WORLD WAR I AND ITS AFTERMATH

Kate Richards O’Hare, Socialist woman speaker—only woman member of the Socialist Party’s national committee—was sentenced in Fargo, North Dakota, to five years “for discouraging enlistment.” Rose Pastor Stokes, who had temporarily gone along with her millionaire husband and others in supporting the war and withdrawing from the Socialist Party, had returned after the Russian Revolution and had resumed speaking for the party. She was sentenced to ten years in Kansas City for a letter she wrote to the Kansas City Star, correcting a report of what she had said in a speech on the government and profiteering. Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, who organized a No-Conscription League, were sentenced to two years for conspiracy to violate the Conscription Law, and on the expiration of their sentences were both deported to Russia.

Mollie Steimer, 19 years old, and three young men were sentenced to 20 years for publishing a leaflet denouncing intervention in Russia and calling for a general strike among munition workers against the use of arms against Russia. This is the case in which Supreme Court Justice Holmes gave his famous “clear and present danger” minority opinion and in which Justice Brandeis concurred. They did not believe that any such danger existed in this case and expressed their conviction that the defendants had been deprived of their rights under the Constitution of the United States.

Dr. Marie D. Equi of Portland, Oregon, suffragist and sympathizer with the IWW, was sentenced to three years under the Espionage Act over a month after the Armistice had ended the war. Irish nationalists were sent to prison in New York and Hindu nationalists were jailed in California. These are only a few of literally hundreds of cases all over the country in which men and women suffered long prison terms. There were comparatively few actual pro-Germans arrested. A few Germans accused of espionage were deported.

European countries had been at war on their own soil for over four years when the Armistice arrived on November 11, 1918. The people there were war weary and in revolutionary motion. Royal dynasties had collapsed in Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Russian Socialist Revolution, with its slogan of “Peace and Bread,” hastened the general peace, although the Allies, including the United States, attempted by armed intervention to force the Russians to stay in the war. When it became known in the United States that American armed forces were actually on Russian soil, in Siberia, this met with widespread opposition. Particularly in Detroit and Seattle, from whence came the American soldiers who were in this expeditionary force, there were protest demonstrations demanding their return. The soldiers and even their commander, General Graves, were accused by the war forces here of being “pro-Bolsheviks” because they attempted to maintain a neutral attitude and confine their efforts to guarding allied military supplies. Their stand was universally supported in this country.

The United States had heen in the war in an active military capacity only a year and seven months when the Armistice was declared. It had suffered less, so far removed from the battlefront, than other participants. But peace was welcomed here, too, in a delirium of joy. The killing was over. Impromptu parades, dancing and singing in the streets,


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occurred on 5 th Avenue in New York and on the main streets of all cities and towns from coast to coast. Strangers clasped hands and hugged and kissed each other. Factories, stores and offices shut down, schools were dismissed, churches were opened for prayer. A spontaneous holiday was declared in which everybody joined. It was beautiful to behold.

For the peace-loving forces of America, Armistice Day was saddened, however, by the thought of thousands of American youths who would not return and hundreds of Americans in prison for their religious, labor or political opposition to the war. Over 8,000 had been convicted for violating the draft alone. But their sentences were generally of short duration. The majority of those whom we called “political prisoners” were in federal prisons under wartime free speech convictions for long sentences up to 20 years. The conscientious objectors, who had refused to register, were in military prisons and numbered nearly 400. They were both religious and political. Their sentences too, were severe—up to 35 years.

In round figures, our estimate of those in all prisons, or convicted and soon to go, totaled approximately 1,500 cases at the war’s end. For us in the left-wing Socialist and labor movement the Armistice cleared the decks for a campaign for Amnesty for all wartime political prisoners, which we immediately launched. We demanded the cessation of further prosecutions under these wartime laws which had restricted freedom of speech and assemblage. But we were not alone. Liberals, pacifists, church leaders, professionals and many conservative labor leaders, even congressmen and senators, participated for the next five years in the Amnesty movement, until President Coolidge freed the last 31 political prisoners at Christmas of 1923. The freeing of all the men and women who were political prisoners of World War I was a notable achievement. It represented the hard work of hundreds of devoted people throughout the land, constant agitation and demonstrations, and unremitting demands upon all government agencies— addressed to the President, to congress, and to all the various officials and departments involved.

We had fought as best we could, even during the war, and continued throughout the Armnesty campaign, to demand the status of “political prisoners” for Debs, the IWWs and all others. Such a status had long been recognized in other countries, even in the most backward and tyrannical absolute monarchies, as in tsarist

In England a committee to help us here was organized. It was called Class War Prisoners Release Committee, and had as members George Lansbury, editor of the Daily Herald, Tom Mann of the Engineers Union, Robert Williams and Ben Smith of the Transport Workers, and Harry Pollitt, representing the Boilermakers. Their leaflet read in part as follows:

They recommended that protests go to the Foreign Office, to the American Ambassador, to President Harding and to the Labor Party.

Besides the hundreds of men and women, wartime labor and political prisoners who were already serving long terms on Armistice Day 1918, the untried wartime cases and those still on appeal at various court levels included an even greater number. To secure the release of all of these—some 1,500 Socialists, IWWs, radical individuals and religious opponents of war—was the purpose of our amnesty campaign. The Communist Party did not come into existence until a year later, although many of the Socialists involved were attached to the left-wing movement in the Socialist Party, a forerunner of the Communist Party. Little did we anticipate that the tasks we assumed after Armistice Day would become multiplied a hundred-fold by a whole host of new attacks during the next two years—with the Palmer raids which precipitated state cases all over the country under criminal anarchy and syndicalist laws; with the struggles against the deportation of foreign-born workers and finally seven long and tragic years of tireless efforts to save the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti from a dastardly frame-up that finally took their innocent lives in the electric chair at Charlestown, Massachusetts. However, we tackled our immediate job with spirit and determination. It prepared us for the stormy days ahead, which came upon us in 1919.

The only organization then in existence which attempted to cope with these problems was the National Civil Liberties Bureau, led by Albert De Silver and Roger Baldwin. But it had been set up as a committee of individuals to deal with wartime problems of free opinion and conscience. They were all busy people and served as volunteers. It was not staffed or equipped to handle a large-scale fund-raising job nor to mobilize the labor movement. It had attempted to set up a Liberty


AMNESTY FOR ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS, 1918 TO 1923 245

Defense Union of similar progressive individuals but they were all too busy in other fields and it dissolved, leaving its assets in the hands of a subcommittee of the Civil Liberties Bureau headed by Charles Ervin, editor of the New York Call, and Scott Nearing of the Rand School. They felt strongly the urgency of reaching the unions if we were to get the Amnesty campaign off the ground. They gave me a credential on November 8, 1918, to organize a delegate body—a Workers Liberty Defense Union. The emphasis was on workers. They advanced $250 in funds left by the defunct organization to pay my salary for nine weeks. By that time we were a going concern.

We had a founding conference on December 18, 1918, at the Forwards Hall, with delegates coming from 163 organizations. Among these were locals from the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the Brotherhood of Painters, Decorators and Paperhangers; the Furriers Union, the International Ladies Garment Workers, the Socialist Party, the Teachers Union, the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, the IWW, the Young Socialist League, the Workmen’s Circle and many others. It was a representative gathering—far more than we had expected. On January 5, 1919, at our next meeting, we adopted a working program of “Objects” and “Means”—with a resolution defining the range of our activities. Fred Biedenkapp, an officer of the Brotherhood of Metal Workers, was elected treasurer, Simon Schachter, who represented the Furriers Joint Board, was elected secretary, and I officially became the organizer. Later, Ella Bloor became our field organizer.

Fred Biedenkapp was a German-American; his father had been a friend and associate of Albert Parsons and of the German workers hung in Chicago in 1887. One hand had been badly crippled at work in a machine shop. His union was an offshoot from the International Association of Machinists. Fred was a picturesque figure. He and Luigi Antonini, who was also one of our delegates from the ILGWU, both wore black flowing ties, called “anarchist ties.” Fred signed his name on all our checks in red ink, to the amusement of the bank tellers.

He gave us the use of a small back room in his union offices at the Rand School, 7 East 15th Street, and there we functioned for four years. There were bars on the windows, it was dark and gloomy, facing a small closed airshaft. We had the electric lights on all day. Fumes of nearby factories polluted the air. I often felt I, too, was in jail and when the others came out I, too, would be freed. We moved in

Our relationship with the National Civil Liberties Bureau remained close and friendly. Albert De Silver, its director, wrote to Biedenkapp on January 14, 1919, regretting that they could no longer pay my salary because the funds ran out: “The work she has done has been most admirable. I should like to express my satisfaction at the successful organization of the Workers Defense Union and to wish you all success.” A year later, in finally closing up all the accounts of the old Liberty Defense Union, Roger Baldwin sent us $227.17 to be used for defense purposes. We were like a godchild of the Civil Liberties Bureau.

In 1920 the National Civil Liberties Bureau dissolved and the Civil Liberties Union succeeded it as a permanent organization to deal with the postwar civil liberties issues. On their invitation the Workers Defense Union became a local affiliate and we continued as such until we dissolved in 1923. I became a founding member of the National Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union in January 1920, by invitation of L. Hollingsworth Wood, Norman Thomas, Albert De Silver and Roger Baldwin. In its earlier days this organization did yeoman service for civil liberties and for amnesty, and it also participated in the defense of Tom Mooney, the IWWs, Sacco and Vanzetti, and countless deportees. Courageous and notable liberals of that day were on its national committee, such as Jane Addams, John Lovejoy Elliott, James Weldon Johnson, Oswald Garrison Villard, Father John A. Ryan, Frank P. Walsh, Helen Keller, Vida Scudder, Frederic C. Howe, Robert Morse Lovett, Judah L. Magnes, Dr. Harry F. Ward, Mary McDowell, Rose Schneiderman and many others. My name on their early listing was followed by William Z. Foster of Pittsburgh and his name was followed by Felix Frankfurter of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

I remained a member there for 20 years and treasured my association with many wonderful people. Then I was expelled in 1940 because of my membership in the Communist Party.

When we launched the Workers Defense Union in December 1918 we set forth our purposes very specifically. We knew otherwise we might

We pledged to agitate against the policy of deportation for political opinions. One of our main tasks was to work for the establishment of a recognized status for “political prisoners”—for all categories—such as was accorded to their counterparts in European countries. We demanded, finally, that the U.S. Government respect the rights of free press, free speech and free assemblage, which was supposed to be guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Our Slogan “Free Your Fellow-workers” was printed on a magnificent cartoon made especially for us by Robert Minor.

The means we set forth included news publicity to papers, mass meetings, visits to unions, leaflets, raising of defense funds and bail, and the development of an organization looking toward a permanent national workers defense council, consolidating all existing committees. This was realized in 1925 with the organization of the International Labor Defense, which did splendid work throughout the balance of the 1920s and throughout the 30s. We suggested tentatively in our statement of purposes that if all else should fail, the desirability of a general strike of protest be considered. However, we decided to exclude from our deliberations and activities all extraneous subjects not directly connected with our immediate objects, because of the widely divergent views on political and economic subjects held by members of our delegate body. This went a long way to cementing our ranks, because everybody—from extreme anarchists on the left to conservative trade unionists on the right—felt strongly about the injustice of wartime prosecutions of fellow Americans and was willing to fight for their release. The imprisoned comrades, of whatever persuasions, were a bond of unity. It wasn’t always easy to keep all other issues out in those turbulent times, but we did succeed to a remarkable degree in all pulling together for a common purpose.

One of our first undertakings was to publicize the facts of each case,

In those far-off days, the prisoners were allowed to write to many people outside. I have a stack of letters from the prisoners of that time. I was allowed to reply officially, as organizer of the Workers Defense Union, and to do many chores for them. We published their letters, including poems and literary products. Today, the imprisoned Communist leaders are restricted to correspondence with their families only. All others are screened out by the Department of Justice. Even the subject matter to and from their families is severely censored and these prisoners are threatened with punishment if any part of their letters is published or read in public.

In the twenties an organization like ours was allowed to send the prisoners money, books, Christmas presents and other articles, such as games, small looms for hand-weaving and musical instruments. At Christmas, we sent large packages with underwear, sweaters, nuts, candy, etc. Today no relief committee is allowed direct contact with the Communist political prisoners. All dealings are limited to families, and what they are allowed to do is much more circumscribed. Lawyers are allowed to visit them today only if litigation is pending. In the twenties, through the regular visits of lawyers, we were able to secure special diets for some, to fight to remove others from “the hole,” to protest work assignments that were unsuitable for the age and physical condition of the prisoners, and to some extent, to alleviate bad prison