Baldwin Denies Charge That Communists Run CIO Unions

"The charge of communism brought against the CIO should be dismissed by reasonable people in view of the recklessness with which that word is used," asserted Roger N. Baldwin '05, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, speaking yesterday afternoon in the New Lecture Hall.

"That there may be concealed Communists in the union is as likely there as in Harvard University," continued Baldwin, but many of the union leaders are bitterly hostile to Communism, and only one individual has any affiliation with the Communists.

Baldwin insisted that the CIO "has no aspirations beyond the goals of collective bargaining and the protection of labor's rights. It supports no political principles except to make the capitalist system function more fairly.

Baldwin will speak again at 4 o'clock this afternoon in the second of four Godkin Lectures on "Civil Liberties."