I want to say at the outset that I am a loyal American, who upholds the Constitution of my country, who does not advocate force and violence, and who is not an agent of a foreign power.

This Committee has announced many times its interest in facts pertinent to this inquiry. I believe many such facts are embodied in this statement.

I have been a working screen-writer in the Motion Picture Industry since 1932. To date, I have written thirty-six screen plays, the titles of which and companies which produced them are attached.

I was working in Hollywood in 1933 when screen writers, faced with an arbitrary fifty percent cut in salaries, formed the Screen Writers' Guild for the purpose of collective bargaining.

From the very start there were attempts to create strife within the industry by groups who used the same technique employed by this Committee.

After years of failure by James Kevin McGuinness, Rupert Hughes and other of your friendly witnesses to disrupt the Screen Writers' Guild, and with it the industry, a desperate appeal was made to Martin Dies, former Chairman of this Committee. Or maybe Martin Dies made the appeal; at any rate the investigations began.

When the Dies investigation proved unsuccessful because of the united resistance of the men and women of the industry, a new tactic was employed. Willie Bioff and George S. Browne were called into the fray.

These two men, Browne and Bioff who ran the IATSE, the union which was represented here the other day by Mr. Roy Brewer, took on the job of creating chaos in the industry. They bought full page advertisements in the Hollywood trade papers, the Reporter and the Daily Variety, announcing their intentions of taking over all independent Hollywood Guilds and Unions, but only, of course, for one purpose; the eradication of Communism. You will recall that Al Capone, just before going to jail, called upon the American people to "eradicate" all subversive un-American influences in American life, including Communism. By a strange coincidence, the warning of Browne and Bioff also was issued but a short time before they too went to jail for the extortion of huge sums of money; a shakedown of the motion picture industry.

For fifteen years these men have engaged in slander, malicious gossip, near libel; in fact, in every method known to man but one traditional American democratic procedure.

As in years gone by they accommodated Martin Dies, and later extortionists Browne and Bioff, today McGuinness, Incorporated is playing footsie with the House Committee on Un-American Activities. They think the Committee is stooging for the Motion Picture Alliance; the reverse is true.

From what I have seen and heard at this hearing, the House Committee on Un-American Activities is out to accomplish one thing, and one thing only, as far as the American Motion Picture Industry is concerned; they are going either to rule it, or ruin it.

This Committee is determined to sow fear of blacklists; to intimidate management, to destroy democratic guilds and unions by interference in their internal affairs, and through their destruction bring chaos and strife to an industry which seeks only democratic methods with which to solve its own problems. This Committee is waging a cold war on democracy.

I know the people in the motion picture industry will not let them get away with it.