Sweat-Proof Convention

To its own satisfaction, at least, the U.S. Communist Party showed last week how to run off a political convention. The 14th national convention since the party's founding in 1919, it began with a mass meeting in Manhattan's Madison Square Garden. The meeting was open to all; 17,000 attended. Then 250 carefully culled-over delegates slipped off to the uptown and plainly bourgeois Riverside Plaza Hotel for the real business.

The delegates gathered in the Riverside's ballroom to show true "democratic forces" at work. The "capitalist" press was barred. A square-set man with a butch haircut, and with a handful of husky aides, guarded the ballroom door.

A Lot of Air. The Communist Daily Worker was admitted and reported all that the faithful were entitled to hear:

"The hubbub and pageantry of old party conventions was missing . . . The delegates were comfortable enough in the well-lighted, air-conditioned ballroom on the sixth floor. There were no perspiring delegates swinging state banners, but almost every delegate spoke about the 'state of the union' in his state."

Neatly Mimeographed handouts disclosed that the delegates had adopted a platform which 1) blamed Wall Street and bipartisan "atomic diplomacy" for war hysteria; 2) called the Soviet Union "the strongest bulwark for peace." As predicted, the platform came out as the prototype of the Wallace Progressive Party platform. There was only one deviation. Henry Wallace thought "progressive capitalism" could be saved; the Communists believed that any kind of capitalism was a flop, not worth salvaging.

Nevertheless, they supported Henry Wallace's candidacy.

"A Lot of Bail." The delegates cut their national committee down from 50 to 13 members. Reason: twelve of the party's top dogs are already under indictment for conspiring to overthrow the U.S. Government; the party leadership would be immobilized if the Department of Justice should take it into its head to move in on all 50. Said one: "That would be an awful lot of bail to have to put up." It was also better to keep a reserve of bosses under cover. Right out in the open (and one of those under indictment) was 67-year-old William Z. Foster, in-&-out boss of the party since 1923, who was re-elected national chairman.

One other important piece of business was cleared away. Earl Browder, their old chairman, heaved out in 1945 when he went on advocating cooperation with capitalism (when the wartime party line had been changed), abjectly pleaded for reinstatement as a party member. The 250 delegates snorted collectively: for Browder even to ask to be taken back was in itself a "form of anti-party activity." Perhaps deviationist Browder, who is still the Kremlin's publishing agent in the U.S., was also being held in reserve, in case Moscow's line should be changed again. In any event the comrades at the Riverside Plaza slammed the door in his face.

One door was subsequently opened to him. The Un-American Activities Committee invited him in to tell what he knew about the C.P. But Browder, testifying at a special closed session in Manhattan, said little. Afterwards, he wandered out, sat on a bench in Foley Square and told the press even less.

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