Oct 20, 1947: The HUAC Opens An Investigation of Communism in Hollywood
October 20, 1947: The House Un-American Activities Committee Opens An Investigation of Communism in Hollywood
The exposure of a few Communists in Hollywood seems hardly worth the price.
The Hollywood Ten in November 1947 waiting to be fingerprinted after being cited for contempt of Congress. Front row (from left): Herbert Biberman, attorneys Martin Popper and Robert W. Kenny, Albert Maltz, Lester Cole. Middle row: Dalton Trumbo, John Howard Lawson, Alvah Bessie, Samuel Ornitz. Back row: Ring Lardner Jr., Edward Dmytryk, Adrian Scott. (Wikimedia Commons)
Terms like McCarthyism and McCarthy era have long been misnomers, as the crackdown on dissent in America began long before McCarthy himself sought to lead it. Those dark days began in earnest with President Trumans imposition of a loyalty oath requirement for all federal employees. The Hays code refers to the film industrys self-imposed censorship, which reigned from 1930 to 1968.
The Un-American hearings directed by [New Jersey Representative] J. Parnell Thomas and designed to expose Communist plots in Hollywood are still going strong in Washington
The first episodes of the Perils of Parnell, though they have played to a full House, have been a dismal flop as far as their alleged purpose is concerned. The Undoubting Thomas and his committee have added little to what was already known about Hollywoodthat there are actors and writers among the swimming pools who, with varying degrees of innocence, salt their high-paid existence with dreams of the revolution and even sometimes invest some of their money in it. But the committee has done a fine job of flouting every American precept of the rights of individuals and doing it in the most cowardly way possibleunder the protection of its Congressional immunity. Moreover, by holding over Hollywood the threat of such investigations, it has added to the stultifying pressure of the Hays code [moral requirements for all American films] still another pressure which should go far toward making American films even more puerile and timid than they already are. We doubt whether the hearings are a prelude to censorship, if only because such exhibitions make official censorship unnecessary. Altogether, a fine days workmaking hash of the Bill of Rights at the American taxpayers expense. The exposure of a few Communists in Hollywood seems hardly worth the price.
http://www.thenation.com/article/october-20-1947-the-house-un-american-activities-committee-opens-an-investigation-of-communism-in-hollywood/
Journeyman
(15,042 posts)He spent 18 months in prison, ironically, in the very prison to which Lester Cole and Ring Lardner, Jr. were sent.
Lardner ran into Thomas while in prison. A minimum security facility, the inmates did farm chores to sustain the place. Thomas was cleaning out a chicken coop. Lardner said something to him (I don't recall what), and Thomas scornfully replied, "Well, I see you're still spouting your communist propaganda." To which Lardner retorted, "Yeah. And I see you're still shoveling chicken shit."
niyad
(113,636 posts)Journeyman
(15,042 posts)The original defense was the 1st Amendment -- freedom of speech and of association.
It was their contention -- led by Lardner and Trumbo -- that the most inviolate right granted by the 1st Amendment is the right to be silent, and to keep to themselves those beliefs and associations which they did not wish to share with the public. HUAC rejected this argument out of hand, and to my knowledge its validity has never been tested in Court.
There is a biopic of Dalton Trumbo slated to be released November 6. Starring Brian Cranston and Diane Lane, it looks to be very promising.
I have the utmost respect for Dalton Trumbo. He fought the good fight and remained true to himself and his beliefs in the face of overwhelming challenges. I named my son after him.
niyad
(113,636 posts)trumbo wrote one of the best anti-war pieces ever in "johnny got his gun" (along with twain's "the war prayer", and season four of "blackadder" (although on very different levels). looking forward to seeing the biopic.
Journeyman
(15,042 posts)infinitely more satisfying.
The finest example of a pro-peace book I know is E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime. If you've never read it, I can't recommend it enough. It tackles the issues of violence and war head on, not by decrying their devastating impact but by painting an alternate view of how peace and human harmony must be approached and viewed. And the answer, interesting enough, lies in baseball.
It also features one of the finest, most moral black men ever to grace the pages of American literature: Coalhouse Walker III.