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Australian. His papers were all in good order. His birth certificate, and all, were available. It would have been a simple thing for him to have been naturalized. I always used to think that if he'd been a practising Communist, or a convinced professing one, the natural thing to do would have been to get naturalized and be safe. But he hadn't.

When somebody asked him in these early days why he wasn't naturalized, he said, “Do you have to be naturalized to live in this country?” Everybody answered, “No, you don't have to be naturalized to live in this country or to take part in the union.”

As soon as this rumor that Bridges was a Communist began to circulate, then everything else circulated. He was denounced. He ought to be deported. He was terrible. The government had supported him, and on and on. Of course, there was a group of absolutely die-hard employers out there in San Francisco and the area surrounding who hated the very word “union,” and although they had to accept it, they were opposed to it forever. That ran all through the city.

I think Dies just got his information out of the newspapers. I don't think he ever had any information at this time of his speech in the Plaza Hotel except that.