We afterward called Mr. Nylander in, and he told us his side of the story. That story didn't jibe with the reports we had gotten from Krivonos, whereupon we called Mr. Howard in, who was

Mr. TOLAND. Mr. Howard was a field examiner?

Dr. LEISERSON. He was what we called a top field examiner, the most experienced man there, and who had also made some criticisms and charges of Nylander and who Nylander thought was out after his job. We called both of them in. First, we talked to Howard separately after we had talked to Nylander, and their stories didn't jibe. So we called them in together, and each told his story, and we felt somebody was wrong, or perhaps somebody wasn't telling the truth.

Mr. TOLAND. Wasn't Howard in trouble in Seattle, and wasn't he transferred from Seattle before your appointment? Dr. LEISERSON. Yes; that was before my time.

Mr. TOLAND. Were you advised of that, Doctor?

Dr. LEISERSON. Yes; he had been transferred from Seattle to Los Angeles for something I am not familiar with, but I knew he was transferred.

Mr. TOLAND. And after he was transferred, he got a raise?
Dr. LEISERSON. That I don't know.

Mr. TOLAND. Doctor, in connection with this investigation, wasn't there a further charge that there was a conspiracy engaged in by Witt and Krivonos or Gates, with Bridges, to oust Nylander?

Dr. LEISERSON. I don't recall about Bridges-oh, this I do recall about Bridges. I recall that there was a charge by Nylander that there was a conspiracy on the part of Mr. Howard, plus four or five field examiners, against him, against Nylander, and that that came about somewhat like this. Nylander had made some statement about Bridges at a public meeting, which apparently offended Bridges, and there was some discussion, I think, about that in connection with these charges, and perhaps Nylander said that these men who were out after his job were influenced somewhat by that scrap between Nylander and Bridges. That is as much as I recall about that. The CHAIRMAN. Doctor, when you say "Bridges," you refer to Harry Bridges?

Dr. LEISERSON. Harry Bridges.

I

Mr. TOLAND. I am going to have him identify the report now. show you, Doctor, what purports to be a copy of a report dated August 23, 1939, entitled "Report of Investigation of the Los Angeles Office," and ask if you have ever seen the original or a copy of that report, and if that is the report of Mr. Pratt and Mr. Van Arkel, that you are now testifying about?

Dr. LEISERSON. Yes; I have seen that and read it carefully.
Mr. TOLAND. Who is Mr. Pratt?

Dr. LEISERSON. Mr. Pratt is the chief trial examiner for the Board.
Mr. TOLAND. And who is Mr. Van Arkel?

Dr. LEISERSON. Mr. Van Arkel is in the legal department of the Board, in charge of what we call the settlement division.

Mr. TOLAND. Now, in connection with your testimony concerning Bridges, I would like to read from the report of Pratt and Van Arkel.

Mr. Chairman, first I would like to offer the report in evidence.

(Report of investigation of Los Angeles office, dated August 23, 1939, was received in evidence, marked "Exhibit No. 46," and is printed in the appendix of this volume.)

Mr. MURDOCK. May I ask this. Was the report acted on by the Board?

Mr. TOLAND. I am going to take that up with him now. Nylander is no longer with the Board.

Mr. MURDOCK. I understand that.

Dr.

Mr. TOLAND. Now, Doctor, along the lines of Congressman Murdock's question, what, if anything, was done by the Board with respect to Dr. Nylander after this report was brought to the attention of the Board?

Mr. MURDOCK. Mr. Chairman, if I may just interrupt with this question, the thing I am interested in, Mr. Toland, is this: That this report may have been made by agents of the Board or attorneys of the Board, but I doubt very much whether that should be introduced in the record as evidence unless it is first shown what action was taken by the Board with respect to the report.

Dr. LEISERSON. I will explain the action.
Mr. TOLAND. Go ahead, Doctor.

Dr. LEISERSON. When the Board heard both Howard and Nylander together, we informed them that since they disagreed about the facts. we would pick out some men that the Board had confidence in, and the Board took Mr. Pratt and Mr. Van Arkel and told Mr. Howard and Mr. Nylander——

Mr. TOLAND. Do you know who suggested Mr. Pratt and Mr. Van Arkel?

Dr. LEISERSON. I think it was the Chairman.

Mr. TOLAND. Yes.

- Dr. LEISERSON. And we told both of these men-Howard and Nylander-that we were sending these two out to make a thorough investigation. Before the investigators got out to Los Angeles Mr. Nylander resigned, and the Board accepted his resignation. After that report came in the Board considered it and had many discussions on it, and decided that Mr. Howard should be given an opportunity to resign or, if he wouldn't, he would be dismissed. He resigned.

It also decided, in order to fix up the whole office and get rid of any bad feeling that there might have been there, that the four or five other field examiners should be transferred to other offices, and a letter was sent to them telling them why they were transferred. And then the Board selected a new regional director and has put new people in there, and the office is in very much better shape now, and it is the sort of thing that is likely to happen in any organization. The Board should be on the job finding those things and fixing them up. Mr. TOLAND. I would like to read into the record portions of the report of Mr. Pratt and Mr. Van Arkel of the investigation of the Los Angeles office:

In the summer of 1937, however, Harry Bridges was appointed West Coast director of the C. I. O., and under Bridges there began a C. I. O. organizational drive on the West Coast, and in Southern California in particular.

Nylander made a speech at the Pacific Coast Workers' School in late July or early August of that summer, in which he criticized John L. Lewis for appointing Bridges as the director of the C. I. O., and stated that in his opinion Bridges was

not the best man for such a job. He later made this same statement at a dinner party at which was present the wife or near relative of the C. I. O. official. In any event, Nylander's attitude was conveyed directly to Bridges, and also became the subject of rather widespread comment within the C. I. O. organization, where it was resented very strongly. Nylander later talked with Bridges himself and reiterated his feeling to Bridges. This criticism of Bridges by Nylander was not only indiscreet and improper as a statement of a Labor Board official but was also considered les majeste by many members of the C. I. O). who looked upon Bridges as one who could do no wrong. These persons felt that Nylander's criticism of Bridges showed beyond a question that he was either in the pay of the employers or biased in favor of the A. F. of L., or both. It was on October 14, 1937, that Nylander recommended the settlement of the first Los Angeles Examiner case through the reinstatement of Urcel Daniel. At that time the Newspaper Guild apparently had confidence in Nylander's judgment.

The election in the Benson Lumber Company case at San Diego occurred on November 2 or 3, 1937, and this, as far as could be determined, was the first instance where Nylander's judgment was called in question. When the C. I. O. lust the election, Witte began talking about Nylander's actions in that case.

Ia November, Nylander recommended the dismissal of the representation case filed by the Guild against the Los Angeles Examiner, and, apparently through oversight, neglected to send out any notice of the dismissal to the Guild.

In December of 1937 the A. F. of L. attacked Nylander bitterly in the San Diego Ice and Cold Storage case.

In January appeared the incident wherein Nylander dismissed the second Los Angeles Examiner case.

Mr. FAHY. Mr. Toland, may I call your attention to the fact that the "Witte" you mentioned was W-i-t-t-e and not the secretary? Mr. TOLAND. Yes. (Resuming reading:)

This dismissal, coupled with what came to be called the Meecham incident, involved an alleged conversation between Nylander and Buzzell, of the Central Labor Council, was the nucleus for a great many stories of Nylander's alleged A. F. of L. favoritism.

During this period from January to March 1938 these stories multiplied. No one would admit that there was any plan or plot to "get" Nylander, but it is unquestionably true that there was a great deal of talk among the labor leaders identified with the so-called Bridges group. These labor leaders talked with Maurice Howard, who they felt was sympathetic, and Howard in turn became distrustful of Nylander. Howard's distrust was not based entirely on conversations with mion representatives. Howard also was aware of the so-called Meecham incicent and of the difficulties that Jay Oliver was having with Nylander.

During this period, also, Nylander failed to recognize or realize the changed conditions growing out of the split between the A. F. of L. and the C. I. O. and maintained his friendships and social contacts outside the office with labor leaders whom he had come to know during the earlier period of his administration. When asked about these matters by Melnikow, for example, Nylander is said to kave replied that his friendships were his own business, and that what he did after hours was his own business; that the union should be big enough to realize at his friendships were purely personal and had nothing whatever to do with the administration of his office. This attitude was distinctly short-sighted as far as the Los Angeles office was concerned, because by the spring of 1938 the A. F. of L.-C. I. O. controversy had become so bitter in the Los Angeles area that these personal relationships of Nylander could not fail to be the object of grave suspicion. The attitude of distrust and suspicion grew to such an extent that even when Nylander did the right thing his motives were suspected. Witt visited the Los Angeles office in March of 1938

This is the secretary of the Board

At that time there were some complaints made to Witt about Nylander's Handling of various cases. These complaints were made by C. I. O. unions. Witt feit that they were relatively trivial and suggested to Nylander that he should make greater efforts to win back the confidence of the C. I. O. Nylander did make efforts to do so, but the efforts took the form of personal contacts with representatives of the C. I. O. and invitations to them to come down to his beach 218054-40-vol. 1- -6

cottage on week ends. These efforts and these invitations were also looked on with suspicion, and the C. I. O. representatives felt that if Nylander would do that for them, he would do the same for representatives of the A. F. of L. They felt that, in short, while he might do a proper job in a clear case where only the C. I. O. was involved, in a critical situation where both the C. I. O. and the A. F. of L. were interested he would give the A. F. of L. the edge.

This feeling was intensified by his actions in the Furniture case which began in late March and April of 1938. The C. I. O. was making a drive to capture the employees of the various furniture shops in Los Angeles who had theretofore been organized in the A. F. of L. The distrust of the C. I. O. was greatly enhanced by Nylander's admitted error in the Quality Furniture Co. in telling the employer that he must permit the A. F. of L. to go into the shop and compel the payment of dues from the employees. Nylander's comparatively speedy correction of this error was looked on as merely a face-saving device to cover up the harm that had already been done. In this atmosphere it was only to be expected that every action of Nylander would be criticized. Nylander was at fault for not recognizing that his own actions lay at the basis of this distrust.

An extreme example of Nylander's relations with particular labor leaders is found in his relationship with Holohan, secretary of the Arizona State Federation of Labor. The Arizona incident is discussed more fully in another portion of this report, but that incident is only one of a series of incidents, including poker parties, use of Holohan's car, use of Holohan's apartment, "labor clinics," involving a great deal of drinking, participated in both by Nylander and Holohan, all of which were matters of common knowledge and which could not fail to produce in the minds of other labor leaders coming in contact with Nylander that Holohan and others who had similar close personal relations with Nylander would be favored in the event a critical question was involved.

While Nylander was personally very friendly with Holohan, it could not be said that Nylander did what Holohan desired to have him to do. Holohan had many complaints against the handling of his cases in the Los Angeles office and was not backward in voicing those complaints. In some instances they are the same type of complaint that the C. I. O. made against Nylander-delay in handling cases, favoritism shown toward the C. I, O., etc.

The field examiners in the office characterized these associations as "close association with discredited labor leaders." This is not a fair characterization of these men. They were discredited only in the eyes of the C. I. O. and others who opposed them. An exception might be made of Peterson and Busick. The latter, since Nylander's resignation, has been fairly definitely shown to have been a labor leader who took money from employers, and who at the present time has skipped out of Los Angeles. The other persons, Buzzell, Haggerty, Murray, Holohan, all hold accredited positions in the A. F. of L.

In any event it was this distrust and suspicion which led to the sending in of the protest of May 21, 1938, by Robertson on behalf of the C. I. O. counsel. While no connection was found between that protest of May 21, 1938, and the letter of Pomerance and Howard of May 18, 1938, the latter shows by its reference to the investigation that Harry Bridges was conducting of the Los Angeles office, that Howard and Pomerance were thoroughly familiar with the fact that the Bridges group was planning a protest. It is my opinion that while neither Howard nor Pomerance urged such a move, neither of them did anything to discourage it. Both of them discussed various cases with Robertson or George Bodle, of the Pacific Coast Labor Bureau, and were themselves convinced without a particularly careful inquiry of the truth of the charges.

Mr. TOLAND. Mr. Pomerance was a field examiner, was he not? Dr. LEISERSON. Correct.

Mr. TOLAND (resuming reading):

In this growth of distrust and suspicion it is significant that the active persons were all identified with the Bridges group. Nylander's relations with the other C. I. O. unions-oil field workers, steel workers, shoe workers, rubber workers— were all quite pleasant and none of those organizations voiced the suspicions that were held by the other C. I. O. unions.

In this connection it is appropriate to discuss the split in the C. I. O. în Los Angeles. In the spring of 1938 efforts were made to form an industrial union council. The C. I. O. unions adjoined were the rubber workers, U. A. W., oil-field workers, longshoremen, shoe workers, cannery workers, furniture workers, and the Newspaper Guild. Much time at meetings of the Industrial Union Council

was spent in political discussion, in reading correspondence concerning Spain, China, Russia, Germany, and this, in turn brought about the charge, which was probably true, that the Council was dominated by a Communistic group.

There was a great deal of dissatisfaction, and this was capitalized by Busick, who at that time was connected with the U. A. W., and he led a withdrawal of unions from the Council, which was particpated in by the rubber workers, shoe workers, the oil-field workers, and the U. A. W. From the fact that the foregoing unions withdrew from the Industrial Council because of alleged Communistic domination, and from the fact that the criticism of Nylander came from the remaining unions in the industrial councils it is possible to draw an inference that the criticism of Nylander was inspired by Communists. I do not believe that this is a fair inference, and no evidence was discovered which would support such an inference, rather that the protest was merely an outgrowth of distrust and suspicion heretofore described, and its effect on particular cases. The comparatively prompt action of the Board in sending Gates in the month of June to investigate the protest of May 21 was looked on by the protestants as the recognition of their dissatisfaction, but the failure of the Board to take any definite action following the conversations that were had with Gates had the effect of causing greater dissatisfaction, which was communicated to the field examiners. The reaction of Morgan Hull, as is shown by his letter, was typicalDo you know who Morgan Hull is, Doctor?

Dr. LEISERSON. I think he is connected with the Newspaper Guild. Mr. TOLAND (reading):

However, no further overt acts were committed by Nylander, although there were a succession of "little things" that caused the so-called Bridges group to continue to distrust Nylander. When, therefore, in February 1939, the Board Suspended Nylander over the Englewood incident, the Bridges group very frankly felt that this was a long-delayed disciplinary action against Nylander because of their prior protest. They honestly felt that the Board had merely waited a convenient opportunity to relieve Nylander of his duties on a ground which would not involve recognition of the C. I. O.'s protest, and there was quite general rejoicing among the members of the so-called Bridges group. When, therefore, there was proposed a resolution of protest to the Board over Nylander's suspension, it was voted down, and the only action taken was to leave it up to each individual union as to whether it should make a protest. The reinstatement of Nylander quite definitely came as a blow to the Bridges group, and they looked upon it as a victory for the A. F. of L. This came at about the time of Krivonos' visit, and there was at that time quite definitely a plan considered for a strong protest against Nylander's reinstatement.

Nylander was urged by Krivonos to increase his efforts to win back confidences of the C. I. O. group, but the attitude of distrust was too deep-seated and ingrained, and nothing that Nylander could do would convince the Bridges group to the contrary. For example, Orr who had represented the U. A. W. at the Consolidated Air factory was, and still is, convinced that Nylander double-crossed him in the handling of the U. A. W. petition at the Consolidated Aircraft plant. He told Nylander so quite frankly, and expressed his belief quite frequently to others. Nylander's efforts to get Orr's confidence met with a very very curt rebuff. The only C. I. O. representatives that did have any confidence in Nylander, Hunter of the S. W. O. C., Roberts of the rubber workers, Phillips of the oil-field workers, Seligman of the shoe workers, were themselves suspects, as far as the Bridges group of the C. I. O. went.

Nylander, having thus lost the confidence of a considerable group of union representatives, who brought a large percentage of the cases handled by the Board to the Board, became, in large part, ineffective.

Mr. TOLAND. Now, Doctor, would you say that the protest of Bridges and the Bridges group had anything to do with the resignation of Dr. Nylander?

Dr. LEISERSON. No.

Mr. TOLAND. Did the Board give Dr. Nylander an opportunity to resign?

Dr. LEISERSON. No; it didn't come up that way. It sent Pratt and Van Arkel out to make a thorough investigation, in order to see