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Peyton Ford & Farrell Dobbs

Dobbs Asks Interview with Truman

(18/21 October 1948)

Source: The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 43, 25 October 1948, p. 2.
Transcription & Mark-up: Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).

*

Oct. 18, 1948

Dear Mr. Dobbs:

Your letter of September 29, 1948, to the President concerning the inclusion of the Socialist Workers Party among the organizations designated by the Attorney General, as within the purview of Executive Order 9835 has been referred to this department.

The list of organizations made public by the Civil Service Commission on September 25, 1948, to which you have referred, does not, as you know represent additional or ‘expanded’ designations but is merely a consolidated list of those previously designated, segregated according to the classification contained in Part III, Section 3 of the Order.

In carrying out his obligations under the Executive Order the Attorney General has had strict regard for all of the substantial and procedural rights of those affected thereby.

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Oct. 21, 1948

President Harry S. Truman,
The White House

Dear Mr. President:

On September 29 I wrote you a letter protesting the listing of my party, the Socialist Workers Party, on the political blacklist of so-called “subversive” organizations published by your Attorney General, Mr. Tom Clark, under your Executive Order 9835.

As the Socialist Workers Party candidate for President, I urge you to use your powers to secure a fair and public hearing for my party and redress from the Attorney General’s administrative abuse to which we have been illegally and unconstitutionally subjected.

Instead of a reply from you, I received on September 29 a letter from Mr. Peyton Ford, Assistant to the Attorney General containing nothing beyond a lot of double-talk and advising that my letter to you has been referred to his department.

Mr. Ford’s statement that “the Attorney General has had strict regard for all of the substantial and procedural rights of those affected” stands in flagrant contradiction to the facts. We have been denied a hearing; we have been denied a list of the charges and allegations on the basis of which the Attorney General has presumed to declare us “subversive”; we have been denied the- right to confront and cross examine our accusers— in a word, our rights as guaranteed by the Constitution have been Completely violated.

By referring my appeal back to the Department of Justice, you referred it to the very agency against which I had appealed, and which in turn again denies us a hearing on the basis of your Executive Order. It seems to me that you are passing the buck. Certainly this run around you are giving my party belies your campaign professions on civil rights.

I therefore request you to demonstrate good faith in your promises regarding civil rights by granting me a personal conference with you so that I may present the facts of our case and secure redress of the injustice committed against us.

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