The National Committee to Defeat the Mundt Bill AKA "NCDMB" (1948-1950) was an American organization that sought to oppose passage of the Mundt-Nixon Bill and subject of a 15-page report of the

House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

, two of whose members were US Representatives

Karl E. Mundt Karl Earl Mundt (June 3, 1900August 16, 1974) was an American educator and a Republican member of the United States Congress, representing South Dakota in the United States House of Representatives (1939–48) and in the United States Senate (19 ...

and Richard M. Nixon.

History

Background

In early 1948, US Representatives Mundt and Nixon began formulating an anti-communist bill, formally House Resolution 5852, ''Subversive Activities Control Act of 1948'', which passed the House in May 1948.

Activities

On June 1, 1948, Henry A. Wallace supporters visibly "took command" of a march on Washington to stop the Mundt-Nixon Bill from passing the Senate. Former congressional representative

Jerry J. O'Connell Jerry Joseph O'Connell (June 14, 1909 – January 16, 1956) was an American attorney and politician. He is most notable for his service as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Montana. A native of Butte, Montana, he g ...

became chairman of a "Committee to Defeat the Mundt Bill." The committee claimed that more than 5,000 would march on Washington on June 2. In early June 1948, the bill died in the US Senate as the 1948 United States presidential election season commenced with conventions. (See Mundt-Nixon Bill.) The group continued existence long enough to face the next iteration of the Mundt-Nixon Bill, namely the ''

Mundt–Ferguson Communist Registration Bill The Mundt– Ferguson Communist Registration Bill was a proposed law that would have required all members of the Communist Party of the United States register with the Attorney General. Antecedent bills In 1940, the U.S. Congress passed the Smith ...

'' AKA the "Mundt-Ferguson Bill." It is unclear when exactly the group dissolved. During hearings in 1955, O'Connell indicated that NCDMB ended when Congress overruled President Truman's veto of the ''Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950'', more commonly known as the

McCarran Internal Security Act The Internal Security Act of 1950, (Public Law 81-831), also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, the McCarran Act after its principal sponsor Sen. Pat McCarran (D-Nevada), or the Concentration Camp Law, is a United States fede ...

, i.e., September 22, 1950. HUAC's annual report for 1950 cited an unspecified date in September 1950.

HUAC report

Richard Nixon campaigning for Senate 1950

On December 7, 1950, HUAC issued a 15-page ''Report on National Committee to Defeat the Mundt Bill: A Communist Lobby''. At that time, HUAC's senior investigator was Louis J. Russell and director of research Benjamin Mandel. HUAC had successfully subpoenaed months of

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company chang ...

telegrams and telephone records between the committee and the

National Lawyers Guild The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) is a progressive public interest association of lawyers, law students, paralegals, jailhouse lawyers, law collective members, and other activist legal workers, in the United States. The group was founded in 19 ...

and tied both organizations to the

Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...

(CPUSA) and numerous Communist front organizations. HUAC also cited testimony from FBI undercover agen
Matthew Cvetic
The report concluded:

The Committee on Un-American Activities is unanimous in its belief that the National Committee to Defeat the Mundt Bill was organized not as a legitimate lobbying enterprise, but rather as a propaganda adjunct of the Communist Party. The work of this organization, in many instances, was performed by the Communist Party, and it was at all times wholly supported by the Communist Party.

(Note: The report states its "belief.")

Organization

A number of NCDMB supporters also supported US Vice President Henry A. Wallace and his

Progressive Party Progressive Party may refer to: Active parties * Progressive Party, Brazil * Progressive Party (Chile) * Progressive Party of Working People, Cyprus * Dominica Progressive Party * Progressive Party (Iceland) * Progressive Party (Sardinia), Ita ...

including Leo Isaacson, Arthur Miller, Louis Untermeyer, and Mark Van Doren (listed under "sponsors" below).

Structure

The NCDMB has the following sub-organizations: * Chicago Committee to Defeat the Mundt Bill * Freedom House Committee to Defeat the Mundt Bill (Miami) * New York Committee to Defeat the Mundt Bill *

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Committee to Oppose the Mundt-Ferguson Bill * Santa Cruz Citizens Committee to Defeat the Mundt Bill * Delaware Committee to Defeat the Mundt bill * Philadelphia Committee to Defeat the Mundt Bill * New Jersey Citizens Committee Against the Mundt Bill * Colorado Committee to Defeat the Mundt Bill Major financial contributors to NCDMB included: * Mrs
Luke I. Wilson
(executive board member of the

Southern Conference for Human Welfare The Southern Conference for Human Welfare (SCHW) (1938-1948) was an organization that sought to promote New Deal-type reforms to the South in terms of social justice, civil rights, and electoral reform. It folded due to funding problems and alleg ...

) *

United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE), is an independent democratic rank-and-file labor union representing workers in both the private and public sectors across the United States. UE was one of the first unions to be c ...

(UE) * New York Committee to Defeat the Mundt Bill (led by

Isadore Blumberg Isidore ( ; also spelled Isador, Isadore and Isidor) is an English and French masculine given name. The name is derived from the Greek name ''Isídōros'' (Ἰσίδωρος) and can literally be translated to "gift of Isis." The name has survived ...

) * Elisabeth Sasuly
Thomas G. Buchanan Jr.
(legislative director of the

Civil Rights Congress The Civil Rights Congress (CRC) was a United States civil rights organization, formed in 1946 at a national conference for radicals and disbanded in 1956. It succeeded the International Labor Defense, the National Federation for Constitutional Li ...

)
George B. Murphy Jr.
(vice chairman of the

American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born was the successor group to the National Council for the Protection of the Foreign Born and its successor, seen by the US federal government as subversive for "protecting foreign Communists who c ...

and vice president of the

International Workers Order The International Workers Order (IWO) was an insurance, mutual benefit and fraternal organization founded in 1930 and disbanded in 1954 as the result of legal action undertaken by the state of New York in 1951 on the grounds that the organizatio ...

Members

NCDMB Officers included: * Jerry J. O'Connell, chairman and registered lobbyist * Bruce Waybur, treasurer * Edith Pratt, executive treasurer * John B. Stone, registered lobbyist NCDMB sponsors included: * Rabbi Michael Alper * Hon.

Thurman Arnold Thurman Wesley Arnold (June 2, 1891 – November 7, 1969) was an American lawyer best known for his trust-busting campaign as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Department of Justice ...

* Stringfellow Barr * Mr. and Mrs. Theodore O. Behre *

Angela Bambace Angela Bambace (February 14, 1898, – April 3, 1975) was an Italo-Brazilian-American labor union organizer for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union for over fifty years. Life and career Angela Bambace was born in Santos, Brazil, to ...

Elmer Austin Benson Elmer Austin Benson (September 22, 1895 March 13, 1985) was an American lawyer and politician from Minnesota. In 1935, Benson was appointed to the U.S. Senate following the death of Thomas Schall. He served as the 24th governor of Minnesota, def ...

* Hon.

John T. Bernard John Toussaint Bernard (March 6, 1893August 6, 1983) was a United States representative from Minnesota. Background Bernard was born in 1893 in Bastia, Corsica, French Third Republic, France. In 1907, he immigrated to the United States with h ...

* Edwin Bjorkman * Algernon D. Black *

Scott Buchanan Scott Buchanan (1895 – 1968) was an American philosopher, educator, and foundation consultant. He is best known as the founder of the Great Books program at St. John's College, at Annapolis, Maryland.The same program is used at St. John's Coll ...

* Dr. Robert K. Burns * LaVonne Busch * Angus Cameron * Prof. A. J. Carlson * Prof.

Zechariah Chafee Zechariah Chafee Jr. (December 7, 1885 – February 8, 1957) was an American judicial philosopher and civil rights advocate, described as "possibly the most important First Amendment scholar of the first half of the twentieth century" by Richa ...

* Rabbi J. X. Cohen * Hon.

Benjamin J. Davis Benjamin Jefferson Davis Jr. (September 8, 1903 – August 22, 1964), was an African-American lawyer and communist who was elected in 1943 to the New York City Council, representing Harlem. He faced increasing opposition from outside Harlem a ...

* Earl B. Dickerson * James Durkin *

Clifford J. Durr Clifford Judkins Durr (March 2, 1899 – May 12, 1975) was an Alabama lawyer who played an important role in defending activists and others accused of disloyalty during the New Deal and McCarthy eras. He also was the lawyer who represented ...

* Prof
Thomas I. Emerson
* Prof.

Henry Pratt Fairchild Henry Pratt Fairchild (August 18, 1880 – October 2, 1956) was a distinguished American sociologist who was actively involved in many of the controversial issues of his time. He wrote about race relations, abortion and contraception, and immig ...

* Edward E. Fisher * Abram Flaxer * Clark Foreman * Rev. Stephen H. Fritchman * Jerry Gilliam * J. W. Gitt *

Percy Greene Percy Greene (1897–1977) was an American newspaper editor, and journalist. Greene created the '' Jackson Advocate'', Mississippi's first and oldest black-owned newspaper. In the 1940s and 1950s, Greene had been a staunch civil rights activist; b ...

* Prof. Fowler Harper *

Donald Henderson Donald Ainslie Henderson (September 7, 1928 – August 19, 2016) was an American medical doctor, educator, and epidemiologist who directed a 10-year international effort (1967–1977) that eradicated smallpox throughout the world and launche ...

Charles Hamilton Houston Charles Hamilton Houston (September 3, 1895 – April 22, 1950) was a prominent African-American lawyer, Dean of Howard University Law School, and NAACP first special counsel, or Litigation Director. A graduate of Amherst College and Harvard La ...

* Rev. Kenneth DeP. Hughes * James Imbrie * Hon.

Leo Isacson Leo Leous Isacson (April 20, 1910 – September 21, 1996) was a New York attorney and politician. He was notable for winning a 1948 election to the United States House of Representatives from New York's twenty-fourth district (Bronx) as the cand ...

Francis Fisher Kane Francis Fisher Kane (June 17, 1866 - March 27, 1955) was an American lawyer who served as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Family and Education Kane was born in Philadelphia in 1866, the son of Robert Patterson Kane a ...

* Robert W. Kenny * Paul J. Kern * Prof. Curtis D. MacDougall
James McLeish
* Rev. Jack McMichael * Dr.

Alexander Meiklejohn Alexander Meiklejohn (; 3 February 1872 – 17 December 1964) was a philosopher, university administrator, educational reformer, and free-speech advocate, best known as president of Amherst College. Background Alexander Meiklejohn was born ...

* Samuel D. Menin *

Arthur Miller Arthur Asher Miller (October 17, 1915 – February 10, 2005) was an American playwright, essayist and screenwriter in the 20th-century American theater. Among his most popular plays are '' All My Sons'' (1947), ''Death of a Salesman'' ( ...

* Hon. Fred G. Moritt * Prof. Stuart Mudd * Hon. Stanley Novak * Grant Oakes * Oliver T. Palmer * Father Clarence Parker * Max Perlow * Morris Pizer *

Abraham Pomerantz Abraham Louis Pomerantz (March 22, 1903 – November 20, 1982) was an American attorney who "pioneered shareholder suits against major corporations and for a time directed the prosecution of German industrialists after World War II." He also defen ...

* Judge Joseph H. Rainey * Prof. William G. Rice * O. John Rogge * Paul Ross * Prof. Frederick L. Schuman * Prof.

Karl Shapiro Karl Jay Shapiro (November 10, 1913 – May 14, 2000) was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1945 for his collection ''V-Letter and Other Poems''. He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the ...

* Prof.

Harlow Shapley Harlow Shapley (November 2, 1885 – October 20, 1972) was an American scientist, head of the Harvard College Observatory (1921–1952), and political activist during the latter New Deal and Fair Deal. Shapley used Cepheid variable stars to estim ...

I.F. Stone Isidor Feinstein "I. F." Stone (December 24, 1907 – June 18, 1989) was an American investigative journalist, writer, and author. Known for his politically progressive views, Stone is best remembered for ''I. F. Stone's Weekly'' (1953–1971), ...

* Dr. Joseph W. Straley * Dr. Alva W. Taylor * Mary Church Terrell *

Louis Untermeyer Louis Untermeyer (October 1, 1885 – December 18, 1977) was an American poet, anthologist, critic, and editor. He was appointed the fourteenth Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1961. Life and career Untermeyer was born in New Y ...

Mark Van Doren Mark Van Doren (June 13, 1894 – December 10, 1972) was an American poet, writer and critic. He was a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thin ...

* Dr. Harry F. Ward *

Mary van Kleeck Mary Abby van Kleeck (June 26, 1883June 8, 1972) was an American social scientist of the 20th century. She was a notable figure in the American labor movement as well as a proponent of scientific management and a planned economy. An American of ...

A House document states that US Senator

James E. Murray James Edward Murray (May 3, 1876March 23, 1961) was an American politician and United States Senator from Montana, and a liberal leader of the Democratic Party. He served in the United States Senate from 1934 until 1961. Background Born on a f ...

of Montana had close Communist front ties with the ''

Daily Worker The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, attempts were m ...

'' newspaper, '' Soviet Russia Today'' magazine, the

, and the

as well as known affiliation with Jerry J. O'Connell of NCMDB.

Works

*
Report on National Committee to Defeat the Mundt Bill: A Communist Lobby

References

External links

Report on National Committee to Defeat the Mundt Bill: A Communist Lobby

Wayne State University
Reuther Library: Civil Rights Congress of Michigan Collection
Getty Images
Member of "Committee to Defeat the Mundt Bill" picket the White House (June 1948) {{authority control Organizations established in 1948 Political advocacy groups in the United States Progressivism in the United States Liberalism in the United States 1948 establishments in the United States United States political action committees Left-wing politics