ONLY ONE MAN in the State Legislature—Assemblyman Eugene Zimmer—voted into office by the American Labor Party and the trade union movement in Troy—raised his voice against the appropriation for the Committee. Assemblyman Zimmer, himself a worker and a trade unionist, knew that the aim and function of the Committee was to attack and destroy the Teachers Union, and thus to establish legal precedent for the destruction of the rest of the trade union movement of the State.

Assemblyman Zimmer called upon the people of the State and upon the trade union movement to act on the threatening danger, to protest any attempt to transform the investigation into a witch hunt.

Leaders of the Republican and Democratic Parties in Albany pledged that the Committee would not be merely a “witch hunting, hedge jumping expedition”, but would be an “honest, sane and comprehensive” study.

Honest people were skeptical. People who knew the history of the last thirty years were disturbed.

And they had reason to be.