Communist activities in the peace movement (Women Strike for ...

COMMUNIST ACTIVITIES IN THE PEACE MOVEMENT 2135
Mrs. Freed. We don't have any chairman, sir.
Mr. NiTTLE. Well, then, you dispute the newspaper account of
3^our position with that group? We would like to give you an opportunity
to correct it, if an error has been made.
(Witness conferred with counsel.)
Mrs. Freed. Well, I—^I think the statement is erroneous here in
the paper. I would like to correct it. We don't have chairmen as
such, and if they call me a chairman, this is not true.
Mr. NiTTLE. Now, if one were to call white, black, would it still be
white or black?
Mrs. Freed. There is no pertinence to that question, sir.
Mr. NiTTLE. Women for Peace and Women Strike for Peace are
one and the same organization. Is that not correct?
Mrs. Freed. Yes, sir.
Mr. NiTTLE. What was your answer?
Mrs. Freed. Yes, sir.
Mr. NiTTLE. I turn to another organization for a moment, previously
referred to in the interrogation of the prior witness. Miss
Clinton. An organization entitled "Conference of Greater New York
Peace Groups," conducted a meeting at Carnegie Hall on May 12,
1961, with Linus Pauling as a principal speaker. It is the committee's
information that you participated in that affair. Did you?
(Witness conferred with counsel.)
Mrs, Freed. Yes, I did.
Mr. NiTTLE. Do you know Henry Abrams, chairman of the Conference
of Greater New York Peace Groups?
Mrs. Freed. I question your constitutional authority to require
me to answer that question, and I also question its pertinence to any
matter that this subcommittee is authorized to inquire about.
For these reasons, the reasons already stated, I am invoking my
constitutional privilege under the fifth amendment and I must
decline to answer that.
Mr. NiTTLE. I hand you a copy of the Communist newspaper,
the Sunday Worker, dated August 17, 1941, published in New York,
marked for identification as Freed Exhibit No. 2.
I direct your attention to page 5, where appears a photograph of
two women in the upper left-hand corner. Do you appear as the
woman on the left? And are you the Iris Schwartz referred to in that
account?
(Witness conferred with counsel.)
Mrs. Freed. I question your constitutional authority to require
me to answer that question, and I also question its pertinence to any
matter that this subcommittee is authorized to inquire about. For
that reason already stated, I am invoking my constitutional privilege
on the fifth amendment.
(Document marked "Freed Exhibit No. 2" and retained in committee
files.)
Mr. NiTTLE. The caption of the photograph which appears in that
pubhcation is "They Work To Build Their Union," and at the bottom
of the photograph there appears the legend:
Iris Schwartz (left) works a mimeograph, machine while Betty Miller runs an
addressograph at Department Store Employes Union, 151 W. 33rd St.