vol. 2, no. 11

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION-NEWS

FREE SPEECH FREE PRESS FREE ASSEMBLAGE

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.”

Vol. II SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, NOVEMBER, 1937 No. 11

"MAKE A PLEDGE FOR '38!"

A. C.L. U. Supporters Urged To Fill $4000 Budget For Next Year’s Work

Once a year the A.C.L.U. must call upon its Hee enibers and friends for contributions to carry on its work. At this time we are making our third annual drive for funds. We must raise $4,000 NOW in order to carry on the activities of the A.C.L.U. during 1938.

During the past two years the Union has been operating on a budget. The budget plan was introduced to place the Union on a sound financial footing and to eliminate the practice of repeated and annoying appeals to our friends to meet financial obligations. By raising the budget .and living within our income, we have avoided the practice of emergency appeals which is expensive and limits our effectiveness. In this way we have been free to solve civil liberties issues as they arose without interrupting our activities to raise money to carry on. We have adhered to the policy of NO EMERGENCY APPEALS. We guarantee now, as we have during the past two years that, “If each supporter of the Union will NOW make a generous annual or monthly pledge for 1938, WE WILL PROMISE NOT TO BOTHER HIM FOR FURTHER CONTRIBUTIONS FOR ANOTHER YEAR.”

You can help us to fulfill that promise and put the Union upon a secure basis for 1938 by filling out the enclosed card and returning it to us AT ONCE. Sending now as much of your pledge as is convenient or the entire amount will save us the cost of future billing.

Pledge $1.00 a Month

How much should you pledge? If possible, we urge you to pledge $1.00 a month or $12.00 a year. We hope, too, that our friends who are able to exceed that amount or who can increase their subscriptions over last year will do so, for there are supporters who cannot afford the requested pledge, and there may be some who will feel obliged to reduce their previous gifts.

NO OBLIGATION is incurred by your pledge that cannot immediately be withdrawn. The pledge card reads that, “I reserve the right to terminate this pledge whenever I see fit.”’

Paltry Sum

Four thousand dollars is a paltry sum to defend civil liberties in Northern California during 1938. But our budget is small only because our expenses are kept at a minimum and because of the volunteer services we receive. Four thousand dollars could not compensate the lawyers who have so unselfishily given their services throughout the year. Nor could we pay from our budget the many volunteers who carry on in- vestigations for us, help us with the routine office work or who serve on our committees.

Frequently we are asked whether the national office does not help finance the local branch. Let us emphasize that the national office has its own financial worries and that the local peach of the A.C.L.U. is selfsufficient. It receives no financial contribu- tion from New York, nor is it subsidized by the Community Chest or any other organiza- tion. We are wholly dependent upon our local contributors.

During the, past year the Director has been on a salary of $25 per week, while a very capable part-time secretary has been receiving only $50 per month. In all fairnese there should be small increascs.in chese salaries. They should be raised to $125 and $60 per month respectively.

The Budget

Consider our budget for 1938: Salaries.......2,200 Printing and Stationery.............. 750 Postage .....250. Telephone and Telegraph........ 150. Traveling ..... 100 Furniture and Equipment... 50 Miscellaneous ............. 150 Total.... $4,000

We now ask you to do your part in the fight for civil liberties. If you feel that the work of the A.C.L.U. is important and should be continued, won’t you please send a substantial check or pledge for 1938 NOW.

Our appeal, however, is not directed to those who have already made pledges or contributions for the ensuing year. If anyone is in this class, please ignore the pledge card and return envelope that accompanys this month’s edition of the “NEWS.”

COURT DISMISSES LEAFLET CHARGES AGAINST YOUNG SOCIALISTS

Charges against Janet Thurman and Kenneth Bristol, young Socialists who distributed anti-war leaflets during the San Francisco Memorial Day parade, were recently dismissed without trial. They were charged with a violation of Section 5 of Ordinance No. 80, which provides that, “It shall be unlawful for any person, association or corporation to distribute or cause to be distributed, any hand-bills or dodgers upon the streets or sidewalks of the City and County of San Francisco.”’

The Union contended that insofar as the ordinance seeks to regulate the distribution of political literature it abridges freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The defendants were represented by Wayne M. Collins, A.C.L.U. attorney.

Local Immigration Service Recommends Koci's Deportation

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 21. — Frank Koci’s deportation was recommended to the Secretary of Labor today by Daniel G. Mead, Immigration Inspector of the local Immigration Service. The recommendation supersedes a favorable one made last May -by Immigrant Inspector Patrick J. Farrelly who urged that the warrant of arrest be cancelled. Following Farrelly’s. report Washington on September 1 ordered reopening of the hearings. Daniel G. Mead was placed in charge of the case and further testimony taken on October 14. Mead’s recommendation then followed.

Koci was arrested on a warrant dated May i4, 1936, which charged that he pe| aes lieves in and advocates the violent overthrow of the United States government. The arrest was based on a voluntary state‘ment given by one Carmen Joan Dodson.

Subsequently, a further charge of former membership in an organization advocating the violent overthrow of the government, to-wit, the Communist Party, was placed against Koci. Since his arrest he has been at liberty on $1,000 bail.

Only three witnesses testified against Koci, namely, Carmen Joan Dodson and the two immigration officers who effected his arrest—Patrick J. Farrelly and John D. Coffman. After considering the evidence, Inspector Farrelly concluded that Miss Dodson’s testimony was unreliable and recommended that no weight be attached to it. Mr. Mead, on the other hand, who didn’t hear Miss Dodson testify, accepted her testimony without reservation. He failed to consider her conflicting statements and abundant evidence that the witness is psychopathic. It will be remembered that at more than one point in the proceedings while she was undergoing cross-examination and found herself embarrassed Miss Dodson protected herself by accusing the reporter, furnished by the Immigration Service, of reporting her previous testimony incorrectly.

Mr. Mead’s conclusions, however, are entirely consistent with his attitude toward aliens. He told the writer of this article that he would believe any citizen before he believed an alien. There isn’t much that can be done with an alien-hater like that except to get him out of the government oe where he has constant dealings with aliens A transcript of the record, together with the recommendation of Inspector Mead and brief of Koci’s counsel, will now be forwarded to Washington where the case will be passed upon by the Board of Review.

Counsel for the A.C.L.U. will argue the case before the Board.

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"Freedom Is Freedom Without Exception” By BRUCE CATTON

(An editorial reprinted from the Los. Angeles News and syndicated in several hundred newspapers in the United States.) :

For 30 years and more the American people have been accustomed to think of freedom of speech in terms of.a radical on a soap box being allowed to speak his piece without interference from the police.

Such infringements as we have allowed of our cherished principle of the freedom to speak and publish, have in nine cases out of ten been made where radicalism was concerned. And in such cases, the defenders of freedom of speech have often them-. selves been accused of radicalism.

Most frequently accused, perhaps, has been the American Civil Liberties Union. But now comes word that the A.C.L.U. has protested to the city council of Kenosha. Wis., against the council’s action in banning a street demonstration by the Nazi -Volksbund.

The picture of the Civil Liberties Union upholding the right of uniformed Nazis to hold public demonstrations is interesting. It makes clear its own point of view: “We are not concerned with the doctrines of this group,’’ the Union said, “‘but we are convinced that its right to freedom of speech should not be curbed so long as its meetings are peaceful... . Denial of free speech for one group will inevitably lead to denial to others...”

It is irritating to Americans to grant American liberties to groups which, if in power, would grant no liberties to anyone else. . . . Yet the way to reprove these groups is not the way of suppression. ... It is in the free and open air that devious doctrines are fumigated and their explosive powers dissipated. And freedom that is not freedom for groups whose doctrines we may despise, is no freedom at all.

ASSEMBLY COMM. INVESTIGATES — DENIAL OF LABOR’S CIVIL RIGHTS

Assemblyman Paul Richie of San Diego, member of the Civil Liberties ‘Union, has been named Chairman of the Assembly interim Committee on Capital and Labor. Jack B. Tenney, Wilbur F.. Gilbert and John Gee Clark are other liberals named to the Committee: which has a membership of seven. The Committee will investigate “goon squads” in Los Angeles and charges of denial of civil rights in connection with the aqueduct strike at Banning.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA CIVIL LIBERTIES COMMITTEES EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Chairman Dr. Charles A. Hogan Director Ernest Besig Prof. Harold Chapman Brown A. Alan Clark George T. Davis Hugo Ernst Prof. Glenn Hoover Mary Hutchinson Dr. Edgar A. Lowther Dr. Alexander Meiklejohn Judge Jackson H. Ralston Helen Salz Rabbi Jacob J. Weinstein Marie De L. Welch Samuel 8. White Charles Erskine Scott Wood

ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Wayne Collins James J. Cronin, Jr. Morris Grupp Dr. Robert F. Leavens Clarence E. Rust Rev. E. C. Vanderlaan

When Shakespeare invented the inimitable and immortal Justice Shallow, as the representative of all that was unfit and ludicrous on a seat of judgment, he did not really know half of it. It never occurred to him that a court of appeal in a civilized English speaking community could outclass even Shallow in the realm of rusticity and inconsequence. To read the opinion of the appeal court in the case of the People vs. Chambers et al is a shock to ordinary intelligence. It sets one gravely pondering as to the capacity of the higher courts to pass upon questions which involve the opinions and emotionalities of large masses of people. There have been many wicked and unjust decisions of higher courts, of course; but in the whole history of AngloSaxon jurisprudence, or of any other jurisprudence for that matter, we back this opinion against the field for the booby prize.

Anyone,.reading the foregoing paragraph and being ignorant of the subject, might imagine that the court had given an opinion and decision against the defendants. No! As far as the decision is concerned the defendants were triumphantly acquitted and the judgment in the lower court reversed. They are free, after suffering anguish and confinement for the past three years, after being branded as felons, and separated from their families. The court after pages of flatulent discussion ‘states distinctly, ““we would be bound to assume they did not organize, manage or join associations created for the purpose of teaching or advocating criminal syndicalism, for those acts could be performed only by the use of spoken or written language or by the exercise of personal conduct. Under such circumstances neither could they conspire to commit criminal syndicalism without the use of written or spoken language or by the exercise of personal con-” duct.” In spite of the infantilism and grotesquely bad writing of the foregoing, we gather that the court decides that the defendants were not guilty of criminal syndicalism. We remark here that the wretched inadequacy of the opinion, on the literary side, seems to have been recognized by the court itself, for no justice of the court appears to claim the credit for the performance; it is unsigned. The fact is that the court very grudgingly delivers such a decision liberating the defendants. It sidesteps the responsibility for freeing them and places the onus directly upon the prosecution. It says in effect, ‘““we discharge the defendants, but only because the district attorney did not try the case properly;’ he so mismanaged the case, they imply,

NORRIS-LA GUARDIA INJUNCTION ACT BEFORE U. S. SUPREME COURT

For the first time since its passage in 1931, the constitutionality and scope of the Norris-La Guardia Anti-injunction Act will be tested in the U. S. Supreme Court and the question of picketing in the absence of a labor dispute will be determined. The court last month granted a writ to review the appeal of Edward Lauf and the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workers, A. F. of L., against an antipicketing injunction granted E. G. Shinner andCo. in Milwaukee. The American Civil Liberties Union and the International Juridicial Association are filing a brief amicus curiae prepared by Nathan Greene, New York attorney, co-author with Prof. Felix Frankfurter of the standard book on labor injunctions.

The injunction, which prohibits any and all picketing, was handed down on April 6, 1935, by the U. S. District Court during a union organizing campaign at the Milwaukee plant of the Shinner Co. The order was upheld by the Circuit Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit, on the ground that no labor dispute that the jury brought incompatible verdicts, convicting on one indictment and acquitting on a second indictment, consolidated with the first, on exactly the same evidence. There was nothing to do but to reverse the judgment and the court held that ‘‘no good will be subserved by a second trial.”

But the court arrives at this conclusion with very bad grace as a grieved old man who shakes his head and mutters when he is obliged to face conclusions which he has not the power to avoid. So, it spends its wrath upon the defendants in its analysis of the points upor which appellants relied in their attack upon the judgment and the rulings of the lower court. Pages upon pages, twenty-two of them, are taken up with hawkings and snifflings before the justices actually talk. It would be impossible and futile to follow all but we can show an example in the following:

“In the present case there is evidence of a present danger of violating the law. The evidence tends to show that the appellants actually organized associations for the pur- pose of syndicalism; that they taught and advocated the principles of Communism by distributing its literature, and by otherwise aiding, abetting and encouraging others to resort to intimidation, force and violence, to confiscate property and destroy ordained government. There is evidence that they. did participate in strikes in which force and violence were used.”’ ‘

There is no law against organizing associations for the teaching of syndicalism, which is not “criminal syndicalism.” How the communist defendants must cry out in anguish against the very idea that they taught syndicalism of any sort! There is no law against teaching and advocating the principles of communism. There is no law against advocating confiscation of property. Property is confiscated every day, by the government itself and by the operation ‘of capitalist economy, without force or vio- lence. And, what in the name of Heaven is “ordained government?” To hint that a a person, who participates in a strike in which force and violence happen to have been used, is guilty-of criminal syndicalism is the very bathos of futility; for almost every strike has in it the potentialities, at least, of force and violence.

The opinion as a whole appears to be a sort of apology for the necessity of reversal of the judgment. It is obviously intended as a sop to the exploiting agriculturists of the Sacramento Valley in alleviation of pain caused by the reversal.

At all events, the defendants are now at liberty and the story of one of the most hideous persecutions in the history of labor in California is now at an end. was involved within the terms of the Federal Act. On two previous occasions, the U. S. Supreme Court had denied writs of certioriari in cases involving the constitutionality of the Norris-La Guardia Act. In consenting to hear the Lauf v. Shinner case, the Supreme Court will not only determine the constitutionality of the Act but decide whether picketing is permitted by the Norris-La Guardia Act even in the absence of a strike.

—MAKE A PLEDGE FOR ’38—

WIRIN RETURNS TO CALIFORNIA

A. L. Wirin, office counsel at national headquarters of the A.C.L.U. since last April, has resigned to re-enter private practice in Los Angeles. Wirin, who also served as counsel for the Union for a year in 1934-35, has been senior office counsel for the National Labor Relations Board in Washington and is one-time counsel for the Southern California branch of the A.C.L.U. During the Imperial Valley vigilantism 1933-384 Wirin was kidnaped and severely beaten. He continues as a member of the Southern California Committee.

—MAKE A PLEDGE FOR ’38—

Argue Flag Salute — Appeal, Nov. 9th

Arguments in the appeal taken by the Sacramento School Board from the decision of Superior Judge Peter J. Shields holding compulsory flag saluting unconstitutional when it conflicts with a student’s religious beliefs will be heard by the Third District Court of Appeals in Sacramento on November 9. William A. Green, Assistant District Attorney of Sacramento County, will appear for the Board while Wayne M. Collins, A.C.L.U. attorney, will represent Charlotte Gabrielli, now ten years old, who was expelled from school and whose religion declares that it is wrong to bow down before an inanimate object.

The School Board’s final brief recently filed in the case made two principal points:

1. It was the duty of all teachers to impress upon the minds of the pupils the prin- ciples of morality, truth, justice and patriotism.

2. Requiring a student to salute the flag is not a denial of the right of free speech. The brief contains copious quotations from decisions in other jurisdictions denying the right to public school children to refuse to salute the flag on religious -grounds. In all but one of these cases, how ever, a state law requires flag saluting.

—MAKE A PLEDGE FOR ’38—

Industrial Association Spy Got Job Through Police Commissioner

John Pappas secured work as an Industrial Association spy just before the general strike through the good offices of Ward Maillard, member of the San Francisco Police Commission and President of the Chamber of Commerce in 1934. Maillard so testified on the occasion of the re-opening of the hearings in the Pappas deportation case on October 14. The Government seeks to deport Pappas to Greece because of membership in the Communist Party from which he was expelled as a spy. Pappas is defending himself on the ground that he was not in good faith a member of the Communist Party.

Maillard stated Pappas came to him with a hard luck story, offering to sell informa- tion about the activities of Communists in San Francisco. He gent him to Senator Boynton, head of the Industrial Association, and the latter subsequently informed Mail- lard that Pappas had been employed as one of its agents, working under Colonel Samuel I. Johnson, chief of the Industrial Association espionage system.

Colonel Johnson’s testimony was also sought by the government, but a doctor attending Johnson at Fort Miley U. S. Veterans’ Hospital, certified that Johnson was too sick to testify. The reopened hearings have been closed and the local Immigration Service has once again recommended cancellation of the warrant of arrest, to the central office in Washington, D. C.

PLEDGE

I promise to give the sum of §.......... per month or §.................. per year to- ward the support of the American Civil.“ Liberties .Union, No. Calif. Branch 216 Pine St., San Francisco, and I enclose $...................... as payment on the same. I reserve the right to terminate this pledge whenever I see fit. Name Street City Date

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pen Shop Interests Sponsor

Anti-Picketing Ordinance

An important civil liberties issue will be presented to the San Francisco electorate on November 2nd. The question to be decided is “Whether San Francisco will enact Proposition No. 8 which violates Labor’s civil rights by preventing ALL picketing?”

We have contended from the outset that the measure is secretly sponsored by the City’s open shop interests who are intent upon taking from Labor a weapon that is essential to its very existence. The Committee for the ordinance, on the other hand, has righteously insisted that the measure aims solely to protect the general public. “We stand on the fundamental proposition,” declares Sylvester J. McAtee, Chairman of the Campaign Committee for the proposal, ‘“That the general public have the right to demand and insist that peace shall be maintained.”’

Who Financed Initiative Petitions ?

Is it the ‘general public’”’ or the open shop interests of the community that inspired the measure? We sought an answer to this question at the recent debate on Proposition No. 8 sponsored by the League for Industrial Democracy. We asked Judge McAtee to tell us who financed the initiative petitions that placed the anti-picketing measure on the ballot. The Judge fumed and sputtered, but he would not answer the question. He insisted that it was irrelevant and took refuge in the ruling of the Chairman, Sol Silverman, that the question was out of order. Most of the audience thought differently, judging from the applause that greeted two subsequent demands for an answer to the question. But Judge McAtee chose to remain silent. —

If the open shop interests are not masquerading as the “general public” Judge McAtee would have no need for concealment. Make no mistake, the leading adversaries in this fight are Labor, fighting for its existence, and reactionary Capital, intent on an open shop town.

Peaceful Picketing Is Legal

Judge McAtee contends that ALL picketing “‘‘tends to disturb the public peace,” and may therefore be proscribed under the socalled police power of the State. If any in- terference with civil liberties results, he asserts that it is valid because free speech does not mean license, and may be curbed if it “tends to disturb the public peace.’

Judge McAtee would be right if his premise were sound, but that is just where the California courts differ with him. They have held that peaceful picketing is legal: In Lisse v. Waiters’ Union, Local No. 30, 2 California (2nd) 321, at page 326 (1935) the court stated as follows:

**.. the decision of the question whether picketing is lawful or unlawful depends upon the circumstances surrounding each case; that taking every circumstance into” account, if it appears that the object of the picketing is to interfere with those passing in or out by other than persuasive inducement, it is illegal; but that if the design of the picketing is to see who can be the subject of persuasive inducement, such picket| ing is legal, and that whether picketing is lawful or unlawful depends in each par- ticular case upon the conduct of the parties themselves.”’

McAtee Shows Fascist Tendencies

Judge McAtee exposed his fascist tendencies in the recent debate when he pointed out that ‘‘a certain element” is opposing the anti-picketing proposal and named four attorneys who were among those who sought to enjoin the Registrar of Voters from submitting the proposition to the electorate. The names he gave were as follows: Gladstein, Grossman, Margolies and Olshausen. What he meant may be gathered from his omission of the names of Wayne M. Collins and Fitz Gerald Ames who also argued against the proposed ordinance.

The suit in question was filed by the Honest Government Committee. The National Lawyers’ Guild and American Civil Liberties Union appeared as amici curiae. The complaint contended that the proposed ordinance was void in its entirety, and that consequently taxpayers’ money would be wasted in a fruitless election. Judge Elmer E. Robinson, before whom the cause was — heard, denied the injunction on the ground that it was not brought early enough and that it “would cause uncertainty and confusion to the voters to an extent beyond calculation, would prejudice the integrity of the Election as a whole, and possibly jeopardize the validity of the other issues, propositions and candidacies to be voted upon in the Election.”

In conclusion the court stated that it did not “find itself justified in interfering with the legislative policy of the City and County of San Francisco, by making any comment concerning the validity or invalidity of the proposed ordinance. Should the electorate reject the proposed ordinance, its judicial consideration become unnecessary. Should the electorate adopt it, then the question of its validity may be speedily considered and determined at law before a proper tribunal. Meanwhile it remains a political question to be disposed of by the people through their exercise of the right of suffrage.”

We ask all friends of civil liberties in San Francisco to dispose of this matter by voting “NO ON PROPOSITION NO. 8. Don’t fail to vote on November 2nd.. Telephone your friends on election day to see that they have voted.

BAN ON KLAN PARADE IN TOLEDO CONDEMNED BY UNION

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has long fought the Ku Klux Klan, came to its defense this week on an issue of civil rights in Toledo, Ohio, where City Manager John Edy has just denied the Klan a parade permit.

In a telegram to City Manager Edy, signed by Harry F. Ward, chairman, Arthur Garfield Hays, counsel and Roger N. Baldwin, director, the Civil Liberties Union declared:

“If democratic institutions are to be maintained, the right of free speech and assembly must not be infringed even for those whose doctrines should be vigorously op- posed. The Civil Liberties Union urges withdrawal of the ban on the Ku Klux Klan parade solely on the ground that suppression of free speech for one group inevitably leads to a breakdown of civil rights for ail.”

The Union is at present backing the prosecution of Klan members in Tampa, Florida, where the trial for the murder of Joseph Shoemaker in the 1985 floggings of three “Modern Democrats” is in progress.

Frequently assailed by red-baiters as defending only radicals, the Civil Liberties Union has come to the aid of the Ku Klux Klan on several other occasions in the past, notably in Boston some years ago when the Union fought a denial of rights to the Klan by a Catholic mayor.

Several months ago the Union urged the Kenosha, Wis., city council to rescind a ban on a meeting of a local Nazi group.

—MAKE A PLEDGE FOR ’38—

HAVE YOU PAID? If you made a pledge for 1937, and , have a balance owing,: may we urge you to send us a check without delay. The money represented by such unpaid pledges is badly needed to carry us through the months of November and December.

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American Civil Liberties Union News

Published monthly at 216 Pine St., San Franeisco, Calif., by the Northern California Rranch of The American Civil Liberties Union.

Phone: EXbrook 1816 HRNEST BESIG. : Editor PAULINE W. DAVIBG........2....---cc0cc--- Associate Editor Subscription Rates—Fifty Cemts a Year. Five Cents per Copy.

A.C.L.U. TO FIGHT DEPORTATION OF EDITOR MARCUS GRAHAM

Marcus Graham, the editor of a monthly : magazine called MAN, was recently released from the Los Angeles County Jail following the posting of a $1,000 bond by the American Civil Liberties Union. He is charged by the immigration authorities with illegal entry and is to have a hearing . Wednesday, Oct. 27.

At the time of his arrest his room was searched and many of his private papers were seized. He asked the four officers who made the arrest for a search warrant. They showed none but brushed him aside roughly, and then put handcuffs on him and led him away to jail.

Away back in 1919: Graham was first grabbed in the East by Federal officers and held for deportation. But he was later dismissed as the government could not prove from what country he came. He was seized in New York City in 1921, beaten up by the ‘bomb squad and detained for six months.

Then in 1980 he was taken into custody in Yuma, Ariz., and was charged with haying left the country by visiting Juarez, Mex., and re-entering illegally. He was also accused of being a Communist because the arresting officers found in his pocket a copy of “The Anthology of Revolutionary Poetry,” a book of which he ‘himself is the editor and which contains some 400 poems from the pens of authors like Burns, Shelley, Emerson, Shakespeare, etc. He was taken from Yuma to El Centro, Calif., and later was removed to our County Jail here in Los Angeles.

Attorney John Beardsley defended him, and the A. C. L. U. put up $1,000 bail for him. In a series of hearings before the immigration officials he easily proved that he had not left the country illegally, and» that he was not a Communist. In three months he was released.

At the time of his 1930 arrest a committee of rebel poets was organized for his de- fense. The committee gave national publicity to his case and bombarded’ Washington with appeals for his release. Such a committee is again in process of formation and will do its utmost to secure his release, believing, as does the A. C. L. U., that he is being persecuted by the authorities, and that this sort of persecution jeopardizes the freedom of thought and of the press of all rebels.

Graham would be called a philosophical anarchist we presume. One of his friends describes him thus.

“An ascetic, spare and thin, with the eyes of a dreamer, the smile of a friend to all men, the jaw of a fighter, and the hands of a worker, gentle in his manners and burning fiercely in his resolves.’’

SENATE PROBE OF TAMPA FLOGGERS’ ACQUITTAL URGED

NEW YORK, Oct. 23.—Charging Klan influence upon Florida’s high court, the American Civil Liberties Union has urged the Senate Committee on Civil Liberties to investigate the “extraordinary condition” in and around Tampa which led to the acquittal last week of six policemen charged with the flogging to death of Joseph Shoemaker, organizer of ‘‘The Modern Democrats,” in 1935.

In a letter to Senator Robert M. La Follette, Jr., chairman of the Senate Commit- tee, the Union termed the acquittal -“‘a shocking revelation of the power of KKK politics in the Tampa district.”

“The acquittal brings to a final climax the long story of a Klan violence condoned. and encouraged by the officers of the law. Indeed it is not too much to say, in the light of the court treatment of these prosecu

Excerpts From The Court's Opinion In The Sacramento C. 8. Cases

Editor’s Note.—The C. S. defendants have all been released pursuant to the court’s decision reversing the convictions. The opinion is too long to reprint in full. We reprint here a few of the more intelligible paragraphs. See the article “Three Old Men” on page 2

“There is evidence indicating that the appellants were members of the Communist Party and that they were engaged in strikes, parades and labor activities of that organization which organization issued, printed and distributed literature advocating force and violence to procure a change in the ownership and control of property and to destroy ordained governmental institutions. These documents were procured at the Communist Party headquarters in Sacramento, which was frequented by the appellants. There is evidence to indicate that the appellants organized, joined and managed auxiliary associations to advance the cause of Communism. That conduct was clearly in contravention of the provisions of the California Criminal Syndicalism Act. There is also evidence that the appellants participated in agricultural strikes where force and violence were used, although it may be true that the evidence fails to show that they personally instigated them or exercised force and violence therein. There is evidence that these auxiliary associations also taught the same unlawful use of force and violence which is advocated by the Communist Party, including the procuring of changes in the ownership and control of industrial property, and affecting political principles of government. Regarding the necessary elements constituting the several crimes with which the appellants are charged, it may be said that the evidence is conflicting. ...

“The surprising spectacle was presented at the hearing of this case when certain ap- pellants asserted they could expect no justice at the hands of this court for the rea- son that its members were prejudiced against the principles of the Communist Party to which the appellants belonged, forgetting that each member of every judicial branch of our government, and every other public officer elected by any party is required to solemnly swear he will support the Constitution of the United States and uphold the law of the land in order to qualify him to hold such office. ... “Carl Abbott, a police officer of Los Angeles, and a former member of the Communist Party, testified over the objection of the appellants, that he attended a Communist Party meeting in Los Angeles in March, 1930, and heard a Communist speaker say that ‘after the revolution’ the capitalists would be stood up against a wall and shot, and other similar incendiary re- marks. This evidence is remote. It should have been excluded....

“Error is charged in ‘permitting the courtroom to take on the air of an armed camp.’ It is contended the appellants were prejudiced by the presence in the courtroom of uniformed officers of the law, and by permitting officers to escort the prosecution’s witness, Hanks, to and from the courtroom. It does not appear the courtroom was ‘packed with uniformed officers.’ Our attention is called to no such evidence. It is the duty of a court to reasonably protect witnesses while they are engaged in testifying in a cause in court. It will be recalled that Mr. Hanks testified that his life had been threatened by a gun-man, and that he was forced to leave the city on that account. Certainly it is not prejudicial for the court to permit peace officers to escort such a threatened witness to and from the courtroom. Moreover, it does not appear the court had anything to do with the presence of any officers except the regular courtroom officials. There is no error in that regard.

“Mr. Gallagher, in his brief, asserts that the appellant’s desire to prove a ‘direct tieup between the State’ apparatus and the vigilantes—to show that the theory of the Communist Party (is) that the State ap> paratus is to break strikes; that the State apparatus is used as an instrument of force to protect the interests of the capitalist class at the expense of the working class.’ Such evidence is visionary and in- competent. It would be immaterial even though the Communists believed it to be true, for it would not then justify the use of force and violence on the part of individuals or organizations to defy duly elected officers of the law or to destroy the government. Every presumption is in favor of the lawful exercise of the duties of public officers. The theory that state officers and institutions are secretly procured contrary to their oaths and avowed purposes to unlawfully and violently interfere with peaceful strikes in the interest of the capitalistic class and against the rights of the working class is erroneous and fanciful. That extravagant theory is the creation of a prejudiced mind. It is not suscepible of proof. There was no error in refusing to consume the time of the court and jury in tions, that the influence reaches up to the highest court in the state.”’

The collapse of the half-hearted prosecution, according to the Union, makes it opportune for the Senate Committee to intervene. Exposure of conditions in Tampa would “‘go far to check long continued lawlessness,”’ the A.C.L.U. declared.

Shoemaker was killed, and Eugene F. Poulnot and Dr. Samuel A. Rogers severely beaten when they refused to leave town on Klan orders. Five Tampa ex-policemen were found guilty and sentenced to four years in prison on a charge of kidnaping Poulnot, but the convictions were reversed in July by the State Supreme Court and a new trial ordered.

‘In the trial of the six former policemen for second degree murder last week, Judge Robert T. Dewell directed the jury to acquit all the defendants on the ground that the State had not proved “the actual or constructive presence” of any of the men at the scene of the crime. Almost two-thirds of the State’s case had been ruled inadmissable by the court.

The Committee for the Defense of Civil Rights in Tampa, of which the A.C.L.U. is a member, has been pressing prosecution of the floggers. —MAKE A PLEDGE FOR ’38— pursuing such a phantasm.”’ GENERAL GLASSFORD URGES POLICE CHIEFS TO RESPECT BILL OF RIGHTS Of particular interest to civil libertarians is the action of General Pelham D. Glassford in distributing to the International Association of Chiefs of Police which met in Baltimore recently copies of the LaFollette committee report on the Memorial Day massacre at. South Chicago. With each copy was a telegram from Glassford reminding the convention that it had an “unusual opportunity for public service by exposing thoroughly and without whitewash police brutality and cowardice, with particular emphasis on South Chicago’s atrocious Memorial Day savagery.’ It went on to say: “‘The existing American conception of the dumb and lawless cop must be dissipated. I recommend that the International Association stand morally and financially behind any chief refusing to employ police in violation of the Bill of Rights or for other unlawful motive.”’

General Glassford was police commissioner of Washington at the time of the bonus- army march, and for a short time served as Chief of Police in Phoenix, Arizona. In California he will be remembered particularly as the courageous Imperial Valley la- bor mediator who strongly condemned vigiFFlantism inthe agricultural strikes of 1934.