[1] He was among the professors accused of "Communistic attitudes" and was dismissed after a student, Thane Summers, volunteered in the Spanish Civil War and died in Spain.

De Lacy spoke against conscription in 1940, but backed down and called for extending the draft in reaction to Operation Barbarossa in 1941.

[9] According to historian of American Communism Harvey Klehr, De Lacy was a secret member of the Communist Party USA at the time of his 1937 election.

[4] De Lacy's party membership was first publicly confirmed by the former Executive Secretary of the Washington Commonwealth Federation, Howard Costigan, who declared in sworn testimony delivered to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1954 that he had sat with De Lacy on the governing bureau of the Seattle district of the CPUSA from 1937 to 1939.

Harvey Klehr noted that by 1944, De Lacy moderated his political views and became "once more a loyal New Dealer and won election to Congress for one term".

[1] De Lacy and his Washington Commonwealth Federation held monthly community fundraisers they called hootenannies.