BY JAMES KUTCHER  
Newspaper publicity, press conferences, publication and distribution of literature, interviews over the radio—we looked for and grabbed every opportunity to reach the public ear with the facts. But the main part of such a job consists of leg work. You have to get out and around to people where they are; you can’t just open up an office and wait for them to come to you. You can’t go knocking on the doors of people’s homes, either; you must concentrate your energies by going where people are in groups—that is, you must search out organizations and prevail upon them to listen to you.

It is not an easy job, especially where the element of alleged “disloyalty” enters, and sometimes you get ignored, or get put off with phony excuses, or get rebuffed altogether. Sometimes you know that if you can get before a certain organization and tell your story, the members will listen to you with attention and sympathy, but the officers or executive committee are afraid or hostile for one reason or another and they bar your way. And even when you succeed in getting the floor, it is still no picnic. Unless you are a trained speaker with leather lungs it is pretty tiring to make four or five speeches a night, as I often had to do.

The case was best known in my home town, and in the weeks following the first press conference I spent most of my time in and around Newark, taking my case to as many organizations as would listen to me. Unless I am mistaken, the first local group, after the State CIO, to act on my case was my own chapter of the American Veterans Committee. They branded my discharge as “a cruel abuse of official power” and “a flagrant violation of civil rights.” They opposed my prospective discharge, condemned the practice of blacklisting organizations without a hearing, and took a collection toward the expenses in the case. Since they knew all about me, after the newspaper publicity, it was not necessary for me to make a speech asking their endorsement.

A couple of weeks later, however, I did not have as good luck with the other ex-servicemen’s organization I belonged to, the Disabled American Veterans. A motion was made by someone at a meeting of my chapter (composed of amputees) to support me in a mild sort of way. Then someone else suggested that the motion be made stronger. That got the majority of the meeting frightened, and a motion was passed to table the whole matter. Most of them worked for the Veterans Administration, and they did not want to jeopardize their jobs. I wasn’t given the floor to tell my side of the story.

By coincidence, the first organization I spoke to on the case was the Newark Teachers Union, Local 481 of the American Federation of Teachers, AFL. All the time I was talking to them, I half wanted to say: “If things had gone differently, if I had done what I wanted to do, I would be sitting down there in one of the seats among you as a member of your local and your profession instead of standing up here defending myself against the charge of disloyalty.” But I refrained. They unanimously passed a resolution to be sent to President Truman and the press, asking the VA not to turn me out of my job and the president “to grant Kutcher’s request for a public hearing at which his party can defend itself against the subversive charges.” Later, the New Jersey Federation of Teachers, AFL, took a similar stand.

Next I appeared before the Baptist Ministers’ Conference of Newark and Vicinity, representing congregations of about 100,000 Negroes. They listened to me politely, questioned me closely and then endorsed my case vigorously. Through them I obtained access to a great many churches where I told my story to their congregations.

The Newark Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People applauded after I finished, took a collection for me and referred the question of endorsement to their executive board. At first I was afraid that this was a nice way of avoiding action, but that showed how inexperienced I was. The executive board turned it over to the branch’s legal committee, which studied the whole question carefully and then brought in a resolution of whole-hearted support which was adopted by the executive board.

I appeared before a committee or group of officers of the Commission on Social Work, New Jersey Conference, Methodist Church. I couldn’t tell from their expressions, questions, or comments whether or not they were sympathetic to what I was saying, although they were polite enough. They said we would be notified about their decision. Weeks went by, and we heard nothing from them. I thought the least they might have done was send me a letter stating they did not intend to act. Then George Novack told me on the phone one day that the New York office of our committee had received a resolution of endorsement from the Commission some time before. It was evidently the only address they had. I began to learn the virtue, and even the necessity, of patience.  
 
 
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