He Would Not Name Others

A labour organiser was summoned before a congressional subcommittee investigating communism. He answered fully about himself and his own dealings with the party, but refused to say whether other named people had been members, arguing those questions were outside what the committee had been set up to examine. He was prosecuted for refusing to answer questions 'pertinent to the question under inquiry', tried by a judge without a jury, and convicted. The dispute is whether he could tell what the inquiry's subject actually was.