Representatives of WEVD and 109 other threatened stations made their way to Washington, D.C. in July 1928 for two weeks of regulatory hearings on the issue. Station manager Gerber responded with a statement emphasizing the importance of defending free speech and the right of political minorities to submit their ideas to a broad public. Party leader Norman Thomas echoed this perspective, declaring the value of WEVD and other community stations as a bulwark against a "big chain system" which tended to "standardize — to make robots and Babbitts of the American people."