What the Communist Party Accomplished in Washington State

Given the opportunity to influence legislation, look at what Communist influence accomplished.

Communism made a larger impact on Washington than almost any other state. “There are forty-seven states in the Union, and the Soviet of Washington,” Postmaster General James Farley joked in 1936. Courtesy: Washington Education Dept

(PORTLAND, OR) - A major theme of the McCarthy Era was the media influenced fear that Communist party members would take over progressive or liberal organizations if they were allowed to join. The Washington Commonwealth Federation was described by a leading anti-communist historian, Harvey Klehr, as the most effective alliance between Communists and non-Communists of anywhere in the United States during the Depression era

Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Commonwealth_Federation provides evidence that "...by 1937, 56 of the 72 members of the WCF's governing Executive Board were members of the Communist Party. Another reliable insider indicated that 90 percent of those employed by the WCF's newspaper were CPUSA members, including both of the publication's editors.

This was a time of substantial influence, with more than a dozen "concealed communists" elected to the statehouse in Olympia between 1936 and 1939, including 11 members of the Washington House of Representatives and 3 State Senators.

WCF-backed politicians constituted fully one third of the seats in the 1937 Washington House — a voting bloc which enabled the passage of a bevy of bills addressing longtime progressive concerns, including repeal of the state's criminal syndicalism law, passage of a pure food and drug act, establishment of a minimum wage for state employees, establishment of a graduated income tax, and other measures.

Given the opportunity to influence legislation, look at what Communist influence accomplished.

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