Education: Bella & the Union

Mrs. Bella V. Dodd is a fiery, black-haired lawyer who once taught political science at Manhattan’s Hunter College. She helped found the stridently left-wing New York Teachers’ Union, in 1944 openly joined the Communist Party. To the Daily Worker, she was “tops, A-1 in’party circles,” was even elevated to the national committee of the Communist Party. Then, in 1949, her career suddenly fell apart. The party expelled her for “fascist and anti-working-class activity.” One of her former colleagues spat in her face.

Last week Bella Dodd announced that after months of instruction from Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, she had been baptized conditionally and returned to the Roman Catholic Church. She also had a warning for New Yorkers: her old teachers’ union is riddled with Reds.

In 1944 she knew of some 1,000 dues-paying party members, though “not all of them were genuine, hard-bitten Communists. I am convinced that most of them would resign if they were not afraid—afraid of being vilified and smeared by the party and its agents.” But genuine or not, says Mrs. Dodd, they serve the Communist conspiracy and should therefore be dismissed.