J. B. Matthews
Encyclopedia
Joseph Brown "Doc" Matthews, Sr. (1894 - 1966), best known as J.B. Matthews, was an American linguist,and a educator, writer, and political activist. A committed pacifist, Matthews became a self-described "fellow traveler" of the Communist Party, USA through the middle-1930s, achieving national prominence as a leader of a number of the party's so-called "mass organizations." A disillusionment with communism
followed towards the end of the 1930s. Matthews later became a professional anti-communist
expert that served as chief investigator for the House Committee on Un-American Activities headed by Martin Dies, Jr.
, as a consultant on Communist affairs for the Hearst Corporation
.
In June 1953, Matthews was named research director for Joseph McCarthy
's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the United States Senate
. This selection drew heated criticism from committee Democrats and liberal Republicans, fueled by Matthews' recently published claims that the Protestant
clergy comprised a base of support of the American Communist movement, and Matthews was forced to resign.
on June 28, 1894, of French Huguenot
, Scottish
, and English
ancestry. Matthews' paternal grandfather was killed fighting for the Confederacy
during the American Civil War
, with his father subsequently orphaned
shortly after the war and left to fend for himself at a very young age.
He was raised as a fundamentalist
Methodist. His father was the initiator of a local Sunday school
that was serviced twice a month by one of the church's circuit riders
. Matthews later recalled that the world-view of his early years was a simple one:
In 1910, Matthews enrolled in Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky
, from which he graduated in 1914. During these undergraduate years, Matthews majored in Greek
and Latin
, although he later recalled that he was more preoccupied with extra-curricular activities such as sports, music, debate, college publications, and literary societies.
Following graduation, Matthews spent six years in Java
, part of today's Indonesia
, where he taught in one of the Chinese
Nationalist schools established there after the fall of the Manchu dynasty in 1911. Matthews saw this experience as pivotal for his own intellectual development, writing in his memoirs that
. He became the editor of a Javanese newspaper while there, as well as editing the Methodist Hymnal into that language, contributing over 100 of his own translations.
, a private United Methodist-affiliated institution in New Jersey
, where he studied languages at the graduate level, including the study of Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Sanskrit
, and Persian
. During this interval, Matthews was influenced by the social gospel
movement in American Christianity
, which emphasized the application of Christian ethics
towards the solution contemporary social problems. It was through this searching for answers to the social issues of the day, such as militarism
, poverty
, and racism
, that Matthews was exposed to the ideas of political radicalism for the first time.
Matthews graduated from Drew with a Bachelor of Divinity
degree in 1923 before earning his Master of Arts
degree the next year at Columbia University
in New York City
. He also earned a Master of Theological Studies
degree in 1924 from Union Theological Seminary
, affiliated with Columbia, from which he graduated magna cum laude.
Following graduation, Matthews joined the faculty of Scarritt College
, a Methodist training school for missionaries and Christian teachers located in Nashville, Tennessee
. During this time Matthews was active in the independent presidential
campaign of Robert LaFollette
— a progressive
labor-oriented challenge to the more conservative candidates of the Republican
and Democratic
parties. Matthews addressed crowds throughout Tennessee
in 1924 as one of the LaFollette campaign's leading public speakers.
Throughout the decade of the 1920s, Matthews served on the faculty of an array of church-oriented institutes and training schools, usually established for a short period during the spring and summer months. During these brief stints in front of fresh audiences, Matthews attempted to expound his beliefs in pacifism and improved race relations. He was ultimately forced to leave his permanent teaching post because of a "furor over an interracial party held in his home, at which whites were reported to have danced with Negroes."
. Matthews was elected as chairman of the gathering and later earned plaudits for his efficient conduct of the group's sessions.
While Matthews' support of the 1924 LaFollette presidential bid marked his first formal left-wing political activity, his real political career began in the summer of 1929 when he was named one of two Executive Secretaries of the paciifist Fellowship of Reconciliation
. Matthews continued to serve in this capacity until 1933. On November 6, 1929, Matthews joined the Socialist Party of America
, effectively headed by Norman Thomas
, himself a noted pacifist and former clergyman. He was a periodic contributor as a writer for the Socialist and pacifist press, publishing material in the New York weekly The New Leader
and Norman Thomas's The World Tomorrow
.
Among other pacifist activities, Matthews served as the Secretary of the Pacifist Action Committee, treasurer of the Joint Peace Council, and on the executive committee of the Emergency Peace Committee in addition to being a member of the Interorganizational Council on Disarmament and the Peace Patriots. He also spoke periodically to such groups as the National Council for Prevention of War, the Fellowship of Youth for Peace, and the War Resisters League
.
Matthews was involved in various trade union
activities as well. He was a member of A. J. Muste
's Conference for Progressive Political Action
and a speaker at Muste's Brookwood Labor College
and sat on the governing body of the National Committee Against Labor Racketeering. Matthews also was active in the fight against racism as a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
and a speaker to the National Urban League
. He advanced the cause of free speech through membership in the American Civil Liberties Union
.
In 1932, Matthews stood as the Socialist Party's candidate for the New York State Assembly
for a district located in Queens. He was an adherent of the Militant faction
of the Socialist Party and was chairman of its Revolutionary Policy Committee
and sat on the board of directors of the League for Industrial Democracy
.
sponsored by the United States Communist Party
as part of its united front
campaign, action which led to a reprimand and eventually to the suspension of Matthews for "conduct unbecoming a member" of the Socialist Party. Thereafter, he moved increasingly into the Communist Party's orbit, although he later claimed never to have been an official member of the CPUSA. Thereafter, he was named the head of the American League Against War and Fascism
, a mass organization of the Communist Party derided by detractors as a so-called "Communist front
."
Matthews helped to launch the American Friends of the Chinese People. He also served on the national committee of the American Youth Congress
and the National Student League
, two of the Communist Party's efforts to make inroads with American students. Matthews was also a speaker for the Unemployed Leagues, the CPUSA-sponsored mass organization directed at the unemployed, International Labor Defense
, the party's legal defense organization, and the Teachers' Anti-War Conference, as well was a member of the national committees of the National Tom Mooney
Council of Action and the National Scottsboro
Committee of Action.
Matthews visited the Soviet Union
no fewer than five times during the late 1920s and early 1930s. He wrote extensively for the Communist press, contributing material to the Daily Worker
(including a front page denial of the reality of the massive famine in the Ukraine
in 1932-33), Soviet Russia Today, and The New Masses
.
Matthews' participation in organizations closely linked to the Communist Party led Richard Rovere to derisively describe Matthews as "the world's champion fellow traveler, joining Communist fronts as compulsively as a pie-eating champion eats pies."
Although conservative public intellectual William F. Buckley, Jr.
, contended that J.B. Matthews himself coined the term "fellow traveler", in reality the phrase was an anglicization of a Russian word in common currency since the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917 — poputchik (literally: "one who walks the same path"). Regardless of this misconception of the phrase's origin, it remains beyond debate that the term was used by Matthews to describe himself as the title of his repentant December 1938 memoir, The Odyssey of a Fellow Traveler.
to testify before House Special Committee on Un-American Activities, commonly known as the Dies Committee. Matthews went on to become the research director for the Dies Committee, opening up a new career for him as a professional anti-communist investigator.
With the Dies Committee seemingly scheduled for termination in 1944, Matthews scrambled to preserve the material that he had compiled through an official committee publication. Over 2100 pages were rushed to the printer and published in seven volumes, which together were known as Appendix IX of the committee's report. Appendix IX included a massive list of 22,000 names of individuals and their organizational connections to "subversive" organizations — many of whom were not themselves communist. Matthews was jubilant about his achievement, declaring Appendix IX to be "the most significant contribution ever made on the subject of communism."
The raw and undifferentiated nature of Matthews' Appendix IX, which listed communists alongside liberals and even centrists in a single list, lead to a firestorm of criticism and a quick effort at the document's recall. The U.S. Government Printing Office had already distributed a number of sets to members of the Dies Committee, government agencies, and private individuals, however, making the volume's complete suppression impossible. Appendix IX remains today a bibliographic rarity. He continued to work for the Committee on Un-American Activities until 1945, at which time he left to become a consultant for the Hearst Corporation
.
Matthews became a symbol of the repentant former Communist who rendered expert service to the U.S. Government in its crackdown against what it perceived to be a network of underground subversion. In his column of October 6, 1947, syndicated columnist George Sokolsky
wrote:
In 1947 the state of Washington established its own Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, established on the model employed previously in California. This so-called "Canwell Committee" took aim at proving the radical connections of such local figures and institutions as Harry Bridges
, the Seattle Labor School, the Seattle Repertory Playhouse, and various left-wing members of the faculty of the University of Washington
. Matthews was among those national experts on communism brought into the state to give testimony before this committee.
In 1949 he married a fellow consultant for the Hearst Corporation, Ruth Inglis, as his third wife. She was treasurer, assistant publisher, and trustee of Consumers' Research. She was a professor of sociology at the University of Washington
and research editor of Combat, a subsidiary of National Review
. She helped launch Deadline Data on World Affairs and she was a staff member of the U.S. House Committee on Internal Security.
In 1951, Matthews published an influential article in the American Legion Magazine entitled "Did the Movies Really Clean House?" in which he asserted that a large cadre of Communist Party members and sympathizers remained in the ranks of the movie industry. Matthews listed some 66 examples in his article, including names and the movie with which each was associated — effectively "graylisting" each.
In June 1953, J.B. Matthews was appointed as research director to Senator Joseph McCarthy
's Senate Committee on Government Operations and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The choice was a controversial one given Matthews' high profile role in "exposing" Communists, which had made him a target of many on the left. The appointment to the McCarthy commmittee's staff coincidentally coincided with the appearance of a provocative article by Matthews in the July 1953 issue of The American Mercury, entitled "Reds in Our Churches". In this article, Matthews claimed "the largest single group supporting the Communist apparatus in the United States today is composed of Protestant clergymen."
These published charges enraged ranking Democratic member of McCarthy's committee, Senator John McClellan
of Arkansas
, who together with his colleagues, Stuart Symington
and Henry "Scoop" Jackson
, marched into McCarthy's office and demanded that Matthews be fired. McCarthy refused and reiterated his support for Matthews.
The fight between Republican committee chair McCarthy and the Democrats over Matthews exploded into page one national news. Officials of the National Council of Churches
, the United Lutheran Church
, and the Southern Baptist Convention
issued statements denouncing the Matthews appointment, and letters and telegrams opposing Matthews began to pour into congressional offices.
On July 7, 1953, the committee battled for 90 minutes over the appointment, with McCarthy refusing to back away from Matthews and claiming that he was a "non-professional" member of the staff that could be hired or fired at his sole discretion, while the Democratic minority cited the provisions of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, which placed the hiring and firing of committee staff within the purview of the majority of the committee.
A deal was brokered by Vice President
Richard M. Nixon, himself a veteran of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, in which Matthews would hand in his resignation in exchange for complete future authority for McCarthy to hire and fire committee staff. This arrangement proved acceptable to Democratic leaders and Matthews resignation was accepted on the evening of July 9, 1953. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
released
the contents of telegraphic communications with religious leaders to the press in which the President acknowledged the validity of their criticism of Matthews' charges.
during his last years, which was reported as the cause of death in an obituary published in the New York Times, Matthews actually died of a brain tumor
in New York City on July 16, 1966, aged 72.
Matthews' papers are housed in Durham, North Carolina
at the Duke University
Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. The papers include a massive 479 linear feet of material, consisting of 307,000 individual items. An on-line finding aid is available.
Two additional accumulations of Matthews' papers may or may not be extant. In 1964, with his health in decline, Matthews left the employ of the Hearst organization and sold a substantial part of his files to the Church League of America based in Wheaton, Illinois
, before passing to Jerry Falwell
's Liberty University
in Lynchburg, Virginia
. This material may today currently reside at the Tamiment Institute at New York University
. A further group of papers were sold to the Freedom Foundation of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
, in 1972. The whereabouts of this latter material remains unknown.
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
followed towards the end of the 1930s. Matthews later became a professional anti-communist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
expert that served as chief investigator for the House Committee on Un-American Activities headed by Martin Dies, Jr.
Martin Dies, Jr.
Martin Dies, Jr. was a Texas politician and a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives. His father, Martin Dies, was also a member of the United States House of Representatives.-Biography:...
, as a consultant on Communist affairs for the Hearst Corporation
Hearst Corporation
The Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...
.
In June 1953, Matthews was named research director for Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
. This selection drew heated criticism from committee Democrats and liberal Republicans, fueled by Matthews' recently published claims that the Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
clergy comprised a base of support of the American Communist movement, and Matthews was forced to resign.
Early years
Matthews was born in Hopkinsville, KentuckyHopkinsville, Kentucky
Hopkinsville is a city in Christian County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 31,577 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Christian County.- History :...
on June 28, 1894, of French Huguenot
Huguenot
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
, Scottish
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
, and English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
ancestry. Matthews' paternal grandfather was killed fighting for the Confederacy
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, with his father subsequently orphaned
Orphan
An orphan is a child permanently bereaved of or abandoned by his or her parents. In common usage, only a child who has lost both parents is called an orphan...
shortly after the war and left to fend for himself at a very young age.
He was raised as a fundamentalist
Fundamentalism
Fundamentalism is strict adherence to specific theological doctrines usually understood as a reaction against Modernist theology. The term "fundamentalism" was originally coined by its supporters to describe a specific package of theological beliefs that developed into a movement within the...
Methodist. His father was the initiator of a local Sunday school
Sunday school
Sunday school is the generic name for many different types of religious education pursued on Sundays by various denominations.-England:The first Sunday school may have been opened in 1751 in St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. Another early start was made by Hannah Ball, a native of High Wycombe in...
that was serviced twice a month by one of the church's circuit riders
Circuit rider (Religious)
Circuit rider is a popular term referring to clergy in the earliest years of the United States who were assigned to travel around specific geographic territories to minister to settlers and organize congregations...
. Matthews later recalled that the world-view of his early years was a simple one:
"I knew nothing about class struggleClass struggleClass struggle is the active expression of a class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote "The [written] history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle"....
, conscious race prejudice, economic royalists, or maladjusted personalities. Everything dark was simple as sinSinIn religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
, and men needed only to repent and be saved in order to set everything right.
In 1910, Matthews enrolled in Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky
Wilmore, Kentucky
Wilmore is a city in Jessamine County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 6,134 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Lexington–Fayette Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, from which he graduated in 1914. During these undergraduate years, Matthews majored in Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, although he later recalled that he was more preoccupied with extra-curricular activities such as sports, music, debate, college publications, and literary societies.
Following graduation, Matthews spent six years in Java
Java
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
, part of today's Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, where he taught in one of the Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
Nationalist schools established there after the fall of the Manchu dynasty in 1911. Matthews saw this experience as pivotal for his own intellectual development, writing in his memoirs that
While in Java, Matthews spent the bulk of his free time working seriously at linguistics, soon mastering the Malay language, known today as Javanese
"My real education began in Java. Java introduced me to ethnologyEthnologyEthnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
, anthropologyAnthropologyAnthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
, the cultural pluralism of the race, the history and varied institutions of religions, and a serious study of languages."
Javanese language
Javanese language is the language of the Javanese people from the central and eastern parts of the island of Java, in Indonesia. In addition, there are also some pockets of Javanese speakers in the northern coast of western Java...
. He became the editor of a Javanese newspaper while there, as well as editing the Methodist Hymnal into that language, contributing over 100 of his own translations.
Return to America
Upon his return to the United States, Matthews enrolled in Drew UniversityDrew University
Drew University is a private university located in Madison, New Jersey.Originally established as the Drew Theological Seminary in 1867, the university later expanded to include an undergraduate liberal arts college in 1928 and commenced a program of graduate studies in 1955...
, a private United Methodist-affiliated institution in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, where he studied languages at the graduate level, including the study of Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
, and Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
. During this interval, Matthews was influenced by the social gospel
Social Gospel
The Social Gospel movement is a Protestant Christian intellectual movement that was most prominent in the early 20th century United States and Canada...
movement in American Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, which emphasized the application of Christian ethics
Christian ethics
The first recorded meeting on the topic of Christian ethics, after Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, Great Commandment, and Great Commission , was the Council of Jerusalem , which is seen by most Christians as agreement that the New Covenant either abrogated or set aside at least some of the Old...
towards the solution contemporary social problems. It was through this searching for answers to the social issues of the day, such as militarism
Militarism
Militarism is defined as: the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests....
, poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
, and racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, that Matthews was exposed to the ideas of political radicalism for the first time.
Matthews graduated from Drew with a Bachelor of Divinity
Bachelor of Divinity
In Western universities, a Bachelor of Divinity is usually an undergraduate academic degree awarded for a course taken in the study of divinity or related disciplines, such as theology or, rarely, religious studies....
degree in 1923 before earning his Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
degree the next year at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He also earned a Master of Theological Studies
Master of Theological Studies
A Master of Theological Studies is a general academic degree that gives students an introduction to advanced theological studies. The M.T.S usually requires two years of program study to complete. The Latin equivalent for M.T.S...
degree in 1924 from Union Theological Seminary
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a preeminent independent graduate school of theology, located in Manhattan between Claremont Avenue and Broadway, 120th to 122nd Streets. The seminary was founded in 1836 under the Presbyterian Church, and is affiliated with nearby Columbia...
, affiliated with Columbia, from which he graduated magna cum laude.
Following graduation, Matthews joined the faculty of Scarritt College
Scarritt College for Christian Workers
Scarritt College for Christian Workers was a college that trained missionaries, teachers and other people dedicated to sharing Christianity. It was associated with the United Methodist Church....
, a Methodist training school for missionaries and Christian teachers located in Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
. During this time Matthews was active in the independent presidential
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
campaign of Robert LaFollette
Robert M. La Follette, Sr.
Robert Marion "Fighting Bob" La Follette, Sr. , was an American Republican politician. He served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, was the Governor of Wisconsin, and was also a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin...
— a progressive
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
labor-oriented challenge to the more conservative candidates of the Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
and Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
parties. Matthews addressed crowds throughout Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
in 1924 as one of the LaFollette campaign's leading public speakers.
Throughout the decade of the 1920s, Matthews served on the faculty of an array of church-oriented institutes and training schools, usually established for a short period during the spring and summer months. During these brief stints in front of fresh audiences, Matthews attempted to expound his beliefs in pacifism and improved race relations. He was ultimately forced to leave his permanent teaching post because of a "furor over an interracial party held in his home, at which whites were reported to have danced with Negroes."
Political activist
In 1928, Matthews was one of approximately 500 delegates to the first World Youth Peace Congress, held in HollandNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. Matthews was elected as chairman of the gathering and later earned plaudits for his efficient conduct of the group's sessions.
While Matthews' support of the 1924 LaFollette presidential bid marked his first formal left-wing political activity, his real political career began in the summer of 1929 when he was named one of two Executive Secretaries of the paciifist Fellowship of Reconciliation
Fellowship of Reconciliation
The Fellowship of Reconciliation is the name used by a number of religious nonviolent organizations, particularly in English-speaking countries...
. Matthews continued to serve in this capacity until 1933. On November 6, 1929, Matthews joined the Socialist Party of America
Socialist Party of America
The Socialist Party of America was a multi-tendency democratic-socialist political party in the United States, formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party which had split from the main organization...
, effectively headed by Norman Thomas
Norman Thomas
Norman Mattoon Thomas was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America.-Early years:...
, himself a noted pacifist and former clergyman. He was a periodic contributor as a writer for the Socialist and pacifist press, publishing material in the New York weekly The New Leader
The New Leader
The New Leader was a political and cultural magazine begun in 1924 by a group of figures associated with the Socialist Party of America, including Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas, and published in New York by the American Labor Conference on International Affairs. Its orientation is liberal and...
and Norman Thomas's The World Tomorrow
The World Tomorrow
The World Tomorrow is a now-defunct radio and television half-hour program which had been sponsored by the Radio Church of God which ran from 1934 to 1994...
.
Among other pacifist activities, Matthews served as the Secretary of the Pacifist Action Committee, treasurer of the Joint Peace Council, and on the executive committee of the Emergency Peace Committee in addition to being a member of the Interorganizational Council on Disarmament and the Peace Patriots. He also spoke periodically to such groups as the National Council for Prevention of War, the Fellowship of Youth for Peace, and the War Resisters League
War Resisters League
The War Resisters League was formed in 1923 by men and women who had opposed World War I. It is a section of the London-based War Resisters' International.Many of the founders had been jailed during World War I for refusing military service...
.
Matthews was involved in various trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
activities as well. He was a member of A. J. Muste
A. J. Muste
The Reverend Abraham Johannes "A.J." Muste was a Dutch-born American clergyman and political activist. Muste is best remembered for his work in the labor movement, pacifist movement, and the US civil rights movement.-Early years:...
's Conference for Progressive Political Action
Conference for Progressive Political Action
The Conference for Progressive Political Action was officially established by the convention call of the 16 major railway labor unions in the United States, represented by a committee of six: William H. Johnston of the Machinists' Union, Martin F. Ryan of the Railway Carmen, Warren S. Stone of the...
and a speaker at Muste's Brookwood Labor College
Brookwood Labor College
Brookwood Labor College was the first residential labor college in the United States. The school was established in 1921 near Katonah, New York. The school was closely supported by affiliate unions of the American Federation of Labor until 1928, when pressure began to be exerted by the AF of L's...
and sat on the governing body of the National Committee Against Labor Racketeering. Matthews also was active in the fight against racism as a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
and a speaker to the National Urban League
National Urban League
The National Urban League , formerly known as the National League on Urban Conditions Among Negroes, is a nonpartisan civil rights organization based in New York City that advocates on behalf of African Americans and against racial discrimination in the United States. It is the oldest and largest...
. He advanced the cause of free speech through membership in the American Civil Liberties Union
American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...
.
In 1932, Matthews stood as the Socialist Party's candidate for the New York State Assembly
New York State Assembly
The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature. The Assembly is composed of 150 members representing an equal number of districts, with each district having an average population of 128,652...
for a district located in Queens. He was an adherent of the Militant faction
Militant faction
The Militant faction was an organized grouping of Marxists in the Socialist Party of America who sought to steer that organization from its orientation towards electoral politics and towards direct action and revolutionary socialism. The faction emerged during 1930 and 1931 and achieved practical...
of the Socialist Party and was chairman of its Revolutionary Policy Committee
Revolutionary Policy Committee (U.S.)
The Revolutionary Policy Committee was an offshoot of the so-called "Militant" faction in the Socialist Party of America during the middle-1930s...
and sat on the board of directors of the League for Industrial Democracy
League for Industrial Democracy
The League for Industrial Democracy , from 1960-1965 known as the Students for a Democratic Society , was founded in 1905 by a group of notable socialists including Harry W. Laidler, Jack London, Norman Thomas, Upton Sinclair, and J.G. Phelps Stokes...
.
"Fellow traveler"
Matthews' association with the Socialist Party and its auxiliaries proved to be short-lived, however. In 1933 he was a speaker at a rally at Madison Square GardenMadison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
sponsored by the United States Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
as part of its united front
United front
The united front is a form of struggle that may be pursued by revolutionaries. The basic theory of the united front tactic was first developed by the Comintern, an international communist organisation created by revolutionaries in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.According to the theses of...
campaign, action which led to a reprimand and eventually to the suspension of Matthews for "conduct unbecoming a member" of the Socialist Party. Thereafter, he moved increasingly into the Communist Party's orbit, although he later claimed never to have been an official member of the CPUSA. Thereafter, he was named the head of the American League Against War and Fascism
American League Against War and Fascism
The American League Against War and Fascism was an organization formed in 1933 by the Communist Party USA and pacifists united by their concern as Nazism and Fascism rose in Europe...
, a mass organization of the Communist Party derided by detractors as a so-called "Communist front
Communist front
A Communist front organization is an organization identified to be a front organization under the effective control of a Communist party, the Communist International or other Communist organizations. Lenin originated the idea in his manifesto of 1902, "What Is to Be Done?"...
."
Matthews helped to launch the American Friends of the Chinese People. He also served on the national committee of the American Youth Congress
American Youth Congress
American Youth Congress was an early youth voice organization composed of youth from all across the country to discuss the problems facing youth as a whole in the 1930s. It met several years in a row - one year it notably met on the lawn of the White House. The delegates are known to have caused...
and the National Student League
National Student League
The National Student League was a Communist led organization of college and high school students in the United States.-Origins:The organizations founding came about as a result of a case of censorship on the campus of the City College of New York in 1931. The Social Problems Club had begun...
, two of the Communist Party's efforts to make inroads with American students. Matthews was also a speaker for the Unemployed Leagues, the CPUSA-sponsored mass organization directed at the unemployed, International Labor Defense
International Labor Defense
The International Labor Defense was a legal defense organization in the United States, headed by William L. Patterson. It was a US section of International Red Aid organisation, and associated with the Communist Party USA. It defended Sacco and Vanzetti, was active in the civil rights and...
, the party's legal defense organization, and the Teachers' Anti-War Conference, as well was a member of the national committees of the National Tom Mooney
Thomas Mooney
Thomas Joseph "Tom" Mooney was an American political activist and labor leader, who was convicted with Warren K. Billings of the San Francisco Preparedness Day Bombing of 1916...
Council of Action and the National Scottsboro
Scottsboro Boys
The Scottsboro Boys were nine black teenage boys accused of rape in Alabama in 1931. The landmark set of legal cases from this incident dealt with racism and the right to a fair trial...
Committee of Action.
Matthews visited the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
no fewer than five times during the late 1920s and early 1930s. He wrote extensively for the Communist press, contributing material to the Daily Worker
Daily Worker
The Daily Worker was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, some attempts were made to make it appear that the paper reflected a...
(including a front page denial of the reality of the massive famine in the Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
in 1932-33), Soviet Russia Today, and The New Masses
The New Masses
The "New Masses" was a prominent American Marxist publication edited by Walt Carmon, briefly by Whittaker Chambers, and primarily by Michael Gold, Granville Hicks, and Joseph Freeman....
.
Matthews' participation in organizations closely linked to the Communist Party led Richard Rovere to derisively describe Matthews as "the world's champion fellow traveler, joining Communist fronts as compulsively as a pie-eating champion eats pies."
Although conservative public intellectual William F. Buckley, Jr.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...
, contended that J.B. Matthews himself coined the term "fellow traveler", in reality the phrase was an anglicization of a Russian word in common currency since the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917 — poputchik (literally: "one who walks the same path"). Regardless of this misconception of the phrase's origin, it remains beyond debate that the term was used by Matthews to describe himself as the title of his repentant December 1938 memoir, The Odyssey of a Fellow Traveler.
Anti-communist expert
Matthews became among the first anti-communist informersInformant
An informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...
to testify before House Special Committee on Un-American Activities, commonly known as the Dies Committee. Matthews went on to become the research director for the Dies Committee, opening up a new career for him as a professional anti-communist investigator.
With the Dies Committee seemingly scheduled for termination in 1944, Matthews scrambled to preserve the material that he had compiled through an official committee publication. Over 2100 pages were rushed to the printer and published in seven volumes, which together were known as Appendix IX of the committee's report. Appendix IX included a massive list of 22,000 names of individuals and their organizational connections to "subversive" organizations — many of whom were not themselves communist. Matthews was jubilant about his achievement, declaring Appendix IX to be "the most significant contribution ever made on the subject of communism."
The raw and undifferentiated nature of Matthews' Appendix IX, which listed communists alongside liberals and even centrists in a single list, lead to a firestorm of criticism and a quick effort at the document's recall. The U.S. Government Printing Office had already distributed a number of sets to members of the Dies Committee, government agencies, and private individuals, however, making the volume's complete suppression impossible. Appendix IX remains today a bibliographic rarity. He continued to work for the Committee on Un-American Activities until 1945, at which time he left to become a consultant for the Hearst Corporation
Hearst Corporation
The Hearst Corporation is an American media conglomerate based in the Hearst Tower, Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. Founded by William Randolph Hearst as an owner of newspapers, the company's holdings now include a wide variety of media...
.
Matthews became a symbol of the repentant former Communist who rendered expert service to the U.S. Government in its crackdown against what it perceived to be a network of underground subversion. In his column of October 6, 1947, syndicated columnist George Sokolsky
George Sokolsky
George Ephraim Sokolsky was a weekly radio broadcaster for the National Association of Manufacturers and a columnist for The New York Herald Tribune, who later switched to The New York Sun and other Hearst newspapers.-Biography:...
wrote:
"I have among my friends and acquaintances literally dozens of men and women who during the Hitler-Stalin Alliance were so ashamed of Soviet cynicism that from ardent Communists they became ardent anti-Communists. Such a man was Dr. J.B. Matthews, while never a Communist, was associated with that party as a fellow traveler ... "In fighting Communists, our Government is absolutely dependent upon the ex-Communists ... "If the government is seriously trying to tackle the Communist menace, then the first step is to employ qualified experts.... Amateurs can bring only discredit upon the government. Every effort should be made to ensure the cooperation and protection of friendly witnesses...."
In 1947 the state of Washington established its own Joint Legislative Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities, established on the model employed previously in California. This so-called "Canwell Committee" took aim at proving the radical connections of such local figures and institutions as Harry Bridges
Harry Bridges
Harry Bridges was an Australian-American union leader, in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union , a longshore and warehouse workers' union on the West Coast, Hawaii and Alaska which he helped form and led for over 40 years...
, the Seattle Labor School, the Seattle Repertory Playhouse, and various left-wing members of the faculty of the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
. Matthews was among those national experts on communism brought into the state to give testimony before this committee.
In 1949 he married a fellow consultant for the Hearst Corporation, Ruth Inglis, as his third wife. She was treasurer, assistant publisher, and trustee of Consumers' Research. She was a professor of sociology at the University of Washington
University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
and research editor of Combat, a subsidiary of National Review
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
. She helped launch Deadline Data on World Affairs and she was a staff member of the U.S. House Committee on Internal Security.
In 1951, Matthews published an influential article in the American Legion Magazine entitled "Did the Movies Really Clean House?" in which he asserted that a large cadre of Communist Party members and sympathizers remained in the ranks of the movie industry. Matthews listed some 66 examples in his article, including names and the movie with which each was associated — effectively "graylisting" each.
McCarthy Committee episode
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
's Senate Committee on Government Operations and its Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The choice was a controversial one given Matthews' high profile role in "exposing" Communists, which had made him a target of many on the left. The appointment to the McCarthy commmittee's staff coincidentally coincided with the appearance of a provocative article by Matthews in the July 1953 issue of The American Mercury, entitled "Reds in Our Churches". In this article, Matthews claimed "the largest single group supporting the Communist apparatus in the United States today is composed of Protestant clergymen."
These published charges enraged ranking Democratic member of McCarthy's committee, Senator John McClellan
John Little McClellan
John Little McClellan was a Democratic Party politician from Arkansas. He represented Arkansas in the United States Senate from 1943 until 1977. He also earlier represented Arkansas in the United States House of Representatives.-Early life:McClellan was born in Sheridan, Grant County, Arkansas...
of Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
, who together with his colleagues, Stuart Symington
Stuart Symington
William Stuart Symington was a businessman and political figure from Missouri. He served as the first Secretary of the Air Force from 1947 to 1950 and was a Democratic United States Senator from Missouri from 1953 to 1976.-Education and business career:...
and Henry "Scoop" Jackson
Henry M. Jackson
Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson was a U.S. Congressman and Senator from the state of Washington from 1941 until his death...
, marched into McCarthy's office and demanded that Matthews be fired. McCarthy refused and reiterated his support for Matthews.
The fight between Republican committee chair McCarthy and the Democrats over Matthews exploded into page one national news. Officials of the National Council of Churches
National Council of Churches
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA is an ecumenical partnership of 37 Christian faith groups in the United States. Its member denominations, churches, conventions, and archdioceses include Mainline Protestant, Orthodox, African American, Evangelical, and historic peace...
, the United Lutheran Church
United Lutheran Church in America
The United Lutheran Church in America was established in 1918 with the merger of three independent German-language synods: the General Synod , the General Council and the United Synod of the South . The Slovak Zion Synod joined the United Lutheran Church in America in 1920...
, and the Southern Baptist Convention
Southern Baptist Convention
The Southern Baptist Convention is a United States-based Christian denomination. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination and the largest Protestant body in the United States, with over 16 million members...
issued statements denouncing the Matthews appointment, and letters and telegrams opposing Matthews began to pour into congressional offices.
On July 7, 1953, the committee battled for 90 minutes over the appointment, with McCarthy refusing to back away from Matthews and claiming that he was a "non-professional" member of the staff that could be hired or fired at his sole discretion, while the Democratic minority cited the provisions of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946, which placed the hiring and firing of committee staff within the purview of the majority of the committee.
A deal was brokered by Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
Richard M. Nixon, himself a veteran of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, in which Matthews would hand in his resignation in exchange for complete future authority for McCarthy to hire and fire committee staff. This arrangement proved acceptable to Democratic leaders and Matthews resignation was accepted on the evening of July 9, 1953. President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
released
the contents of telegraphic communications with religious leaders to the press in which the President acknowledged the validity of their criticism of Matthews' charges.
Death and legacy
Although he suffered from Parkinson's diseaseParkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
during his last years, which was reported as the cause of death in an obituary published in the New York Times, Matthews actually died of a brain tumor
Brain tumor
A brain tumor is an intracranial solid neoplasm, a tumor within the brain or the central spinal canal.Brain tumors include all tumors inside the cranium or in the central spinal canal...
in New York City on July 16, 1966, aged 72.
Matthews' papers are housed in Durham, North Carolina
Durham, North Carolina
Durham is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the county seat of Durham County and also extends into Wake County. It is the fifth-largest city in the state, and the 85th-largest in the United States by population, with 228,330 residents as of the 2010 United States census...
at the Duke University
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. The papers include a massive 479 linear feet of material, consisting of 307,000 individual items. An on-line finding aid is available.
Two additional accumulations of Matthews' papers may or may not be extant. In 1964, with his health in decline, Matthews left the employ of the Hearst organization and sold a substantial part of his files to the Church League of America based in Wheaton, Illinois
Wheaton, Illinois
Wheaton is an affluent community located in DuPage County, Illinois, approximately west of Chicago and Lake Michigan. Wheaton is the county seat of DuPage County...
, before passing to Jerry Falwell
Jerry Falwell
Jerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...
's Liberty University
Liberty University
Liberty University is a private Christian university located in Lynchburg, Virginia. Liberty's annual enrollment is around 72,000 students, 12,000 of whom are residential students and 60,000+ studying through Liberty University Online...
in Lynchburg, Virginia
Lynchburg, Virginia
Lynchburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The population was 75,568 as of 2010. Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains along the banks of the James River, Lynchburg is known as the "City of Seven Hills" or "The Hill City." Lynchburg was the only major city in...
. This material may today currently reside at the Tamiment Institute at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
. A further group of papers were sold to the Freedom Foundation of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
Valley Forge, Pennsylvania
The Village of Valley Forge is an unincorporated settlement located on the west side of Valley Forge National Historical Park at the confluence of Valley Creek and the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania, United States. The remaining village is in Schuylkill Township of Chester County, but once...
, in 1972. The whereabouts of this latter material remains unknown.
Works
- Christianity The Way. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1929.
- Youth Looks at World Peace: A Story of the First World Youth Peace Conference (Holland, 1928). New York: American Committee World Youth Peace Congress, 1929.
- Traffic in Death: A Few Facts Concerning the International Munitions Industry. New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1934.
- Fascism. With R.E. Shallcross. New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1934.
- "Must America Go Fascist?" Harpers, June 1934, pp. 1-15.
- Partners in Plunder: The Cost of Business Dictatorship (with R.E. Shallcross). Washington, NJ: Consumers' Research, 1935.
- Guinea Pigs No More. Washington, NJ: Consumers' Research, 1936.
- Odyssey of a Fellow Traveler. New York: Mount Vernon Publishers, 1938. —Memoir.
- Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, Investigation of Un-American Propaganda Activities in the United States: Appendix — Part IX, Communist Front Organizations, Second Section. Washington: US Government Printing Office, 1944.—Prepared by Matthews.
- "Did the Movies Really Clean House?" American Legion Magazine, December 1951, pgs. 12, 51-56, 93
- Tactics and Methods of Communism in America: A Harding College Freedom Forum Presentation. Searcy, AR: National Education Program, Harding College, n.d. [1952].
- "Communism and the Colleges", The American Mercury, May 1953, pgs. 111-4
- "Reds and Our Churches", The American Mercury, July 1953, pgs. 3-13
- "Moscow's Medicine Men," The American Mercury, October 1953, pgs. 58-62
- "Red Infiltration of Theological Seminaries", The American Mercury, November 1953, pgs. 31-6
- "Now They're for Stevenson", National Review, February 1956, pgs. 20-1.
- Communism and the NAACP. Atlanta: Georgia Commission on Education, n.d. [circa 1958]
- Robert M. Lichtman, "J.B. Matthews and the 'Counter-subversives: Names as a Political and Financial Resource in the McCarthy Era,'" American Communist History, vol. 5, no. 1 (June 2006), pp. 1-36.
- "The Matthews Story," Time, August 10, 1953.
External links
- Finding Aid for the J. B. Matthews Papers, 1862-1986, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Durham, NC.