500,000 mem-

bers were expected. These, it said, represented not

only the Communist Party and over 300 of its na-

tional movements, but likewise the Y. M. C. A., Y.

W. C. A., church, farmer, student, minor political

government officials and trade unions.

Appearing as one of the keynote speakers at

the third annual meeting of the American Youth

Congress, Earl Browder, Presidential choice of the

Communist Party, was wildly cheered by the

youths attending the annual affair in Cleveland.

Browder outlined the 1936 platform of the revolu-

tionary party. He appealed to the youths for ‘unity’,

and denounced our present system of constitutional

government. Gil Green, leader of the Young Com-

munist League, who was honored by Soviet officials

in Moscow in August last year, for his success in

revolutionizing the youth of America, also addres-

sed the Convention, as did Angelo Herndon, negro

Communist sentenced to imprisonment in Georgia

for seditious activities.

At the Seventh National Convention of the

Young Communist League of U. S. A., held June



20 IT IS HAPPENING ttEM

22-27, 1934, the following statement, among others,

was issued

:

“The Young Communist League must strengthen the

work of its factions in the sports student and language

youth movement, especially in the Labor Sports Union.

“The Young Communist League must work to build the

National Student League into a broad mass organiza-

tion.”

(6) COMMUNIST SCHOOLS AND SUMMER
CAMPS

Communists maintain 300 or more schools in

the U. S., where revolution, strike tactics and hatred

for our government are taught.

From an editorial appearing in the September,

1936, number of the National Republic, we quote as

follows

:

“Thousands of youths and adults are at present enroll-

ing in the summer classes of scores of Communist

schools throughout the country. These schools are in

operation during the entire year, the majority of them

having four terms annually. Others have short courses

of three months each. It is understood, however, that

the summer classes are generally crowded because many

of the youths who attend them are required by law to

attend regular recognized schools during the school

season and, therefore, can attend Communist schools

during their vacation period only. Where there were

schools in only fourteen cities in 1925, there are schools

in hundreds of cities today.

In the same editorial we read

:

“A drive to raise funds for the purpose of enlarging

the facilities of the principal school of the Communist

educational system, located at 35 East Twelfth Street,

New York City, has just been closed. It is reported that

the annual enrollment of this school has been approxi-

mately 10,000, hundreds having been turned away be-

cause the school was unable to accommodate them. In



COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS 21

1926 this school had only 570 students for the year. Its

growth is, therefore, noticeable. The revolutionists hope

to enlarge their quarters so that they may take in sev-

eral additional thousands of students. The school is

headed by Abraham Markoff, who is also director of the

Communist chain of schools in the United States. He

was recently congratulated by Communist Party officials

upon the completion of thirty years of revolutionary

work and ten years of service as director of Communist

schools. The Young Communist League, it is reported,

pledged 350 students for the summer term which has

just started.

“The Los Angeles school, next in size and importance

to the one in New York, was established in 1923, by

Clarence Hathaway, a leader in the Communist Party.

He remarked at the time that it was ‘part of a movement

which would spread to all sections of the country.’

Thousands of dollars have been given to these schools

by the American Fund for Public Service (Garland

Fund). The announcement for the opening of this school

and the one in New York stated that ‘without a revolu-

tionary theory there can be no revolution.’ The courses

prescribed were for the purpose of teaching the revolu-

tionary theory and tactics. Hathaway publicly stated:

‘We want education for action, not abstract education

... We are teaching our young people that the Consti-
tution of the United States is a bulwark of class rule,

and that the workers must promote the needed change.’

“A spokesman for the school in New York recently

stated: ‘In our workers’ schools we are learning Marx-

ism and Leninism. We are studying the principles of
revolutionary theory and how to apply them in militant

struggles.’ Markoff has explained: ‘The Workers’

School is one of the leading and powerful forces out-

side the Soviet Union, training workers in under-

standing and fighting!

“The Communist school in Boston recently raised

money for expansion purposes. The Krumbein District

Training School is a new addition which has recently

been built on the banks of the Hudson.
“
‘Mother’ Bloor, celebrated Communist and revolu-



22 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

tionist, addressed the audience which attended the open-

ing of the new term of the Chicago Workers’ School, now

located at 330 South Wells Street.

“Not only do the Communists maintain these regular

schools where classes are held daily, but they also main-

tain correspondence schools. One in Seattle is known as

the Workers’ Correspondence School, 302 Maritime

Building, another is operated from the New York school

offices.

“Neighboring schools are also a new venture in

Communist circles. They are being conducted by specially

trained Communists. These schools have met with a

great deal of success', particularly in Seattle and Chi-

cago, where classes of about thirty pupils are held in

club centers and in homes of Communists in various sec-

tions of the cities. The idea is to take the school to

those who would otherwise be unable to attend the

classes. Art, dance and theatrical schools are also

being operated by the Communists in the United States.”

From the daily press we have gleaned the fol-

lowing information

:

Over 500 students at the University of New York

cheered the address of Earl Browder on behalf of Com-

munism on October 23, 1936. The meeting was held

under the auspices of the Karl Marx Society of the Uni-

versity.

A poll taken at Harvard University shows that there

are at least 105 Communists and Socialists among its

students. Similar polls elsewhere show 270 students at

the University of California; 121 at Yale; 102 at Dart-

mouth; 64 at Princeton; 513 at Brooklyn; 197 at Colum-

bia; 411 at the University of Chicago; 122 at Idaho

College.

The poll taken among the Young Men’s Hebrew Asso-

ciation, of New York City, showed 182 Socialists and

Communists.

Because of the ousting of Robert Burke, a Communist,

from Columbia University, 800 fellow-students walked

out on a two hour strike on October 21, 1936, the call

being issued by the Communist American Student Union.



COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS 23

3,500 New York Youths, members of the Young Com-

munist League assembled in St. Nicholas Palace, New

York City, October 26, 1936, to hear several Communist

speakers.

Only recently a public school teacher, who

spent six weeks at Columbia University, showed us

a great mass of literature distributed among thous-

ands of teachers who took summer courses at that

Institution during July and August of 1936.

Much of this literature was distributed by “The

Teachers College and Columbia Units of the Com-

munist Party.” In Volume one, number three, of the

Educational Vanguard, published by '*The Teachers

College and Columbia Units of the Communist

Party”, we find this declaration made in the

opening paragraphs of an article entitled Who Are

The Teachers College Communists?”

:

“The Communists at Teachers College are faculty

members, staff, office and service workers and graduate

students.

“Contrary to the William Randolph Hearst stereotype,

the Teachers College Communists are not ‘wild-eyed

foreigners imported from Moscow'; nor are they ‘ter-

mites seeking to undermine our nation’s schools.’

“Ninety-five per cent of the membership of the Party

at Teachers College are native born Americans from all

sections of the United States, with a majority of them

coming from the Middle West and South.”

In another issue of the Communist Educational

Vanguard, published on August 10th, 1936, we read

as follows:

“In a few days more than 10,000 teachers, principals

and superintendents, will get into bus or train and re-

turn to every section of the United States. The Commu-

nist units at Teachers College and Columbia join in

wishing every student of the summer session a memor-

able trip home.



24 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

“To many, this publication undoubtedly was the first

direct contact with the Communist Party. Perhaps the

VANGUARD and the UNIVERSITY OF THE STREET
have made you just a bit more conscious of many

wrongs, and of the necessity for organization to correct

these injustices.

“When you return to your home town, wherever that

may be, join the Communist Party. Help organize a

Farmer-Labor Party. Only through these means can we

hope to stave off the imminent menace of Fascism. If

you are staying on at Teachers College for another ses-

sion, clip the coupon at the bottom of the page and learn

more about the Communist Party. By joining you will

help us in our efforts to raise the educational and living

standards of America.”

The following resolution was adopted Novem-

ber 13, 1935, by the Takoma Park Post No. 350,

Veterans of Foreign Wars

:

“Whereas we are aware of well-organized efforts

within our country today, trying to undermine our edu-

cational system, and inject into it their teachings of un-

American doctrines tending to subvert the minds of our

youth and to create class hatred, and disrespect for con-

stituted customs and authority, with doctrines and prop-

aganda introduced with sworn and avowed aims of ulti-

mate overthrow of our free form of government by vio-

lence and bloodshed; and,

“Whereas we are aware of the decision of the School

Board to teach Communism in the schools of the District

of Columbia: Therefore be it

“RESOLVED, By the members of Takoma Park, Post

No. 350, Veterans of Foreign Wars, in regular meeting

assembled, at Takoma Park, Md., November 13, 1935,

herewith go on record as voicing our emphatic dis-

approval and objections to the teaching of Communism

in the schools of the District of Columbia or in any other

schools of the United States of America: be it further

“RESOLVED, we do not believe that it is necessary in

the education of our youth, that they should be instructed

in the principles of any form of government, the sworn



COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS 25

aims of which are the destruction of our own form of

government; and be it further

“RESOLVED, that a copy of this resolution be for-

warded to Frank W. Ballou, Superintendent of Schools of

the District of Columbia.

The same resolution was endorsed by Takoma

Park Post No. 28, American Legion, and a similar

resolution was adopted by the Ladies of the Grand

Army of the Republic, Washington, D. C., on March

3, 1936.

(7) COMMUNISM IN LABOR RANKS

Many strikes have been laid at the door of

Communism, and of nearly every strike the Com-

munists take advantage. Among such were the

Seamen strike last spring in the east, and the Mari-

time strike in the East and West two years ago, and

again in 1936. Communistic organizations do not

want peace in industry and often strive to have a

new strike started as soon as a previous one ends.

They are aware that in mills and factories dis-

contented workmen subscribe to a great part of their

program, such as a higher wage, collective bargain-

ing, industrial insurance, etc. Of course, labor

unions generally are committed to these objectives,

and precisely on this account the average laborer

cannot comprehend why the Communist program is

so dangerous. He is not informed that the ultimate

aim of Communism is to destroy industry, the pres-

ent order of society, and to make him a slave and

without hope under a new atheistic social order.

Earl Browder, in a report made to the Comin-

tern, in Moscow, in 1935, declared

:

“.
. . The Party played an important role in the

great strike wave, in which political objectives emerged

from the economic struggle.”



26 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

He described as instances the general strikes'

collision with the state power, as in the San Fran-

cisco general strike and at present in Terre Haute,

and said:

‘Tn strikes the Communist Party learned ‘Not only

how to start strikes but how to end them with victory or

partial victory.’
”

Communists throughout the world are called

upon to contribute to the support of strikers.

Most Catholics live in cities, where the great in-

dustries are. Since they belong largely to the labor-

ing class, it is evident that many must fall victims to

Communist intrigue unless they will be forewarned.

To the credit of the American Federation of

Labor, however, it must be said that it has hitherto

been very antagonistic to the admission of Commu-

nists into its ranks. President Green presented to

both the Democratic and Republican platform com-

mittees in 1936 a plank providing for the dissolu-

tion of diplomatic relation with Russia, but it was

not adopted.

Dorothy Day, formerly a zealous Communist,

writing in America, April 29, 1933, tells of the tac-

tics which radical agitators in labor ranks must use,

lest they offend the religious sensibilities of the

workers. She writes

:

“A Marxist must place the success of the strike move-

ment above all else, must definitely oppose the division

of the workers in this struggle into atheists and Chris-

tians, must fight resolutely against such a division. . .

We must not only admit into the. . . party all those
workers who still retain faith in God, we must redouble

our efforts to recruit them. We are absolutely opposed to
the slightest affront to these workers’ religious convic-

tions. . . We do not declare, and must not declare in our
program that we are ‘atheists.’

”



COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS 27

(8) THE PRESS OF AMERICA

While metropolitan papers are owned by men

committed to the Capitalistic system and, therefore,

manifest no Communistic leanings on the editorial

page, practically all of them either employ or accept

the syndicated copy of very liberal writers, who in-

fluence the great mass of readers more than any-

thing penned by the editor.

This became clear on election day, Nov. 3. Near-

ly every paper of consequence opposed Roosevelt

editorially, while they carried daily copy from col-

umnists who were anything but conservative in

their political outlook.

Most columnists are more than liberal, they

are radical, and play into the hands of the Commu-

nists in the fields of economics, morals and religion.

They mock, they sneer, they scoff, and make light of

traditional American ideals, of the Constitution of

the United States, of Christian Ethics.

On the day I write my eyes fell on this, a first

paragraph of an article contributed by Heywood

Broun to hundreds of papers

:

“It seems curious to me that here in America there

should be any question as to the sympathy with the

Loyalists of Spain. They are making as gallant a stand

as modem history affords. Nor can it be said that this is

nothing but a stubbornness born out of black despair.”

And Arthur Brisbane, whose daily feature in

hundreds of papers is read by 10,000,000 people,

speaking of General Franco, recently said:

“The United States sees in you a Spaniard who has

taken into his own country a horde of dark-skinned

Moors from northern Africa to murder his own fellow

coimtrymen.”

It is not at all surprising that 100,000,000 of



28 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

Americans to whom the Catholic Press is a stranger,

but who do read the daily papers, never see eye to

eye with us. Of course, they never will until we

teach our people to deal with the editors of their

local papers just as they dealt with the exhibitors

of bad films a few years ago. The big dailies are

published in the large cities where Catholics consti-

tute from one-third to one-half of the population,

just as the largest motion picture houses exist in

these places. If Catholics in these cities through

the United Holy Name Society or other organiza-

tion which represents the major portion of Catholic

membership, were to demand that editors learn the

truth, and then publish only the truth, about con-

ditions in Spain, in Russia and other countries, they

would get results. The motion picture producers

know well that one-half of all the patrons of the

movies are Catholics (because eighty per cent of the

Catholic population resides in the cities) and, there-

fore, cannot ignore their demands.

The pocketbook, and not the personal prejudice

of owners of papers, is their guiding pilot.

Even the news policy of our leading American

papers helps along the Communist cause. We note
this today in the treatment of the news from Spain.

The leaning is altogether towards the Reds. The

rebels, or the anti-Communists, are always repre-

sented as bombarding defenseless women and chil-

dren or they are destroying hospitals and schools
;
at

any rate they are charged with fighting democracy

in favor of Fascism.

Naturally the infiltration of such communistic

sympathies into the minds and hearts of our cosmo-

politan people is not going to strengthen them

against Communistic aggression.



COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS 29

Almost daily we read of people who have not

been unfriendly to the Catholic Church defending

the Loyalist rather than the Rebel cause in Spain,

because they are led to believe that the issue is the

preservation or destruction of Democracy.

If Only Matters Did Not Become Worse

We can give the answer a thousand times

through the Catholic press, but it does not reach

even half of our own people, and practically none of

the 100,000,000 non-Catholics, whose only source of

information is the secular, the sectarian, and the

bigoted press, all of which are on the side of the

Communistic government of Spain, and, therefore,

against the Church.

If matters did not become any worse than they

are now, there might be no special reason for alarm

in the face of general American sanity, but they

will become steadily worse if the American people

will persist in viewing the Communist advance with-

out apprehension.

In a letter addressed by the counsel of the

National Civic Federation to Hon. William Cope-

land Dodge, who was selected to investigate Com-

munist activities in New York City, he observed:

“We recognize that the Communist activities have

not yet recruited sufficient strength to threaten the sta-

bility of our Government. On the other hand, evidence

is daily accumulating that they are strong enough in cer-

tain unions, in Unemployed Councils and through other

organizations to menace industrial peace, create breaches

of the peace, interfere with the administration of relief

and seriously retard economic recovery. Under these cir-

cumstances, we believe that preventive measures should

be taken before the movement gains momentum and that

those who believe otherwise should be taught a severe

lesson, that changes in our form of government can only



30 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

lawfully be accomplished by means of constitutional

amendment and by the ballot. For these reasons, we

urge upon you prompt and courageous action in en-

forcing this law against all who violate it.”

(9) THE LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DE-
MOCRACY

This Organization was formerly known as The

INTER-COLLEGIATE SOCIALIST SOCIETY. The

name was changed some years ago, in order that

people who dislike the word “Socialist” might not

be antecedently prejudiced against it. Its President,

Dr. Robert Lovett, has been associated with Earl

Browder and other Communists in “The League

Against War and Fascism.”

Professor Harry F. Ward, who teaches Chris-

tian Ethics in Union Theological Seminary, New

York City, is associated with the American Civil Lib-

erties Union, which is closely identified with the

League for Industrial Democracy, whose objectives

are the abolition of private property, recognition of

Soviet Russia, and the disarmament of the United

States. It sponsors lectures and sends men to or-

ganize affiliations in colleges.

The American Civil Liberties Union rushes to

the defense of every radical who is brought before

the courts “regardless of his ideas or affiliations.”

(10) WORK AMONG THE NEGROES

According to the FISH CONGRESSIONAL
REPORT of 1931, each year a number of American
Negroes are sent to schools in Russia, where they are

educated in Communism and appointed to member-

ship in the Negro Department of the National Office.

There exists the American Negroes Congress, whose

purpose is to organize Negro workers into unions



COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS 31

and to agitate for abolition of all racial discrimina-

tion. A special paper, named the LIBERATOR is

published for the benefit of the Negro and it is de-

signed to make him militant in favor of complete

racial, social, and economic emancipation. A few

years ago, the name of the Negro section in Com-

munism was changed from the American Negro

Congress to the League of Struggle for Negro

Rights.

It is easy to visualize trouble in the United

States in the not too far distant future, if the

Negroes are cemented together under Communist

control.

(11) COMMUNISM AND THE CHURCHES

Norman Hapgood, former editor of Colliers and

of Harpers, was recently named editor of the Chris-

tian Register, published in Boston. Mr. Hapgood is

now a member of the League for Industrial Democ-

racy—a definitely Socialist organization.
Leading Protestant publications have question-

ed the sincerity of the Pope in inviting “all persons

and governments of good will” to join in a crusade

against Communism.

Under the caption ''Shall Protestants Accept

the Pope's Invitation”

,

the Christian Century, at the

end of November, 1936, declared:

“The Roman Catholic fight against Communism, as

it is developing, is a campaign; first, for the power and

privileges of the Roman Catholic Church; second, for a

Fascist type of political and social structure; third,

against freedom of opinion and speech; fourth, for an

alliance of business with religion and the sanctification

of the economic status quo.”

The editors charge that Spain “furnishes the

occasion and the impetus for the crusade”; that



32 rr IS HAPPENING HERE

‘"high Catholic ecclesiastics” portray the Spanish

conflict as **sl contest between chivalrous and

knightly soldiers of the cross on one side, and a bar-

baric mob of baby-butchering, nun-raping atheistic

Communists on the other”; that the Pope isn't

really concerned with the people of Spain, but with

the 'Vested interests of the Church” in Spain; and

that Protestants are being invited to help "pull the

Catholic Church's chestnuts out of the Spanish

Are. . .”

The editorial maintains that "the Vatican is a

friend of Fascism” and indebted to Mussolini for

"temporal sovereignty. . . increased income from

public funds for the support of its churches”, and

for a recent favor not yet generally known
—

"the

exclusion of all non-Catholic missionaries from the

newly conquered province of Ethiopia.”

In 1930 the Federal Council of Churches pub-

lished a document entitled "The Social Work of the

Churches”, in which it expressed approval of the

American Civil Liberties Union, whose then head

was Roger M. Baldwin, who, before a Congressional

Committe, refused to be sworn because he said he

did not believe in God.

Dr. A. W. Beaven, President of Colgate (Roch-

ester, N. Y.) Divinity School was one of the spon-

sors of the program of the Rochester League for In-

dustrial Democracy in 1935. Two years previously

a Professor Charles C. Webber addressed the stu-

dent body and is quoted as having said

:

“Capitalism is unChristian and unethical, and must

give way to Socialism and Communism, and the miasion-

aries of the future will be social revolutionists.”

Bishop Francis J. McConnell, Methodist, is

Chairman of the North American Committee to Aid



COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS 33

Spanish Democracy, whose ofRce is 149—Fifth Ave-
nue, New York City.

From this office releases are sent to Protestant

ministers and Protestant organizations, all designed

to line them up with the “Leftists” in Spain, and to

convey the impression that part of the program of

General Franco is to imprison and slay Spanish Pro-

testants. Many instances are cited of cruelties to-

wards Protestants.

The Methodist Federation for Social Service,

with offices at 150 Fifth Avenue, New York City,

whose secretaries are Harry F. Ward, Winifred L.

Chappell, and Charles C. Webber, is also sending

out regular releases in which the Holy Father and

the Catholic Church are attacked, and Communism

defended against Fascism.

In a November, 1936, release, the Pope is rep-

resented as proclaiming a Holy War and is charged

with having sent Cardinal Pacelli to this country “to

find out what support for the campaign could be se-

cured here politically and religiously.”

This office is also sending out copies of The New

Soviet Constitution, for the purpose of “proving” to

Protestants that under this Constitution tolerance

for religion will be granted to the people of Soviet

Russia.

The November BULLETIN warns that “the
Vatican is one of the international Triumvirate

lined up to destroy democracy and restore auto-

cracy”—the other members of the triumvirate being
Hitler and Mussolini.

Then the question is asked : “What are our Pro-

testant liberals and pacifists going to do? They

surely cannot be deceived by the false battlecry of

the religious reactionaries.”



34 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

It was Reverend Harry F. Ward, who, address-

ing a Youth Congress in Detroit, two years ago,

openly declared
‘

'there isn’t any real difference be-

tween atheists a.nd Christians. You must unite in

destroying the social order, which is denying you

your rights. You can’t love people into a new so-

ciety.”

After urging his audience to carry their fight

for Communism back into their churches, he

shouted, "don’t let your preachers and churches

bluff you. The one thing you have to do is to keep

your program on a plan of action rather than

theory.”

Ward has been somewhat of a radical for a

long time. He drafted the Social Creed, which was

adopted by the General Conference of the Methodist

•Church in 1908, and which was later adopted, with

additions, by the Federal Council of Churches.

Dr. Rembert G. Smith, of Pryor, Oklahoma, for-

merly professor at Emery Methodist College, and

still a prominent figure in that Church, declared in

August of this year, that four Bishops of the Metho-

dist Church head a "Socialist Bloc”. He named Bis-

hops Francis J. McConnell, Edgar Blake, J. C.

Baker, and J. Bromley Oxman.

At the Ashville Conference last August, the

Rev. Theodore Graebner, of Concordia Lutheran

Seminary, St. Louis, observed:

“The development of modern theology which has

brought about this alarming condition has long ago pre-

pared the background for a sponsorship of radical

movements. From Albert Ritschl we have received the

social Gospel, and Ritchl begat Rauschenbusch, and

Rauschenbusch begat Harry F. Ward, and Beaven, and

Niebuhr, and many another professor of theology.

Doctor of Divinity, and radio ecclesiastic who has made



COMMUNIST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS 36

the transition from a mildly erubescent social Gospel to

a decidedly pink socialism, inevitably completing the

cycle with the plunge into the reddest kind of political

radicalism which clamors for a new economic order

capable of providing the abundant life, and joining Jew,

Gentile, Atheist, and Federal Council Protestant in the

trek to Moscow. . . The same trend runs through

Federal Council pronouncements and through the resolu-

tions of Ministerial Alliances, of assemblies and confer-

ences.”

And Dr. James H. Snowden, editor of the Pres-

byterian Banner, wrote last year (1935)

:

“All our Protestant Churches are now more or less

consciously and often unconsciously being carried out

upon the sea of Russian communism. They are grad-

ually, in various ways and degrees, substituting psychol-

ogy for sin, sociology for salvation, a crusade for the

cross, the world for the church, and the social order for

the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is too slow

in its coming and they want to reach it by a short cut.

They see a vision from mountain top that is not unlike

that which was spread out before our Lord as a tempta-

tion to hurry Him up and get the world at a word.”

(12) THE AMERICAN FRIENDS OF SPANISH
DEMOCRACY

A new organization is that of The American
Friends of Spanish Democracy. This movement is

headed by Bishop Paddock, Episcopal, Professor

John Dewey, Reverend Harry F. Ward, Samual Guy

Imman, Guy Emery Shepler, and W. W. Norton.

It has a Public Relations Committee, with office

in Washington, whence propaganda for aid to the

Red Government of Spain is being conducted.

Sponsoring this movement are : Roger Baldwin,

of the Red-defending American Civil Liberties

Union; Alfred Bingham, a young radical and editor

of Common Sense; Reinhold Niebuhr; George Soule;



36 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

Hubert C. Herring; Professors La Colie, Overstreet,

Mcllwain, Dos Passos, Henry Pratt Fairchild, Nuss-

baum, MacLeish, Schlesinger and Paul Douglas;

Congressman Maverick and now ex-Congressman

Marcantonio; Heywood Broun, Waldo Frank, Rev.

John Haynes Holmes, Rabbi Israel, Curtis Bok,

Mary Van Kleeck, Oswald Garrison Villard, of

Nation magazine. Bishop George A. Oldman and

many others as well known in radical circles in this

country.

The first action taken by the American Friends

of Spanish Democracy was the registering of

charges against Father John A. Ryan, of Catholic

University, for an attack upon Russian Communism

and the Spanish Reds.

At a rally, promoted by The American Friends

of Spanish Democracy, Dr. Ward, of the Methodist

Social Service Federation, and head of the Commu-

nist American League Against War and Fascism,

called on his audience to demand permission to ship

arms to the Spanish Reds.

In this connection we might mention that gen-

erous contributions were made to the Spanish Aid

Fund, according to the National Republic, by the

Communist Party, Socialist Party, International

Workers Order, American League Against War and

Fascism, American Student Union, North American

Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, Young Com-

munist League, Emergency Home Relief Bureau em-

ployees, Soviet Russia Today magazine, Workers

Alliance of America, members No. 258 Field Ar-

tillery National Guard of New York City, Jr. Naval
Militia, Emergency Relief Workers, Project No. 42,

New York City, the American Artist Congress, Uni-
ted Textile Workers of America, California Federa-



COMMUNISM AND THE CULTURED 37

tion of Teachers; International Fur Workers

Union, Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, In-

ternational Ladies Garment Workers Union, Granite

Cutters Int. Assn., N. J., Federation of Labor, Croa-

tian Workers Club of New York City, American

League Against War and Fascism, Alaska Cannery

Workers Union, Young Communist League, and

many others of this type.

A Bulletin issued by the Communist Party, of
Chicago, with address at 208 N. Wells St., advertised

a mass-meeting under the auspices of the North

American Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, on

Dec. 4, 1936.

From reports, which came to us, the meeting

was largely attended, and a generous collection was

gathered to help the “Red” cause in Spain. Such

meetings have been held in all large cities from New

York to Seattle.

We have received letters from Catholics work-
ing for some of the above unions, who declared that

an assessment was made against their pay checks in

behalf of the “Loyalist” cause in Spain.

COMMUNISM AND THE CULTURED

If it were not for the manner in which the press

has misled people. Communism would have no

appeal except to the destitute, to the indolent, to

those who can so easily be emotionally aroused

against the rich. Having nothing to lose and being

promised much under the new order, such people

readily listen to the Communist promoter. But the

cleverness of Comintern propaganda has made Com-

munism look good even to many men of wealth and

to men of culture, who recall the pitiful condition of

the Russian people under the old regime of the



88 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

Czars. The Jews particularly recall how 3,000,000

of their race were held in serfdom under the old

order, but have since been placed on a plane of equal-

ity with all the rest in Russia, and in many instances

have risen to high positions in the Soviet Govern-

ment.

As evidence of sympathy for radicalism among

the educated we might mention the names of a

few among the 500 professors, clergjrmen, writers,

and publicists, who lent their names to a national

committee organized to support Norman Thomas for

President of the United States in the recent election.

On this list appear the names of Van Wyck Brooks,

Le Roy Bowman, Dr. Albert Sprague Collidge, Dr.

Jerome Davis (head of the American Federation of

Teachers), Sherwood Eddy (Y. M. C. A.), Dr. Har-

old U. Faulkner, Rev. John Ha5rn.es Holmes, Profes-

sor Sidney Hook, Professor C. H. Hamlin, Kirby

Page, Dr. Carl Raushenbush (served as advisor to

the Nye Munitions Investigating Committee), Har-

riot Stanton Blatch, Dr. Morris Raphael Cohen, Dr.

Edward T. Devine, Max Eastman, Dr. John C. Gran-

bery. Dr. George W. Hartmann, Freda Kitchwey,

Professor Robert Morss Lovett, Bishop Francis J.

McConnell (Federal Council of Churches), Dr. Har-

old M. Rugg (author of school books on American

history). Rev. Willard Uphaus and Dr. Theresa

Wolfson.

In a recent work, entitled The Future of

Liberty, George Soule tries to defend the proposition

that “under capitalism liberty is impossible, and

under socialism it will follow as a matter of course.^’

(New York Times, Nov. 29, 1936).

The League of American Writers

The League of American Writers is an affiliate of the



COMMUNISM AND THE WEALTHY 39

Moscow appendage, the International Union of Revolu-

tionary Writers, to which quite a number of American

radicals belong. It is a new organization formed to em-

brace all Soviet-commended Red writers in America.

Naturally, the leaders and principal writers of the Feder-

ated Press, Daily Worker, New Masses, Daily Freiheit,

and other Communist papers and magazines will be wel-

come and prominent members. Also, many radical writ-

ers who help to fill the columns of magazines and news-

papers not yet completely under Communist control will

be found on the active membership list.

The Soviet propaganda machine in this country has

been operating through many channels, including John

Reed Clubs and other organizations in which Communist

sympathizers are admitted to membership along with

party members. Now it is to be better organized. . . In

its statement of purposes is contained the pure Commu-

nist ideology. It assumes as premises the entire gamut

of subverted definitions which all Reds use in their work

of confusing American thought and undermining Amer-

ican institutions. It assumes that the United States

wears the coat of imperialism, that it persecutes negroes,

minority groups, and the foreign born, that the ideas

which have resulted in our civilization are all wrong, and

that lawbreakers are “political prisoners” when appre-

hended. It assumes that citizens of the United States

have a duty towards the Soviet Union above that to their

own constituted sovereignty, and it assumes that we can-

not have progress without revolution. With ten thousand

writers spreading such confusion, without much clear

thinking we face indeed confusion worse confounded.

—The Vigilante.
The magazines Nation, The New Republic, So-

viet Russia To-Day, and the New Masses, would not

be understood by any except the cultured.

COMMUNISM AND THE WEALTHY
Ralph M. Easley, head of the National Civic

Federation, wonders ‘'just why the seven trustees of

the Union Theological Seminary—six of them Wall



40 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

Street bankers—should have tolerated on its fac-
ulty the presence of such a skilled disseminator of

revolutionary ideas as Dr. Harry Ward.'' He con-

tends that scores of young preachers inoculated with

the Bolshevik virus are graduated from the school

every year.

We might also wonder just why “Subversive or-

ganizations and ‘red' university professors have

been getting large grants from Foundations"—Car-
negie, Rockefeller, General Education, Duke En-

dowment, and others (See page 5701 of the Con-

gressional Record, April 14, 1936).

Charles A. Beard, Dr. George S. Counts

(Kuntz?), Dr. W. W. Chartres and Dr. Frank W.

Ballon “worked for five years in a deliberate, pre-

concerted plan to Communize schools and colleges

in the United States" (Congressman Blanton, of

Texas, head of Committee investigating Communis-

tic teachings in Washington, D. C. schools).

The Carnegie Corporation donated funds for

modernizing Commonwealth College, a Communist

hot-bed, at Mena, Arkansas (National Republic, Oc-

tober, 1932).

Commonwealth College, located near Mena, Ar-

kansas, is a Communist School which conducts

courses designed to train young men and women, at

$50.00 the semester of three months, for leadership

in the labor field, and among the farmers. In its

latest Fortnightly it reports its success in enrolling a

large number of unemployed students, miners, fac-

tory workers, farmers, and former C. C. C. boys.

This same bulletin reports a great demonstra-

tion under the auspices of its United Front Com-

mittee on November 7th, “commemorating the anni-



MORALS IN RUSSIA 41

versary of the founding of a workers^ and farmers’

government in Russia.”

During an investigation made by a joint Legis-

lative Committee of the Arkansas General Assembly

during February and March, 1935, it was disclosed

that Lucien Koch, head of the college and other

teachers were professed atheists, that evils against

the moral order were practiced.

Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor of the River-

side Church, New York, which was built personally

by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., preaches in a laudatory

manner on Communism, and speaking under

the auspices of the Federal Council of Churches over

the radio he took occasion to praise Communist Rus-

sia.

Edward A. Filene, President of the Twentieth

Century Fund, and a member of the American-Rus-

sia Chamber of Commerce, and other prominent ‘'in-

ternationalists” are openly sympathetic towards

many unAmerican machinations of Communists.

MORALS IN RUSSIA
It is important that we explain to our people

that, bad as economic conditions have been during

the past seven years, they were immeasurably better

than in Russia, and better than in any other coun-

try in the world, for that matter.

In Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not radio broadcast,

'7 Saw Starvation in Russia”, April 5, 1935, he said:

“Russia is a gigantic poorhouse, where millions of

people are on the verge of starvation.”

But even if the economic order under Commu-

nism should be as good or better than we have

known in this country, the moral order is shocking.

Every marriage is a companionate marriage; peo-

ple may divorce themselves at will without even



42 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

going to court unless they had previously registered

their marriage there. In this event they must only

appear to ask the clerk to make note of the fact that

they intend to separate. There is no law whatsoever

against what we would call common law marriages,

and no odium on illegitimate children, who have the

same standing both before the law and the people as

legitimate children.

Abortion is legal; in fact, the authorities have

accommodated the people by providing everywhere

physicians to take care of their unfortunate con-

dition.

Immorality generally is not discountenanced ex-

cept insofar as it may contribute to disease. Against

this danger people are warned in motion picture

houses and in literature.

The horror of it all was recently expressed in

this question asked by a gentleman commenting on

the situation:

“Shall our wives, mothers, daughters, and sweethearts

be made public property for the use of lustful friends.”

What an Archbishop of Finland Thinks

Archbishop Erkki Raila, in a speech at Helsing-

fors, Finland, on 19 August last, forcibly expressed

his apprehension of the menace threatening Chris-

tianity from Bolshevism and Social Democracy. He

declared that Russia was admitted to the League

less than a year ago, and her representatives now

occupy the leading post there, without even one

European Christian State having launched a pro-

test against this Maxim Litvinoff, Soviet Foreign

Commissar, being made President of the League

Council. For this reason the Archbishop contends

the League is doomed, and God's wrath %as fallen

upon Europe.'



RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN RUSSIA? 43

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN RUSSIA?

The new Constitution of Russia provides for

“Religious Freedom”, but what is meant thereby

may probably be gleaned from an open letter ad-

dressed to Pope Pius XI by I. Amter, District Or-

ganizer, Communist Party, U. S. A., New York Dis-

trict, when he says:

“In reply to the charge of ‘Godlessness., (in Pope’s

address during May, 1936) we assert with all the evi-

dence of the experience of the millions of underpaid

and unemployed toilers of the world that the ‘Godless-

ness’ is all on the side of the capitalist system. Extreme

wealth of a few and extreme poverty of millions is a

fruitful source of ‘Godlessness.’ These extremes could

not exist under Communism. . .

“Should not all religious people call this ‘Godless-

ness?’ Communism aims to abolish these evils from the

face of the earth. Communism aims to establish a sys-

tem of society where all may work and enjoy the fruits

of their labor, a society in which poverty, ignorance and

misery with its accompanying crime and degradation can-

not exist. . .

“And finally, with regard to religion, we feel that it

is only necessary to point out that the country in which

religion is most interfered with is Hitler-Germany, a

country groaning under a Fascist dictatorship established

for the very purpose of saving the capitalist system.

There priests and nuns are persecuted and not in the

Soviet Union, where there is the fullest freedom of re-

ligion.”

There is freedom to believe, but not to practice

religion publicly.

Religion does not mean the same to many non-

Catholics, even in our own country, as it does to

us. Their viewpoint may be gathered from the fol-

lowing letter received recently by the writer of this



44 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

booklet from “an intellectual” Communist sym-

pathizer :

“Constant reading of the conservative and liberal

press, and of magazine articles and books by impartial

observers, and even by anti-Communists, informs me

that the Soviet Government has reduced the Church

from its former status of a parasitic state institution

with political and economic power to a purely spiritual

influence—as, I may remind you, its Founder intended it

to be. Several millions of people are continuing to wor-

ship Christ in their homes and churches in the land of

the Soviet.

“During their long dual reign, the Church and Capital-

ist Exploitation were utterly unable (or unwilling) to

accomplish an iota of improvement in the social and

economic condition of the Mexican masses. Since the

suppressive grip of the Church has been loosed, the

responsibility for mass education assumed by the gov-

ernment, labor allowed to organize, and social and eco-

nomic reforms effected by the state, these things have

happened: There has not been a single popular attempt

at revolution against the new enlightened government;

there has been a rebirth of creative ability and pro-

ductivity in the higher arts, notably painting, which has

captured the attention of the entire world of Art; im-

provement in the standard of living has shown steady

progress; and many thousands more people than ever

before are being given the opportunity of free and con-

structive education. The Church is being stripped (by

leaders of its very faith) of the social and economic

powers which it abused for so long, and so disastrously.

Religion in its proper sphere—as a purely spiritual in-
fluence—goes on.”

COMMUNISM ACTIVE EVERYWHERE
In his The Spectre of Communism, Henry Gibbs

sums all up by saying

:

“If Britian is to live, Bolshevism must die.”

Are not the words equally true in their relation

to the United States?



COMMUNISM ACTIVE EVERYWHERE 45

In England Communists are very active, and

the Labor Party has flirted with them in order to

procure greater political strength. Recently 592,000

votes were cast in England by members of the

Labor Board for affiliation of the Communists.

Samuel F. Middup, quoted in the PATRIOT, pub-

lished in London, October 15, 1936, says:

“I know scores of members of Labor Parties, who

would not join the Communist Party, but who are in

full sympathy with its members, because they are all

working together for a ‘united front.’
”

In a Lettergram issued in November, 1936, the

National Republic made the following observation

:

“In France, the eve of the showdown between Chris-

tianity and atheistic communism is near at hand.

Strongly entrenched in France’s new government are

Moscow’s right-hand men. Bent upon going the rest of

the way to Sovietism, are Moscow’s agents. Patterned

for France is the communistic Soviet form of govern-

ment and the destruction of religion and private prop-

erty. Face to face with the red monster are the masses

of Christianity of France. Bloodshed is inevitable; the

outcome is questionable. Thousands will soon pay the

price for apathy.

“In Mexico the strong arm of a communistic regime

has atheized the schools, destroyed the Church and is

gradually Sovietizing the government.

“In the United States there is being secretly per-

fected at this time the same united front of radicals,

ever building for what they term the “eventful” day,

the day that they may clench within their hands at least

partial control of the government, a start of their trek

to complete control. In Russia this united front was

known as the Workers and Soldiers Councils. In France

it is known as the “Front Populaire” (Popular Front).

In Spain it is known as the People’s Front. In the United

States it is yet publicly referred to as the United Front,

but in communist circles as the People’s Front. In Spain

this front is composed of syndicalists, anarchists, com-



46 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

munists and socialists; it is the element that is guilty of

the above depredations. In the United States, it not only

includes those elements but in addition many students,

churchmen, church members and college professors. Pos-

sibly some of the latter know not what they are follow-

ing, but they lend dignity and scenery to the red front

movements while they remain in same and make no mis-

take they are well advertised in the positions by the

radical perpetrators. That’s why they have been accepted

into the radical circles.

“Let’s not overlook what disaster such action has al-

ready brought onto one-third of the world. Let’s not be

so dumb as tu believe that it cannot happen here. Vigi-

lance is necessary. The serpent must be destroyed in its

infancy. Public opinion widely organized against its

progress will kill it. It is your and our task to help

create this public opinion.”

Communism and the Grand Orient

Literature from abroad indicts Grand Orient

Freemasonry for contributing its influence and

strength to the promotion of the Communist cause

in France and Spain. The Grand Orient, or Latin

Freemasonry, as it is sometimes called, is anti-re-

ligious and atheistic, and, therefore, is one with

Communism in its chief objective, namely, the de-

struction of the Church.

From the Patriot (London), date of October 8,

1936, we have culled this

:

“With the Red forces combined in the destruction of

patriotism and freedom in Spain, there is included the un-

derground influence of Grand Orient Freemasonry, which

has done such evil for many years in the corruption of

the administration of France. In France it wields great

power in all branches of politics, and is a living element

in the threatening atmosphere created by Communists in

their untiring activities for the promotion of civil war.

The penetration of the army by Masonry is a cause of

great uneasiness among patriotic Frenchmen. In Ger-

many, Italy, and Portugal the powers of the State



COMMUNISM ACTIVE EVERYWHERE 47

have been used without compunction against Free-

masonry, as well as against Communism; and those

three countries enjoy a freedom from fear of domestic

distrubances.”

What the English paper says is confirmed by

the report of a conference held by M. Loyer in the

Salles des Centraux, Paris, on April 2, 1936

:

“Until now we have seen the attempt to subordinate

the Army to Freemasonry, certainly in a heartrending

manner, but always within the national frame. The

security of France was not gravely compromised by these

manouevres. Today the evolution of the political situa-

tion poses a new problem. From the fact of the exist-

ence and action of the Masonic and Socialist Interna-

tionals which have constituted International ‘fronts de

combats’ and follow the wars of universalism, the defence

of the country is no longer merely a question of frontier

fighting. The enemy is within as well as without. . .

We see the formation, on the other hand, of another con-
spiracy, The Communist plot. . . with ‘fronts universels.’

Now these combats in France are led by well-known

groups, in which Freemasonry takes part as an active

organism or at least as liaison agent to maintain cohesion

between opposing elements of which they are consti-

tuted. . . All preparations are made by the play of in-

terior politics in the various sections of the different

Internationals. At this moment a terrible struggle is

taking place; The Sovietisation of our country is being

prepared. That is only one phase of this foreign war in

which the Third International seeks to invest us peace-

fully in order afterwards to utilize our country as a pawn

on the world chessboard.

“Has it not succeeded, thanks to the support of Free-

masonry, in seducing the bourgeoisie and in constituting

the Front Populaire? Has it not succeeded at this

moment in realizing the unconscious transformation of

our economy by gaining banking centers and governors

on one side and by extending the power of the Federation

of the Cooperatives of Consumption (supply stores) on

the other? Does it not thus prepare, by way of interior



48 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

politics, a kind of paramilitary coup d’Etat? Shall we

not one fine day awaken under the domination of a for-

eigner installed in our Ministry of Interior, capable by

Law of dictating his will, foreign but civil, to the French

Army?. . . Today Moscow hopes to install itself in the

Government in order to use for its own military pur-

poses an army whose sole raison d’etre is the defense

of France alone. . . We are faced with two conceptions:
For Masonry the Army is nothing but an instrument,

militia, without a will of its own, at the service of occult

powers, by means of the ‘civil power.’ For us it is a

living expression of the National force, having in the

Nation its own mission, its well-determined object, which

is the greatness of the country. . . It is at the service,

not of any party whatsoever, although in power, but for

the common good of the entire nation. . . As last analy-

sis it is upon our Army that falls at decisive moments

the responsibility of the integrity and independence of

the country.”

OUR PLAIN DUTY

If we are honest in charging the Catholics of

Mexico and Spain with having been supinely indif-

ferent towards the enemy in their midst, then we,

of this country, must abandon the policy of ‘‘laissez

faire.”

If we believe that ‘‘an ounce of prevention is

worth a pound of cure”, then we should act in

accordance with that belief.

If preparedness is the best guarantee of safety,

then let us take that precaution.

Our President has frequently declared that our

countrymen must not become indifferent towards

spiritual values. Let us, through our representatives

in Washington, keep him reminded of this, his pub-

licly proclaimed attitude.

Let us not be content with opposing godless-

ness, but let us cultivate more and more such per-



OtJR PLAIN DUTY

sonal loyalty to Christ as will make us genuine apos-

tles in the several fields of Catholic Action—notably
in the defense of Christian faith, Christian morality,

Christian principles.

Since all infidel, atheistic and Communistic ac-

tivities are directed primarily against Christ, our

activities, organized and properly steered, must be

directed with equal zeal in His defense and in the

promotion of His cause.

The Communist and His Cause

Our interest in promoting a cause depends al-

together on the intensity of our belief in that cause.

This explains the zeal of the Communist, who is so

permeated with the idea that nothing else matters

than the rule of the world by the proletariat, that he

is willing to give all his energy and even his life for

the realization of that aim.

Unlike others, he is not deterred nor discour-

aged by repeated defeats
;
he believes that by perse-

verance the ultimate victory must be his. His com-

plete absorption in his cause makes him loyal to

designing Communists who get into trouble else-

where in the world, while he is equally merciless to-

wards all enemies of Communism, be it an indi-

vidual or a class regarded as an obstacle to the pro-

motion of the collectivist movement.

The Communist must be ready to face any

crisis, whether local or international. We see this
courage in action in Spain at the present time.

Even after the Government left Madrid, even after

its defense seemed utterly hopeless the Communist

refused to surrender—he would rather die fighting
for his cause in the face of certain defeat.

The Communist is a servant of the Party and



50 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

therefore is subject to call to perform any task. The

discipline imposed by the Church even on its pro-

fessed religious who crave difficulties for their

greater perfection, is nothing compared to what he

cheerfully submits to. No matter how high the rank

he may hold in the Soviet Government he will never

be paid a large wage.

The Communist is not free to do as he pleases

after working hours; he must attend meetings and

conferences, teach or lecture or perform other tasks

imposed on him.

Learn from him.

For the solidifying of the Christian way of

life, Pope Pius XI tells what our plain duty is in

these words

:

‘‘The greater the indignity offered to the

sweetest name of our Redeemer in international con-

ventions, and the greater the silence about Him in

the courts, all the more loudly should He be pro-

claimed and the more broadly the rights of the

royal dignity and power of Christ be affirmed.”



A CATECHISM ON COMMUNISM 61

A CATECHISM ON COMMUNISM

Q. What is Communism?

A. Communism, as a theory, places government

in the hands of the proletariat or workers, wrests

all property from its owners and places it in the

hands of a one party government, which regulates

the whole economic, religious, moral and social

order.

Q. On what philosophy is Communism based?

A. On that of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels,

who give expression to it in the Communist Mani-

festo, published in 1847, which represents capital

and private ownership as the sources of all evil,

calls for state ownership of all means of produc-

tion and distribution, which disowns God, and,

therefore religion and the moral law.

Q. What is the proletariat?

A. By the proletariat the Communist means the

working class as distinguished from the Bourgeoisie

and the Capitalist.

Q. What is the bourgeoisie?

A. It represents the middle class, or the class in

between the worker and the capitalist.

Q. Is Communism a reality anywhere?

A. Yes, in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics,

which covers one-sixth of the area of the entire

globe.

Q. Is everyone in this Soviet Union a Communist?

A. No, only slightly more than one per cent of

the people belong to the Communist Party; many



52 rr IS HAPPENING HERE

members are discharged annually, and others, af-

ter a satisfactory probation are substituted.

Q. Wm Communism imposed on the entire popu-
lace by force?

A. Yes. The people had nothing to say about it.

Q. Did the people yield peacefully?

A. Most of them did, because under the Czars

their condition was so miserable, that they were at-

tracted by the roseate promises held out to them.

Q. Who are the Supreme Officers of the Commun-

ist Party?

A. Members of the Politbureau, comprising ten

Communist leaders, of whom Stalin is now the

head. It directs the Soviet Government and the

Comintern.

Q. What is the Comintern?

A. The word is an abbreviation of Communist In-

ternational, which directs propaganda and revolu-

tionary activities throughout the world.

Q. Why do we speak of the Third International?

A. Because there was a First and Second Inter-

national.

The First “International Association of Work-

ers'* was formed in London on September 28, 1864,

largely through the efforts of Karl Marx himself.

It lasted only nine years because anarchists, who

were opposed to government in any form, were be-

coming too powerful in it.

The Second International was formed in Paris

in 1899, six years after Marx' death, to direct in-

ternational Socialism. It still exists, but was repu-

diated by the more extreme radicals.



A CATECHISM ON COMMUNISM 53

The Third International was organized by

Lenin in Moscow in March, 1919, to carry out the

revolutionary aims of the Communist Party and

the Soviet Union.

Q. What is the United Front?

A. The '‘United Front,” or “Popular Front,” or

“People's Front,” represents the coalition of var-

ious radical organizations at election time.

Q. Whence is the name **Bolshevik*^ derived?

A. The original group of radicals in Russia, whose

leaders were Lenin and Trotski, were called Bol-

sheviks.

Q. May the people of Russia vote?

A. They may vote only for officers and rulers of

the Communist Party.

Q. What is the complexion of the Russian popula-

tion?

A. It is constituted principally of peasants. Rus-

sia has not many large cities, considering the size

of its population.

Q. What is the population of Russia?

A. About 170,000,000.

Q. Are the peasants and workers better off than

before in Soviet Russia?

A. In some respects they are, especially in rela-

tion to education and recreation, but their econ-

omic condition is still very unsatisfactory.

Q. Was the land of Russia divided among the

peasants?

A. Small farms were allocated to many millions,

not as their private property, but for their use. But

soon the government began farming on a large col-



54 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

lectivist scale, and moved millions, mostly against

their will, to farm large areas jointly.

Q. Are the full harvested crops divided among the

workers?

A. No; the workers get the minimum needed for

their subsistence, and the government takes control

of the balance. More than once millions died of

starvation, which the government could have pre-

vented.

Q. How is it that the Russian people can be con-
tented under such a regime?

A. Because they know nothing that goes on out-

side of Russia; they are led to believe that there is

greater misery and strife and discontent every-

where else.

Q. As a nation, is Russia progressing in a mater-

ial way?

A. Yes, much money has been spent on the devel-

opment of industry, agriculture, a powerful army,

a navy, and all those other things which are need-

ful to make the government as such powerful.

Q. Has religion been destroyed in Russia?

A. Practically so. There are comparatively few

clergy in the country; no religious instruction may

be given, even through a sermon, to youths under

eighteen years of age. Since Communism has been

in force for eighteen years, present-day youths have

had little opportunity either for religious instruc-

tion or for religious practice. Many of the older

generation, especially the women, still cherish the

religion of their youth.

Q. What happened to the clergy of former times?

A. According to a Moscow newspaper, 28 Bishops



A CATECHISM ON COMMUNISM 55

and Archbishops, and 6,775 clergymen were murd-

ered. Most others were exiled or imprisoned in Si-

beria.

Q. Was Russia Roman Catholic?

A. No; about ninety per cent of the population

belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church, which is

not in union with Rome.

Q. May people he married by a religious ceremony

in Russia?

A. No.

Q. Is divorce easy in Russia?

A. It is allowed on the mutual agreement of both

parties, unless the marriage had been registered.

In that event, the Court Clerk must be notified by

the couple that they intend to separate.

Q. What is the state of morality under Commun-

ism?

A. Communism recognizes no moral law and im-

poses no strictures on private conduct.

Q. Is there, then, no real family life in Russia?

A. Until June of 1936 there was not; but the old

tradition still influenced millions to sustain the fam-

ily life and now the Government is encouraging it.

Q. Why is Communism especially inimical to the

Catholic Church?

A. Because the Catholic Church condemns its

philosophy and much of its program antecedently;

because the Catholic Church is international, which

Communism hopes to become; because Christ and

anti-Christ could not cooperate.

Q. Does not Communism fear Protestantism?

A. Not to any great degree, because Protestants

are so much divided among themselves, because



66 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

they lack international, and often even national,

leadership, and more particularly because many

Protestant clergymen, observing that the Catholic

Church is its chief object of attack, show sympathy

towards Communism.

Q. Hcis Communism influence outside the U. S.

S. R.?

A. Yes. IPs propaganda, issued by the Comintern,

is spread in many languages throughout the world

;

at this time it has agents in every country.

Q. What program does Communism use to gain

a foothold in other countries?

A. It has rather a vast program, but its trained

apostles are instructed to promote class hatred, to

incite labor to rebel against capital, to train

youths to despise our government and its flag, to

school its followers in revolutionary methods and

to get into labor, cultural and educational societies

in order to bore from within.

Q. Can Communism hope to succeed in a democ-

racy?

A. Yes, especially in a democracy; under a dicta-

tor it has no chance
;
under a severe, but respected

king, it would have little chance. It has almost de-

stroyed the democracy of France; it has greatly

imperiled the democracy of South America; and

hopes to succeed in destroying the democracy of

the United States.

Q. Has Communism a large membership in the

United States?

A. The Communist Party itself, with a member-

ship estimated at a half million, is not alarmingly

strong, but it has numerous supporting organiza-

tions of great strength and power.



A CATECHISM ON COMMUNISM 57

Q. What are some of these supporting organiza-

tions?

A. The American League against War and Fasc-
ism,

The League for Industrial Democracy,

The Farmer-Labor Party,

The American Federation of Teachers,

The American Labor Party,

Labor's non-Partisan Party,

The Epic Party, etc.

Many units of organized labor, federated stu-

dent bodies, etc.

Q. Is it true that many colleges and universities

show sympathy for Communism?

A. The colleges and universities as such are not

exactly sympathetic, but on the principle that every

professor should be given the widest liberty to

teach his convictions, radical professors are not

molested.

The principle of ‘'Academic Freedom" is car-

ried too far. Surely the students should have free-

dom also from having Communism and atheism

imposed on them. Teachers in Russia have no

“Academic Freedom."

Q. How do you explain sympathy for Communism

on the part of many educated and many wealthy

people?

A. There are various explanations:

(1) Those who sympathized with backward

Russia of the past commend at least her public-

ized effort to educate the masses;

(2) Men, liberal-minded in relation to reli-

gion and morality, approve the new experiment;



58 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

(3) Peace-minded people believe that the

Soviet Government labors for 'world peace;

(4) Those who believe that there has been

considerable economic recovery, together with a

reduction of illiteracy, in Russia, are not disposed

to fight Communism

;

(5) The irreligious, and those who regard so-

cial improvement as religion in action, lend their

support to it.

Q. Is it true that Communism is taught in the

public schools?

A. It is not included as a subject in the curricu-

lum of the public schools; but textbooks which

praise Russia, do not condemn her revolutionary

program here, and belittle our ovni form of govern-

ment, are used in many public schools. Then num-

erous teachers, who do not hide their sympathy

for Communism, must inoculate the pupil.

Q. Does Communism conduct schools of its own

in this country?

A. According to testimony presented by Walter

S. Steele before a Special Committee of the House

of Representatives, appointed to hold public hear-

ings on un-American Activities (December, 1934),

there are more than 300 such schools. Of course,

those conducted for children under sixteen years

of age are night schools, and schools for summer

courses. Communists conduct many summer camps

where their doctrine is taught. The Workers'

School, in New York City, is attended by nearly

2,000 students, and has a faculty of 60 members.

Q. Has Communism a special organization for the

young in the United States?

A. It has several, corresponding to youth organ-



A CATECHISM ON COMMUNISM 59

izations in Russia itself; principal among these

are the Young Pioneers of America for boys and

girls from ten to sixteen, and the Young Commun-

ist League of America for youths above sixteen

years of age. They are trained in anti-American,

irreligious and revolutionary doctrines.

Q. Is it true that the Jews are behind the Com-

munist movement in the United States?

A. They are so charged in much anti-Semitic lit-

erature, but there are probably more prominent

Jews against than for Communism. Marx and Eng-

els were Jews, but Lenin was not; neither is Stalin.

Trotski, Lenin's coworker, and Litvinov, the Sov-

iet's greatest diplomat, are Jews. There are only

3,000,000 Jews in Russia.

Communist units in our large cities have a

large Jew membership, mostly alien.

Q. Would Americans surrender their religion

without a struggle?

A. Most Americans have little religion to surren-

der. Most of them distinguish between religion and

a church organization, believing that true religion

is in the heart, and that it could be a spiritual in-

fluence in their lives under any state of society. Of

course, most Cathoics and church-going Protestants

would not easily yield, as they are not easily yield-

ing to the Nazi demands in Germany. But under-

stand that Communism is established by force and

maintained by force.

Did not the Revolutionary Party make the

teaching and practice of religion impossible in

Mexico? Did it not all but succeed in Spain, where

nearly the whole nation is Catholic?



60 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

Q. HasrCt the depression helped the Communist

cause?

A. Undoubtedly, and the Communists took great

advantage of it. That is why we have heard so

much more about Communism in this country dur-

ing the past few years.

Comunists favor the highest possible taxation

of industry and of the wealthy, the spending of un-

limited money for relief and other purposes, in the

hope that the government structure will become

weaker thereby, and ultimately lend itself to easier

collapse.

Q. Would not a better wage to the working-man

overcome Communism?

A. It would greatly check its spread among the

working class, but would not overcome it. Com-

munists were very active in this country during the

boom days from 1925 to 1929.

Q. Has the Catholic Church shown sufficient sym-

pathy for the worker? She is charged with alliance

with Capital.

A. The Catholic Church has always been on the

side of the poor and the working-man, despite much

that is written to the contrary. The Guilds, or La-

bor Unions of the Middle Ages, were fostered by

her, and never was labor more happy than at that

time. It showed its appreciation by building many

churches and Cathoic institutions throughout Eur-

ope.

In modern times, has there been any other uni-

versal voice than that of the Catholic Church

through her Popes advocating justice for the work-

ing-man, and practically all the other things for

which labor organizations stand, such as a better



A CATECHISM ON COMMUNISM 61

wage, collective bargaining, etc.? But the Catholic

Church, not controlling industry, has no power to

put the unemployed to work. Capital and wealthy

Catholics have been far more critical of the Cath-

olic Church than has labor.

Q. Is the worker better off in any other country

than in our own?

A. No; in no other country is the worker half so

well off—despite the room there is for improve-
ment here. Our form of government, our opportu-

nities, our liberties, our economic situation, are far

superior to those obtaining in any other nation.

Q. How, then, are people deceived by the propa-

gandist?

A. They accept, at full face value, the Communist

program, as recently presented to the Cardinal of

Lille, France, by a delegate of the Party:

“To serve the interests of the people; to

see that everyone who works might live with-

out fear for the morrow, while assuring to his

family comfort and well-being; to save the

country from the horrors of civil war; to as-

sure peace among men of good-will ; to provoke

a horror of war to the greatest degree'*

Americans should answer with the Cardinal

:

“How is Communism going about attain-

ing these ends?"

Q. What is the difference between Communism

and Fascism?

A. There are several differences, among them

these

:

(1) Communism opposes the private owner-

ship of property; Fascism does not.



62 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

(2) Fascism is not necessarily opposed to re-

ligion, while Communism is.

(3) Fascism is not the same in every country,

while Communism is.

(4) As we know it, there is more freedom

under Fascism than under Communism.

(6) Fascism was born of a desire to overcome

Communism.

There are also similarities in this, that both

have dictatorship rule; both exalt the state above

everything.

Q. Does the Catholic Church favor Fascism?

A. As a theory the Catholic Church does not

favor it, both because its philosophy is not sound,

and because so much depends on the character and

attitude of the dictator. For instance, in Italy the

Church is not only free, but encouraged to fulfill

its mission; in Germany it is not: in Italy there is

no racial persecution; in Germany there is.

The Catholic Church can succeed under any

form of government except that of Communism, if

only her activities are not hampered by restrictive

laws.



THE ANTIDOTE 63

THE ANTroOTE

Q. What can Americans do to prevent the further

spread of Communism here?

A. (1) They can demand that the editors of our

daily papers and of magazines exhibit it in its

hideous reality instead of glorifying it.

(2) They can demand that the public schools

foster patriotism instead of decrying it.

(3) They can demand the withdrawal of

recognition from Russia unless the Third Interna-

tional ceases its activities here.

(4) They can demand the deportation of all

aliens who meet American hospitality with plotting

for her overthrow.

(5) They can promote the partnership idea be-

tween Capital and Labor much better if they dis-

regard the foreign agitator.

Q. What can the individual Catholic do about it?

A. He should cease living as an individual Catholic,

and pool his efforts with all other Catholics in pro-

moting a spiritual crusade for Christ. Christ is the

principal target of Communism, and those who are

His professed followers and enlisted soldiers must

do battle for Him. One’s faith must be an cbctive

faith, based on personal loyalty to Christ.

Q. What else should Catholics do?

A. They should not only support, but regularly

read, the Catholic paper and magazine, from which

alone they can learn the truth about the real situa-

tion in Russia, Mexico, Spain and Germany.

They should place in the hands of their non-

Catholic friends literature which will bring the



64 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

same correct information to them—100,000,000 of
them never see the Catholic presentation of any-

thing, and, with best of will, can learn only what ini-

mical governments care to release and prejudiced

owners of periodicals care to publish.

Q. Can Catholics alone hope to check Communism

successfully?

A. Hardly. But why should they not join forces

with the many patriotic and non-Catholic organiza-

tions who are now opposed to Communism, and help

to inform numerous others of the real aims and pur-

poses of this world plague?

Note, The outlook for safety from Communism

would be greatly improved if Protestant Americans

insisted on the state making it possible for all chil-

dren to receive instruction in religious fundamen-

tals in the schools. If religious instruction classes

were not made compulsory, no group of people could

reasonably find fault. But there are millions of non-

Catholic parents, who would crave the availability of

religious instruction, at least as an elective sub-

ject, for their children.

Communists see their greatest opportunity in

the 30,000,000 children who have gone out from

public schools in the last twelve years, and in the

30,000,000 more now being schooled in everything

else except religion.



TRUTH ABOUT SPANISH SITUATION 65

WHAT IS THE TRUTH ABOUT THE
PRESENT SPANISH SITUATION?

Soviet Russia planned eighteen years ago to

concentrate her efforts on Spain for the overthrow

of the monarchy and the establishment of a Soviet

regime there. In the Soviet official organ PRAVDA,

in the very year and month that King Alfonso was

dethroned (1931), we read, issues May 10, 11, 14,:

“The Spanish Communist Party is confronted by a

task of great historical importance; to intensify the revo-

lution and prevent the bourgeoisie from staying in power

. . . The Spanish Communist Party has been called to

lead the workers' and peasants’ revolution, which has

begun. . . It is clear that the Spanish Communist Party

must untiringly carry on the propaganda of a Socialist

revolution. . . The widest propaganda of the achieve-

ments of the U. S. S. R. . . is one of the most important

tasks of the Spanish Communist Party.

“The most important is the creation of the peasant

workers’ and soldiers’ soviets. Great significance must be

attached to driving soldiers into the soviets. . . getting

hold of the soldier masses is one of the means of arm-

ing (the revolution). The most important task is the

arming of the proletariat, the creation of a revolutionary

workers’ guard. . .

“The slogan of the Soviet Republic is the general

slogan of the Spanish Revolution.

“At present the slogans which led up to the estab-

lishment of a Soviet Republic must resound loudly

‘creating of soviets, possession of land, arming of work-

ers and peasants’. . .

“The world proletariat must follow with great atten-

tion the events in Spain; they must give brotherly help

to the Spanish proletariat.”

In the elections held previously (April, 1931),

the country districts remained loyal, while the urban

vote, with the Catholic people disorganized and ab-



66 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

staining from the ballot in large numbers, returned

a Cortes consisting of only 42 Catholics, 136 Cen-

ter and 295 Left members. The Grand Orient, or

Spanish Freemasonry, was busy after that election

and saw to it that most injurious anti-Catholic laws

were passed immediately.

In the municipal elections of 1933 the enemy

candidates were ever5rwhere defeated and Catho-

lics elected in their places. In the general election,

held November 19, 1933, Catholics won over-

whelmingly, but mistakenly thought they had per-

manently destroyed the power of the radicals.

But while the Catholics rested on their laurels,

Soviet Russia saw that its agents, in hundreds of

places, would meet secretly, plan thoroughly, and by

cooperating with socialists, anarchists, syndicalists,

and Left Wing Republicans would create a Popular

Front for the election in the spring of 1936. Al-

though the radical groups jointly did not receive the

majority of the votes cast, they, according to the

Spanish plan of Cortes representation, won the

majority of the seats in the government and, there-

fore, demanded the right to initiate a ruling policy

conformable to the most radical standards.

The general populace of Spain was much dis-

appointed, blamed itself for not being better united,

and for not asserting itself at the polling booth.

Soon thereafter a great Catholic leader was assassi-

nated, and this was a signal for revolt.

You know what followed—the rebel uprising
with General Franco in command. He himself has

said that he never dreamed of fighting for or estab-

lishing a Fascism regime, that his sole aim was to

crush Communism and to restore Spain to her own

people.



TRUTH ABOUT SPANISH SITUATION 67

While the general public seemingly has not

known the truth about the situation, radicals all over

the world have known it, and have contributed often

from very meager purses to the misnamed “Loyal-

ist” cause.

The entrance of Mussolini and Hitler into the

picture, which later gave Franco's campaign a Fas-

cist aspect, was not so much to help Spain as to

keep Communism away from southern Europe.

They realized that if it succeeded in Spain, France

was ready for it.

The Loyalists, having promised independence to

Catalonia and to the Basques, reduced the extent of

opposition. After liberating and arming prisoners

a reign of terrorism ensued, which greatly confused

the people.

Although there was scattered participation by

Catholics in the burning of churches and the exe-

cution of clergy and religious, while wrought up into

a sort of frenzy, we venture our honest belief that

the vast majority of Spain's people would welcome

the success of General Franco, and the opening of

the churches everywhere.

Understand that we do not condone excesses

committed by the Rebels, but we do condemn not

only the distorted, but the most inadequate picture

of the Spanish situation presented to the world by

the secular press and by Russian propaganda. The

latter has succeeded in leading people everywhere to

believe that the civil war from the beginning has

been a battle between Fascism and Communism.

Mr. W. F. Montavon, long a resident of Spain,

and a recognized authority in matters Spanish, re-

calls that Pope Pius XI, in his Encyclical, Dilectis-



68 IT IS HAPPENING HERE

simi Nobis, published in 1933, urged the people of

Spain, to:

“continue to avail themselves of every legitimate means

available to them that is compatible with the law and

with morality to induce the legislators who enacted these

measures to amend the sections that run contrary to the

rights of citizens and are hostile to the Church, enact-

ing in their stead laws that are reconcilable with con-

science. . . but the Communist-controlled government,

not willing to await enabling legislation which would

easily be obtained from the Parliament, encouraged and

spurred on by Largo Caballero, by ministerial order and

decree, proceeded at once to give effect to the Popular

Front program, and launched a mob movement of re-

prisal and violence against political opponents. . .

“When the Ministry acceded to this demand, it vio-

lated the Constitution; it surrendered to Communism;

it declared war on the Church and on the religion of its

own people; it committed an act of tyranny.

“The Popular Front government is a record of mob

violence, marchings of irresponsible armed bodies of mili-

tia, of gangsters, of arson, of robbery, of kidnappings

and assassinations, all perpetrated under martial law.

it is a record of democracy in bankruptcy, of anarchy,

of political chaos.”



According to the THIRD INTERNATIONALE,

a newspaper published in Moscow, murders were

perpetrated under .Communism on the following

:

1 Royal family and 7 innocents,

28 Bishops and Archbishops,

6,775 Clergymen,

6,575 Teachers,

8,800 Doctors,

54,850 Officers,

260.000 Soldiers,

150.000 Police Officers,

48,000

Gendarmes (detectives),

355,250 Intellectuals,

198.000 Workers,

915.000 Peasants.

More than 2,000,000 lives were lost. Of this

number 432,279 were of the cultured class, and

1,571,000 were workers, peasants and soldiers.