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While theoretically the various parts of the Baltimore Soviet where separate
and distinct, there was in fact some confusion about the relationship between the
MWIU, the relief set-up, and the CSB. Initially, the CSB attempted to make the
Anchorage its headquarters along with the seaman's relief committee. But when
panicky government officials made the CSB move, it found a new home in the
nearby MWIU headquarters. The MWIU, though, made a consistent attempt to
keep the three organizations separate and focused on their specific, though
reciprocal, agendas. All evidence encountered confirms that the services offered by
the CSB and the relief program really were equally available to non-M W1U and
MWIU seamen alike. And as with the relief program's Seamen's Subcommittee, a
majority of those initially elected to the CSB's United Front Committee were not
initially members of the MWIU (though, again, most seem to have subsequently
joined). Furthermore, on one occasion, when some IWW seamen objected to the
CSB dealing with shippers who did not pay the 1929 wage scale, the MWIU
responded by arguing that the CSB had to be open to all shippers or it would
become isolated. It was, the United Front Committee argued, the job of trade
unions not CSB to fight for improved wages and working conditions, not the CSB/^

To the MWIU, the CSB and the seamen-controlled relief set-up were united
front efforts, with very specific united front goals. This did not mean that the
radical MWIU would not take advantage of the freedom of speech won within
these institutions. A unhappy ISU seamen wrote FERA to complain about the
situation he found at both the Anchorage and the MWIU hall:

This hall and another near it called the recreation hall is completely filled
with Communist propaganda.... There were signs about the 'Scottsboro
Martyrs' and pleas for racial equality and the 'Daily Worker* was there.

This seamen was as disturbed by the racial equality he saw as by the radicalism: he
wrote angrily about "One 'fellow worker* a darky that should have been flogged"
who criticized FDR, referring to the President as "Rosie." It is however significant