view raw text
DEMAND BRIDGES BE DEPORTED Recent Ruling of Supreme Court in Strecker Case Fails to Alter Plans of Dies Committee. WASHINGTON, D. C, April 18. Demand that Secretary of Labor Perkins proceed immediately with deportation proceedings against Harry Bridges, West Coast C. I. O. leader, was made today by chairman Martin Dies, Democrat, Texas, of the House un-American activities committee, despite the Supreme Court decision on the Strecker case yesterday. Dies, after studying the courts opinion, declared that the ruling that past membership in the Communist party is not ground for deporting an alien, does not affect the Bridges case. Meantime, solicitor general Reilly of the Labor Department was studying the decision, preparatory to advising secretary Perkins in the Bridges case. Deportation proceedings against Bridges, an Australian, on charges of Communist party membership, had been suspended to await the high court decision in the Strecker case. Dies and Representative J. Parnell Thomas, Republican, of New Jersey, also a member of the un-American activities committee, renewed charges that the government had failed to properly present the Strecker case. The high court freed Joseph G. Strecker, Arkansas restaurant keeper, on the ground that he had ceased membership in the Communist party before a deportation warrant was issued. "The dissenting opinion of Justice McReynolds says that because of defects and admissions of the government in the Strecker case it could not be considered fully on the merits," said Dies.
