The Pittsburgh Press (September 3, 1944)
Taylor: Politicians or informants?
By Robert Taylor, Press Washington correspondent
Washington –
The first two witnesses before the House Committee investigating campaign expenditures didn’t produce any startling information about the political activities of pressure groups, but they illustrate the breadth of the committee’s inquiry.
They were Sidney Hillman, chairman of the CIO Political Action Committee and its companion National Citizens Political Action Committee, and Robert M. Gaylord, president of the National Association of Manufacturers.
Despite the intense political activity now beginning to boil up over the 1944 elections, the committee thus far hasn’t discovered any secret slush funds, any great degree of partisanship in the case of the CIO aside from its support of FDR, or even any political activity on the part of the National Association of Manufacturers.
Mr. Hillman told the committee:
Our committee is a nonpartisan organization. Our purpose is to assist in welding the unity of workers, farmers and all other progressives on the basis of a constructive and forward-looking program, and in support of candidates, irrespective of their party labels, who support that program.
Mr. Gaylord said the NAM is “not political,” doesn’t support or contribute to the election of candidates, and wouldn’t, even if the Federal Corrupt Practices Act permitted it.
Disseminators of information
Mr. Hillman said the PAC made no policies for its local affiliates and used no influence to persuade them to be for or against any particular candidates, had no “blacklist” of Congressmen and confined itself to sending out the record of each Congressman for the information of local voters.
Mr. Gaylord said one of the purposes of his association was “the dissemination of information among the public with respect to the principles of individual liberty and ownership of property.”
Mr. Hillman said funds collected from labor unions for the PAC had been frozen because, under the law, they cannot be used in the election, and the PAC election-campaign activities will be financed by voluntary contributions of $1 each from CIO members and donations from others.
Mr. Gaylord cited a letter he had written to one of his members, who suggested use of $500,000 of the NAM’s money in political activity, on the CIO model, in which he said:
Some of the contributors are Democrats, some Republicans and some New Dealers. It would be grossly unfair to even consider using these funds in a political campaign.
They both have money
Mr. Hillman listed total contributions to his two PACs, from both unions and individuals, of $806,705. Mr. Gaylord’s NAM has an annual budget of $3 million is spent by the organization’s National Industrial Information Committee.
Part of the program for this committee states:
The issue between individual freedom and bureaucratic control will not be settled by an election in 1944.
As long as the public thinks that only bureaucratic action can provide the results it wants, any party in power – Democratic or Republican – will use bureaucracy for the solution of the problems it must face.
Though thus far barren of sensational results, the committee’s work is just beginning, and members believe the fact that they are on the job will prove a deterrent to anybody who might feel like taking an expensive flyer in this year’s election.