The dispute ran much deeper than personality clashes. The dispute was a fundamental policy question dispute, and that dispute centered around whether or not the organization would move closer and closer to the Red International of Labor Unions through this new form or whether it would permit itself to separate into the respective component parts and each function separately and independently without that international Red affiliation.
Mr. TAVENNER. What was the outcome of that dispute?
Mr. DENNETT. The outcome was that the split spread. First one organization and then another began to have misgivings as to the consequences of being full partners in the Maritime Federation of the Pacific.
The first one to show the disaffection were the sailors. Subsequently the marine firemen showed disaffection. Then the master mates and pilots showed disaffection. And the marine engineers showed disaffection. The radio operators began to show some disaffection. Some of the longshoremen showed disaffection.
So the result was that by the time 1937 or 1938 rolled around the Maritime Federation was becoming sort of a bare skeleton which existed with a powerful name but did not have the moral backing and support of the members of the organizations that were affiliated to it.
Mr. TAVENNER. Was the organization Communist-dominated?
Mr. DENNETT. The Maritime Federation of the Pacific top leadership had at all times some prominent Communist leaders, some persons who were Communists.
Mr. TAVENNER. Can you at this time give us the names of those who occupied an official position in that organization who were known to you to be members of the Communist Party?
Mr. DENNETT. One of the first ones that I knew was a man by the name of Walter Stack.
Mr. TAVENNER. Did Walter Stack become very prominent in the Communist Party?
Mr. DENNETT. Walter Stack was in the marine firemen’s union and exercised a great deal of influence in that organization here.
Another was Ernest Fox. Ernest Fox was a patrolman in the Sailors Union of the Pacific, and he exercised a great deal of influence in the sailors union. He was one of the original ones. When Mr. Lundeberg was the first president of the organization Mr. Fox was his right hand bower who did most of the leg work for Mr. Lundeberg at that time. Lundeberg was the first president of the Maritime Federation of the Pacific.