Chancey testifies for tax on big business profits: 1941
Martin Chancey, executive secretary of the District of Columbia Communist Party, testifies before the House Fiscal Affairs Subcommittee March 28, 1941 on a proposal to increase by 50% the federal payment to the city.
Chancey testified in favor of the “Overton formula” that would increase the city’s real estate tax and put a special tax on the profits of “big business.”
The communist official said that the additional revenue was needed for jobless relief and more public schools. “Employables on relief rolls are not getting the proper aid,” he said.
However, some of the subcommittee members were more interested in attacking Chancey’s political views than considering his testimony.
“If this country doesn’t suit you, why don’t you move? Why don’t you go to Russian?” Rep. Sam M. Russell (D-TX) inquired.
Rep. F. Edward Hebert (D-LA) suggested that Chancey could not speak freely in the Soviet Union.
Chancey clapped back, “If I were in Russia I would not be in disagreement with the Soviet government.”
The Washington Post summarized some of Chancey’s testimony thus, “…the present war [between Germany, France and Great Britain] was promoted by munitions manufacturers, that the United States was already deeply involved in the war and that Earl Browder, convicted head of the Communist Party, had been ‘framed,’ and that the New Deal has deviated from its original objectives toward an imperialistic war.”
Browder had been charged, convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for passport fraud in retaliation for Browder’s support of the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939. He served 14 months before being freed in 1943 as a wartime unity gesture after the U.S. overtly entered World War II.
Chancey continued, “If you fellows had it your way, we’d have a fascist government.”
Chancey headed the D.C. Communist Party during its period of greatest influence in the city, including a broad campaign against police brutality from 1936-41.
He oversaw the unionization of cafeteria and dry cleaning workers and carried out organizing at the Washington Navy Yard, Library of Congress and Bureau of Engraving, among other places. During his tenure, communists led the Washington Industrial Council, CIO and had significant influence in the cooks and laborer’s unions in the AFL, among others.
He was a prominent voice in the city, often quoted in the mainstream newspapers.
Prior to being assigned by the Communist Party to Washington, D.C., he was a communist organizer in New York and Ohio.
He entered the army in 1943 and resumed his Communist Party activities in Ohio upon his discharge in 1945.
He was charged and convicted of being a communist in a 3 1/2 month Smith Act trial in Cleveland in 1956 along with four other men and one woman. Four other alleged communists were acquitted at the time.
The specific charges included conspiring to teach and advocate violent overthrow of the U.S. government and having organized the Communist Party as a group for such purpose.
Chancey was sentenced to five years in prison. In 1958 a U.S. Court of Appeals sent the case back for possible retrial or dismissal based on an erroneous interpretation of the law. In 1959, Chancey was freed when the government dismissed the case.
In a statement before the court, the U.S. Attorney said, “The government has reappraised the evidence and has come to the conclusion that the evidence is insufficient to warrant a new trial. It reluctantly is compelled to ask for dismissal of the indictment.”
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskAr2KCx
Photo by Kellogg. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Chancey testifies for tax on big business profits: 1941
Martin Chancey, executive secretary of the District of Columbia Communist Party, testifies before the House Fiscal Affairs Subcommittee March 28, 1941 on a proposal to increase by 50% the federal payment to the city.
Chancey testified in favor of the “Overton formula” that would increase the city’s real estate tax and put a special tax on the profits of “big business.”
The communist official said that the additional revenue was needed for jobless relief and more public schools. “Employables on relief rolls are not getting the proper aid,” he said.
However, some of the subcommittee members were more interested in attacking Chancey’s political views than considering his testimony.
“If this country doesn’t suit you, why don’t you move? Why don’t you go to Russian?” Rep. Sam M. Russell (D-TX) inquired.
Rep. F. Edward Hebert (D-LA) suggested that Chancey could not speak freely in the Soviet Union.
Chancey clapped back, “If I were in Russia I would not be in disagreement with the Soviet government.”
The Washington Post summarized some of Chancey’s testimony thus, “…the present war [between Germany, France and Great Britain] was promoted by munitions manufacturers, that the United States was already deeply involved in the war and that Earl Browder, convicted head of the Communist Party, had been ‘framed,’ and that the New Deal has deviated from its original objectives toward an imperialistic war.”
Browder had been charged, convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for passport fraud in retaliation for Browder’s support of the Hitler-Stalin pact of 1939. He served 14 months before being freed in 1943 as a wartime unity gesture after the U.S. overtly entered World War II.
Chancey continued, “If you fellows had it your way, we’d have a fascist government.”
Chancey headed the D.C. Communist Party during its period of greatest influence in the city, including a broad campaign against police brutality from 1936-41.
He oversaw the unionization of cafeteria and dry cleaning workers and carried out organizing at the Washington Navy Yard, Library of Congress and Bureau of Engraving, among other places. During his tenure, communists led the Washington Industrial Council, CIO and had significant influence in the cooks and laborer’s unions in the AFL, among others.
He was a prominent voice in the city, often quoted in the mainstream newspapers.
Prior to being assigned by the Communist Party to Washington, D.C., he was a communist organizer in New York and Ohio.
He entered the army in 1943 and resumed his Communist Party activities in Ohio upon his discharge in 1945.
He was charged and convicted of being a communist in a 3 1/2 month Smith Act trial in Cleveland in 1956 along with four other men and one woman. Four other alleged communists were acquitted at the time.
The specific charges included conspiring to teach and advocate violent overthrow of the U.S. government and having organized the Communist Party as a group for such purpose.
Chancey was sentenced to five years in prison. In 1958 a U.S. Court of Appeals sent the case back for possible retrial or dismissal based on an erroneous interpretation of the law. In 1959, Chancey was freed when the government dismissed the case.
In a statement before the court, the U.S. Attorney said, “The government has reappraised the evidence and has come to the conclusion that the evidence is insufficient to warrant a new trial. It reluctantly is compelled to ask for dismissal of the indictment.”
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskAr2KCx
Photo by Kellogg. The image is courtesy of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.