vol. 10, no. 1

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION-NEWS

FREE SPEECH FREE PRESS FREE ASSEMBLAGE

“Eternal is the price of liberty.”

Vol. X SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, JANUARY 1945 No. 1

NISEI EXLUSION ENDS JAN. 2

Supreme Court Upholds Exclusion At Time It Was Made, But Invalidates Detention of Loyal Citizens Commending the War Department for a “belated act of justice to American citizens of Japanese ancestry,” the American Civil Liberties Union last month telegraphed Secretary of War Stimson to express approval of the order by Maj. General H. Conger Pratt, effective January 2, permitting the return to the Pacific Coast military area of loyal Japanese, Americans. The ACLU registered disappointment, however, with the U. S. Supreme Court decision in the Korematsu case, handed down the next day, December 18, in which the court upheld the original evacuation of Japanese-Americans. The court’s opinion in the Endo case, handed down at the same time, is also disappointing. In effect, it simply declares that the War Relocation Authority went beyond its powers in detaining “citizens who are concededly loyal”, and, over the objections of Justices Murphy and Roberts, nimbly side-stepped the constitutional issues connected with the im- prisonment of citizens of Japanese ancestry in concentration camps. It is noteworthy that the military acted one day before the decisions weve handed down.

Local Branch Handled Korematsu Case —

The Korematsu case was handled and financed by the Northern California branch of the A. C. LL. U., represented by Wayne M. Collins of San Francisco, who not only worked without fee, but also contributed by paying his own expenses for two trips to Washington in appearing before the Supreme Court. The local branch co-operated with Attorney James Purcell in the Endo case, and through Attorney Wayne M. Collins, appeared as amicus curiae at all stages of the proceeding.

The A.C.L.U. telegram to Secretary Stimson read in part: “We are deeply gratified at the order issued by Major General Pratt permitting the return to the West Coast Military area of loyal Japanese-Americans. In our judgment their original evacuation on grounds of racial ancestry was indefensible since military safety obviously applied with equal force to those of Japanese ancestry in Hawaii, and to German and Italian aliens on both the West and East coasts. This unprecedented evacuation constitutes in our judgment the worst single wholesale violation of the civil rights of American citizens in our history.”

Further Court Action Pressed

Following Major General Pratt’s action in lifting the general ban against Japanese-Americans, the A.C.L.U. will press court actions against military exclusion orders applied to allegedly disloyal individuals, which General Pratt said would continue in effect. The first such action will be heard before Federal District Judge Pierson M. Hall of Los Angeles some time in January, when A. L. Wirin, counsel for the Southern California Branch of the Union will ask the court for an injunction restraining the army from excluding Dr. George Ochikubo, Japanese-American dentist, certified loyal by the War Relocation Authority, but not accepted as such by the army.

Valid Exercise of War Power

By a six to three vote the U. S. Supreme Court on December 19, in an opinion delivered by Justice Black, denied the appeal of Fred T. Korematsu against the evacuation order. ‘In the light of the principles we announced in the Hirabayashi case,” said the court, “we are unable to conclude that it was beyond the war power of Congress and the Executive to exclude those of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast war area at the time they did. True, exclusion from the area in which one’s home is located is a far greater deprivation than constant confinement to the home from 8 p. m. to 6 a. m. Nothing short of apprehension by the proper military authorities of the gravest imminent danger to the public safety can constitutionally justify either. But exclusion from a threatened area, no less than curfew, has a definite and close relationship to the prevention of espionage and sabotage. The military authorities, charged with the primary responsibility of defending our shores, concluded that curfew provided inadeso, as pointed out in our Hirabayashi opinion, in accordance with Congressional authority to the military to say who should, and who should not remain in the threatened areas.”

Three Justices Dissent

Strong dissents were entered by Justices Murphy, Roberts and Jackson, who all upheld the view advanced by the A.C.L.U., that the evacuation was unconstitutional. Justice Jackson said the majority decision “distorted the constitution to approve all the military may deem expedient”, (Continued on Page 4, Col. 2)

MASS EXCLUSION REPLACED BY INDIVIDUAL EXCLUSION PROGRAM

Under General H. C. Pratt’s order of December 17, a program of individual exclusions will Pacific Coast. The order declares that “The present military situation makes possible modification and relaxation of restrictions and the termination of the system of mass exclusion of persons of Japanese ancestry ... and permits the substitution for mass exclusion of a system of individual determination and exclusion of those individuals whose presence within sensitive areas of the Western Defense Command is deemed a source of potential danger to the military security thereof.’’ General Pratt has also stated, “It is not contemplated that any list will be published to the general public of thos whose exclusion is to be continued.”

The new program will operate in two ways. Some persons who receive individual exclusion orders will simply be barred from the Pacific Coast, while others will be kept at Tule Lake for the duration. Apparently, citizens and aliens will be treated alike.

Representatives of the Western Defense Command were reported to have appeared at the various centers immediately after the mass exclusion order was rescinded to serve persons with individual exclusion orders. They were also to “notify those individuals whose cases have not yet been determined and interview such individuals in order to determine their final status.”

Departure from centers for those allowed to leave was set by the Army to begin on Jan- uary 20. Under the decision in the Endo case, however, it would seem that those whose loyalty is unquestioned should be allowed to leave centers forthwith.

quate protection and ordered exclusion. They did

replace the mass exclusion of Japanese from the

Supreme Court Bans Jim Crow Contracts —

Discrimination in collective bargaining against Negro fellow-employees by trade unions which deny them membership was declared illegal by the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Tunstall and Steele cases handed down December 19th. The American Civil Liberties Union had filed briefs in both cases. Tunstall and Steele, two Negro firemen, sued to force the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen and two Southern railroads to abrogate collective bargaining contracts under which Negroes were being displaced from their jobs on Southern railroads. The Supreme Court unani- mously upheld the Negroes’ claims to representation in negotiation between employees and management.

Chief Justice Stone delivered the opinion in both cases, holding that the Brothernood as the ‘S exclusive bargaining agent is obliged to repre| sent all employees under the Railway Labor Act. “Unless the labor union representing a craft owes some duty to represent non-union members — of the craft, at least to the extent of not dis— criminating against them as such in the contracts which it makes as their representative”, Justice Stone said, “the minority would be left -with no means of protecting their interests, or indeed, their right to earn a livelihood by pursuing the occupation in which they are employed.” The court compared a trade union which enjoys bargaining rights under the law to. a legislature, and said that both are constitutionally obliged to give equal protection to those whom they represent.

A.C.L.U. lawyers pointed out that this decision would apply. not only to unions operating under the Railway Labor Act, but those under the National Labor Relations Act, or any union enjoying exclusive bargaining rights..

Naval Board Weighs Negro Seabees’ Appeal For Honorable Discharges

A five-man Naval Board of Review in Washington, D. C., is now weighing the appeal heard December 11 'of a group of Negro Seabees asking that discharges “without honor” given them at a Caribbean naval base last year be cancelled. The hearing was one of the first held under the recently passed G. I. Bill of Rights. Four of the — nineteen Negroes originally discharged appeared before the board testifying that they were dis- charged merely because they had criticized Jim Crow conditions at their base at a private meeting on invitation of their commanding officer. They asked for honorable discharges. Captain Anton B. Anderson, chairman of the board, said it would be two or three weeks before a decision would be announced. The American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, the CIO War Relief Committee, and the Lynn Committee to Abolish Segregation in the Armed Forces were all represented at the hearing in support of the Negroes’ appeal. In a “bill of particulars” presented by the Navy the Negroes were charged among other things with “participating in seditious meetings, refusing to obey orders, giving vent to radical . ideas, attempting strikes, and threatening sabotage.” Testimony showed, however, that only two of the nineteen discharged had previously been punished for infractions of -discipline.

Page 2

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION-NEWS

Union Urges High Officials To Free Fifty Negro Sailors

Charging that fifty Negro survivors of the Port Chicago disaster, recently convicted on mutiny charges, were the victims of race prejudice, the Executive Committee of the Northern California branch of the American Civil Liberties Union last month adopted a resolution urging Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal and President Roosevelt to remit the 8 to 15 year sentences meted out to the fifty seamen.

Under the resolution, the Secretary of the Navy is also “requested and urged to investigate discriminatory treatment accorded to Negroes in the 12th Naval District”.

It would be helpful if interested persons sent ‘appropriate letters to President Roosevelt and to Secretary Forrestal, and if the following or a similar resolution were adopted by other organizations and sent to the same officials:

WHEREAS, on October 24, 1944, fifty. Negro seamen were convicted by a court martial for failing to load ammunition at’ Mare Island on August 8, 1944, and were, thereafter, sentenced to prison terms ranging from 8 to 15 years; and

WHERBEAS, the fifty convicted Negro seamen were survivors of the explosion at Port Chicago on July 17, 1944, in which 322 men, the majority of them Negroes, were killed; and

WHEREAS, twelve of the fifty convicted Negroes were hospitalized as a result of the Port Chicago explosion, while several others required ast aid treatment for shock, bruises and burns;

WHEREAS, half of the convicted men were assigned to details to pick up in baskets the remains of their comrades immediately after the Port Chicago disaster; and

WHEREAS, contrary to practice, none of the fifty men was granted survivor’s furlough or any furlough after the Port Chicago disaster, nor a change of location and duties; and

WHEREAS, testimony was adduced at the court martial hearing showing that some of the fifty Negro defendants were on the sick list at the time they failed to load ammunition, while all were still suffering from shock; and —

WHEREAS, the ammunition loading job these men were called upon to do was made even more hazardous by also assigning many inexperienced eeu who were required to work at eon speed ; an

WHEREAS, only fifty of the 258 men who failed to load ammunition were singled out for court martial; and

WHEREAS, the foregoing facts demonstrate’ that these fifty Negro seamen suffered discrimination; and

WHEREAS, the morale of the country’s Negro population has been seriously affected by the harsh treatment accorded the Negro survivors of the Port Chicago disaster; “NOW, THEREFORE, be it

RESOLVED, that the Northern California Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union respectfully petitions the President of the United States and the Secretary of the Navy to correct a shecking injustice permeated by racial prejua by remitting the sentences of these fifty envicted Negro seamen; and, be it further

"RESOLVED, that the Secretary of the Navy is requested and urged to investigate discrimina tory treatment accorded Negroes in ne 12th Naval District.

California Court Frees Hindu Student From Army

Major General Lewis B. Hershey was scored for “arbitrary and capricious” ruling in the classification of Asit Ranhan Ghosh, Hindu student recently inducted into the army, by Federal District Judge Pierson M. Hall of Los Angeles. The Judge’s criticism was made in granting Ghosh a write of habeas corpus, on an application made by A. L. Wirin and J. B. Tietz, counsel for the | Southern California Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Judge Hall said his decision was influenced by the fact that Hindus, under the present naturalization laws, are prohibited from becoming citizens, and that it was unjust to force a person to defend a country which denied him the rights of citizenship. Judge Hall in his oral opinion * also criticized General Hershey for hearing appeals, when Congress had originally provided that they should be heard by a civilian and not a military Cee employee”,

The U. S. District Court for the Northern District of California last July 1 adopted a rule which in effect denies or seriously impairs the right to bail, particularly of impecunious defendants, in the local federal district courts. This rule provides that ‘the money, bonds, or notes’ deposited as bail “shall be treated as the property of. the party for whom the deposit was made.” Then, if the defendant is convicted and the sentence carries with it a fine, which he is unable to pay, “the Clerk of the Court is authorized to collect or sell the deposited bonds or notes.” In short, if you post bail for a friend in this federal district, it may be confiscated to satisfy any fine imposed upon your friend.

The general public and the lawyers have had practically no notice of this rule. The various judges put the rules into operation on July 1, but the only copy of the rules available at this time is in the hands of the Clerk of the Court. Since July 1 the new rules have made a couple of trips to a printer back East and revisions have been made, but even now the rules of court are not available for distribution.

As far as the Union can ascertain, the first case in which the new rule was applied involved one Carl Danstrom, of San Jose, a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses. On November 16, 1944, he was convicted for failing to report for induction into the armed forces. He was sentenced to two years in the Federal prison, and also fined $1000 by Federal Judge St. Sure. Danstrom was unable to pay the fine, and the Clerk of the District Court, relying on the rule in question, has thus far refused to return to his bondsman, W. O. Furtwengler of San Jose, the $2500 cash bail which he deposited in the case. Nevertheless, the Clerk has agreed to discuss the matter with the U. S. Attorney and then advise Mr. Furtwengler what will be done.

Furtwengler informs the Civil Liberties Union that this bail money was collected from various members of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the San Jose “ area, that it was never the intention of any of the persons who lent their money to pay any fine that might be imposed on Danstrom, and

PACIFIST TEACHER LOSES APPEAL TO FLORIDA SUPREME COURT

A pacifist teacher cannot inculcate the principles of “honesty and patriotism’’, according to a recent decision of the Florida Supreme Court denying an appeal by Edward O. Schweitzer, pacifist, for an order reinstating him as a science teacher in the Ada Merritt Junior High School in Dade County, Florida. Schweitzer was dismissed by his county school board last year after he had applied for and received classificacation in 4E as a conscientious objector.

In denying his appeal, the court held that “the true test of patriotism can accurately be measured by the willingness of the citizen to bear arms and fight in the defense of his country”, and that Schwietzer was therefore legitimately dismissed under the Florida law which provides that a teacher must inculcate “by precept and example the principles of truth, honesty, patriotism, and the practice of Christian virtue’. The National Committe on Conscientious Objectors of the ACLU is considering an appeal from this decision to the U. S. Supreme Court.

TO SUPPORT SUPREME COURT APPEAL AGAINST ALABAMA LABOR LAW

The American Civil Liberties Union has decided to support an appeal by A. F. of L. attorneys to the U. S. Supreme Court against the Alabama “Anti-labor Law” (the Bradford Act). The Supreme Court on November 20th agreed to hear the case.

The ACLU will contend that the provisions of the act forcing unions to file a complete annual financial statement “of all fees, dues, fines, or assessments, together with an itemized list of all disbursements, with names of recipients and purposes therefor”, as well as lists of their constitutions, by-laws, officers, and agents, are an unconstitutional interference ete freedom of organization.

The ACLU will alco oppose another section of the law which makes it illegal for any “executive, administrative, professional, or supervisory to be a member of a union which admits ordinary employees to membership, as an unreasonable restriction upon labor’s right to organize.

that in some cases the money came from the savings of elderly people. On its face, the rule would seem to be limited to cases in which money or negotiable bonds or notes had been posted. No mention is made of surety bonds, nor of bonds secured by real property. Thus, on its face, the rule would seem to work in favor of surety companies and also in favor of defendants who have the money to buy surety bonds or who have friends owning real property that is free and clear of encumbrances.

Nevertheless, in practice the court has refused to release a surety bond where a fine has not been paid. In the case of Salvatore Maugeri of Santa Cruz, who was recently convicted on a narcotics charge, the District Court Clerk’ has not. only refused to release the $10,000 cash bail put up by bail bond broker A. Boyd Puccinelli of San Francisco, but has also refused to exonerate the $15,000 surety bond because a $10,000 fine remains unpaid.

In a third case, the same bail broker has his money tied up by the Clerk because a defendant has failed to pay a fine of $170, while in a fourth case, involving .a stowaway, the Clerk of the court has refused to return the broker’s bail until the requirements of probation, involving compensation of a steamship company, are ful- filled.

Naturally the friends of a person who is arrested will be reluctant to go his bail if they face the possibility of having it applied to any fine that may be imposed. That is certainly true of the Civil Liberties Union, which, during the past few years, has posted $2000 in U. 8. Treasury bonds in quite a number of conscientious objector cases. The Union cannot afford to post these bonds if it. faces a substantial monetary loss in the event the defendant in a particular ease is fined and is unable to’ pay the fine.

As matters stand today, the right to bail in © the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of California has been seriously impaired. The local executive committee of the Union has authorized intervention in the matter, and it is not unlikely that the new rule will be tested in the higher courts.

Supreme Court To Review Pacifist Lawyer's Case

The refusal of an Illinois board to admit a pacifist lawyer to the bar will be reviewed by the U. S. Supreme Court, according to a decision December 11. The court agreed to hear the case of Clyde Summers, Illinois University Law School graduate, who was turned down by the Illinois Board of Law Examiners in 1942 on the ground that his opposition to the use of force, as a pacifist, is inconsistent with the duties of an officer of the court.

Last July, Summers’ case was appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court, which not only upheld the action of the Board of Examiners, but refused to make the record of the case available. The National Committee on Conscientious Objectors of the ACLU, through its counsel, Julian Cornell of New York City, appealed to the U. S. Supreme Court on Summers’ behalf. The U. S. court asked the Illinois court to give reasons why the case should not be heard, and on receipt | of the Illinois court’s reply, decided to hear the case.

BOSTON BAN ON “STRANGE FRUIT" UPHELD IN SUPERIOR COURT

The ban placed on Lillian Smith’s best selling novel, “Strange Fruit”, under the agreement between Boston officials and local booksellers was upheld by Judge Edward F. Hanify in the Middlesex Superior Court December 4. Abraham Isenstadt, Boston bookdealer who had sold a copy of the novel to Bernard DeVoto, author and critic, last spring as a test of the ban, was ordered to pay fines amounting to oa levied by a lower court.

Isenstadt’s attorney, Alfred Albert, counsel for the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union, announced ‘that the decision would be appealed to the state Supreme Court. ‘Strange Fruit” is the first book in several years to come under the private censersaip agreement between Boston officials and local booksellers. Meanwhile the Massachusetts. Library Association announced that it would sponsor a bill to relax state censorship laws.

-port.of the national office, a Committee was

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBER'LIES UNION-NEWS

-Following is a brief history of the founding of the Northern California branch of the A. C. L. U., together with an account of its principal activities during the past ten years, as delivered by Ernest Besig, the Union’s local director, at the Tenth Anniversary meetings of the branch, held in San Francisco and Berkeley on November 27 and 29,.1944 respectively:

This branch sprang into being as a result of the San Francisco general strike in 1934. As some of you will recall, that strike was marked by destructive vigilante raids on the headquarters of labor and radical organizations throughout the bay area. In the absence of an active branch in this area, the national office of the Union, when it was appealed to for help, sent Chester Williams and Ernest Besig from Los Angeles to oppose the reign of lawlessness that — was tolerated, and many times participated in, by law enforcement officers. We soon recognized the need for a permanent civil liberties organization in Northern California, and on September 14, 1934, with the approval and financial suporganized and letters were sent to a list of people urging them to join in establishing a branch of the Civil Liberties Union in Northern California as a means of opposing the rising tide of fascism in the area. Incidentally, thirteen men and women were on the original Executive Committe, and of that group, Helen Salz, Dr. Alex-ander Meiklejohn and Dr. Edgar A. Lowther have continued to serve throughout our ten-year history.

Of course, the Civil Liberties Union was not new to this area. Back in the summer of 1926, following a visit by Roger Baldwin, a branch of the Union was started, and a full-time director was employed. As far as I can ascertain, the venture was not a financial success, and finally, after operating one year, the office was closed. However, the late attorney Austin Lewis carried on single-handedly with the support of'a few loyal friends until the Union was re-established in 1934.

Damages Recovered for Vigilante Raids

One of the first jobs the reorganized Union undertook was the filing of civil suits against the bay area communities which had allowed Vigilantes to destroy the property of unpopular groups and individuals. In the case of a Richmond photographer, alleged to be a Communist, a judgment of $300 was recovered against the City of Richmond; in San Francisco the county was required to pay $175 for damage to the ILW.W. hall; and in Berkeley, where the socalled Berkeley Nationals virtually ripped apart the building and furnishings owned by the Finnish Comrades Association, whose members had had the audacity to prepare and serve coffee to the pickets of the striking longshoremen, a judgment of $4742 was’ recovered against the City of Berkeley.

Chester Williams carried on as organizing director of the branch until January of 1935. Prof. George Hedley took over at that time and stayed on for several months, devoting his energies principally to legislation and the defense of the Sacramento criminal syndicalism cases then being tried.

Lumber Strike, Lynching, and Tar and Feather Party

Then, during a critical three months, the branch carried on with only an office secretary, but on June 23, 1935, at the request of Helen Salz, your present director came to San Francisco from Los Angeles for thirty days. He no sooner arrived than he was on his way to Eureka where three lumber mill workers had been killed, eight wounded and 150 pickets jailed in the course of the Holmes-Eureka strike. At first, no attorney in Humboldt County would defend the strikers, so the Union undertook to supply legal counsel and to oppose the reign of terror in the community. Right on the heels of the Eureka trouble, a mob of about fifty persons seized Clyde L. Johnson, who was being held in the county jail at Yreka for the murder of a police officer, and lynched him. Then, on August 21, 1935, at Santa Rosa, five men, alleged radicals charged with agitating among the Sonoma County apple pickers, were kidnapped by vigilantes. All were made to kiss the American flag, while two of them, Sol Nitzberg and Jack Green, were beaten, tarred and feathered and driven out of town at the head of a jeering mob. The police and district attorney did nothing, and it ‘took a year before Attorney General U. S. Webb was induced to prosecute the vigilantes who were identified. No convictions resulted, but the vigilantes were put to the trouble, expense and notoriety of defending themselves in a criminal proceeding. The leader of the vigilantes, an alien and Secretary of a local Chamber of Commerce, successfully resisted a suit for damages filed in Green’s behalf in the Federal court by the Union, but when he applied for citizenship his application was opposed by the*Union and was rejected on the ground that his participation in the Santa Rosa incident showed he was not attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States. As a result of being kept very busy for several months, your present director not only stayed the agreed thirty days but has kept on the job for more than nine years.

A Period of Vigilantism

Vigilantism continued in Northern California for a number of years, and the Union was kept busy fighting it. We opposed the police and vigilante terror that was directed at the Salinas lettuce strikers in 1936. We likewise opposed the vigilantism directed at the miners in Nevada County and the lumber workers in the company town of Westwood, Lassen County. In both instances, you will recall, hundreds of workers were driven from their homes and only allowed to return when, in face of public protests, a drummed-up hysteria subsided.

As these incidents suggest, this was a period in which many of the civil liberties problems © arose in the labor field. Anti-picketing ordinances were adopted in most California counties, and picketing cases were a source of neverending business. In San Francisco, however, the long-standing anti-picketing ordinance was repealed and a referendum to restore it was later defeated. The agitation against picketing cul- minated, as you will recall, in the defeat of the infamous Proposition No. 1 on the State ballot.

In the course of its labor activities, the branch drafted a resolution adopted by the California assembly at the 1937 legislative session establishing a legislative investigation of the conviction of workers at Modesto on framed-up charges of the reckless possession of dynamite, and a majority of the investigating committee recom- mended full pardons for the men, which Gov. Olson ultimately granted.

During that Governor’s term in office the Union also sought and procured full pardons for 22 members of the I.W.W. who, between 1919 and 1925, had been convicted under California’s now dormant criminal syndicalism law. The same governor, you will recall, also pardoned Tom Mooney, a case in which the Union had cooperated for many years.

In 1938, two Socialists were prosecuted under a San Francisco ordinance declaring it to be unlawful to carry signs. The men had picketed with signs before the French consulate in protest against Daladier’s decree laws. They were convicted, but on appeal the Union was successful in having the ordinance held unconstitutional as a violation of free speech. ,

First Jehovah’s Witness Case

The first Jehovah’s Witness case arose in 1935 when nine-year-old Charlotte Gabrielli was: expelled from school for refusing to salute the flag for religious reasons. The case was carried unsuccessfully to the U. S. Supreme Court by the ‘branch, but, as you know, that court has since reversed itself in the fairly recent West Virginia case.

The Gabrielli case, however, set off a series of Jehovah’s Witness cases in this area that have continued right up to this date, although in diminishing numbers since the Supreme Court’s decisions striking down compulsory flag saluting as a violation of free speech, and upholding the right of the Witnesses to distribute their literature without interference by the police. The flag salute cases included a couple in which parents were prosecuted for refusing to send their chitdren to school after they were sent home for refusing to salute the flag. The Union also filed one case in the courts in which a local district school board refused to allow non-saluting Witnesses to re-enter school after the county school board had ruled they could not attend school without saluting the flag. The district board came to terms very speedily, however, when an application for a writ of mandate was filed in the Superior Court. We also had numerous cases involving mob action against the militant Witnesses, and we successfully opposed State legislative action directed against them. Today, the Witnesses are being sent to jail because of their opposition to military service. Sixty-three cases have been tried in the U. S. District Court in San Francisco alone. At the moment we are interested in a case in which.a Sacramento County superior court judge removed two children from the custody of their mother, solely because she is a Jehovah’s Witness.

Red-Hunting A Favorite Sport

Until the fall of 1941, red-hunting was a favorite sport in this area, and the State was . treated to the antics of our Little Dies Committee, headed first by Sam Yorty and then by Jack B. Tenney. Victor R. Jewett was ousted from his teaching job in the Eureka High School as a “red”. He was charged with comparing the United States unfavorably with the Soviet Union, — with receiving “Moscow gold” to conduct sub- versive activities, with subscribing to the “Western Worker” and with advocating pacifism. The courts, if you please, sustained the dismissal on the ground that Jewett had violated his “loyalty oath”. The Union was more successful in the case of another teacher whom the American Legion charged with “radicalism”. There have been several other cases involving the question of academic freedom, none of which got very — far, including that of Charles Gastineau, who was charged with unprofessional conduct because his classes discussed the Townsend Plan. Citizenship and deportation cases, involving. freedom of opinion for aliens, have béen handled from time to time by the branch with marked success. One of our strangest clients was John Pappas, who joined the Communist Party as a spy for the San Francisco Industrial Association, only to be picked up by the Immigration Service and held for deportation on the ground that after entry into this country he had been 4 member of a group advocating the violent overthrow of the government. The proceedings were eventually dismissed. Our most important citizenship case involved George Bogunovich, a Cupertino farm worker, who was denied. citizenship solely because he subscribed to a Jugoslavian Communist newspaper. On an appeal to the State Supreme Court, the decision was reversed. The right of citizens to assemble in California’s school houses under the Civic Center Act was ‘a source of controversy for many years.

Schools boards had the habit of denying certain unpopular groups the use of the schools as well as prohibiting the discussion of controversial subjects.. For example, the San Francisco Board of Education would not allow political groups to use the Civic Centers. When the Socialist Party was denied the use of a meeting place in the San Francisco schools, the Union took the issue to the courts. The regulation was tossed out by the District Court of Appeal, and its decision was affirmed by the State Supreme Court. The courts not only opened the schools to political and other citizens groups, but emphasized that school boards have no power to decide what subjects shall be discussed.

Anti-Okie Law Invalidated

One of the outstanding cases in the history of | the branch involved Fred F. Edwards, who was convicted in 1940 under California’s Anti-Okie law, which made it a misdemeanor to aid an indigent to enter the State. Edwards helped his indigent brother-in-law to enter the state from Texas. The branch defended Edwards and caried an unsuccessful appeal to the Superior ourt. From there the case was taken directly to the U. S. Supreme Court where it was handled by the national office of the Union. The Supreme Court handed down the now famous decision that a citizen has the right freely ‘to travel from state to state, whether or not he is impecunious, and the Anti-Okie law (which had been applied principally to dust-bowlers) was declared to be unconstitutional.

Ban Against Nisei Fought

With our entry into the war, the branch opposed the mass exclusion by the military of citizens of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific Coast, as well as their imprisonment in concentration camps, otherwise known as relocation centers. The Korematsu and Endo cases, involving possibly the most important civil liberties — issues since the Civil War, are now before the U. S. Supreme Court and decisions should be . handed down any day. The Korematsu case has been handled by the branch throughout its court history, while the branch has assisted Attorney James Purcell in the Endo case, appearing as amicus curiae at all stages of the proceeding. The branch also participated in the important Regan case, in which the citizenship rights of persons of Japanese ancestry were unsuccessfully challenged by the Native Sons, and it also par(Continued on Page 4, Col. 1)

| Page 4.

AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION-NEWS

American Civil Liberties Union-News Published monthly at 216. Pine Street, San Francisco, 4, Calif., by the Northern California Branch of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Phone: EXbrook 1816 ERNEST BESIG ....... Editor Entered as second-class matter, July 31, 1941, at the Post Office at San Francisco, California, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Subscription Rates—Seventy-five Cents a Year. Ten Cents per Copy.

TEN-YEAR HISTORY OF LOCAL BRANCH

(Continued from Page 3, Col. 3)

ticipated in the Hirabayashi and Yasui curfew cases.

The branch has also challenged the Military’s program .of excluding from the Pacific Coast, after star chamber military hearings, persons it decided were dangerous or potentially dangerous, and we have also opposed the wartime denaturalization suits which sought to cancel the citizenship of persons because of acts and statements made long after naturalization. The Department of Justice has now dropped such proceedings after appellate courts ruled against it.

Race Problems Loom

The branch has intervened in numerous con‘scientious objector cases and in various issues involving discrimination against Negroes. With the tremendous growth of our Negro population in Northern California, attracted here by our war industries, and a growing demand by Negroes for an end to segregation, the issues in the racial field have multiplied in recent months and give promise of requiring an increasing part ‘of the Union’s efforts.

Of course, in this summary, I have been able to give you merely the highlights of our work during the past ten years. If time allowed, I could mention our work in the Hawaiian martial law cases, the “blacklisting” of workers by the Navy, our handling of quarantine problems in San Francisco, the question of released school time for religious instruction, our legislative ac. tivities, a case involving the right to counsel which went to the United States Supreme Court, y the Homer Turner case in Richmond, besides the less dramatic.and routine cases. Then, there has. been the job of editing our monthly “A.C.L.U.NEWS”, now concluding its ninth year, the free speeches that have been delivered, as well as the public meetings sponsored by the branch.

Work Was Meagerly Financed

The ten years’ work has not been abundantly financed. The total cost of operation during that period amounts to no more than $40,000 or $4,000 a year, and that includes the cost of publishing and distributing our monthly paper. The current fiscal year, however, our budget has been increased to $5150 and additional authorized expenditures will raise it to about $5500, which, obviously, is still pitifully small.

Also, our membership has never been very large. It has shown a slow but steady growth, until at the end of the fiscal year on October 31 we had about 750 members in good standing, with an additional hundred separate subscribers to the NEWS. To all of these contributors we are grateful for the loyal support they have given during the past ten years.

Of course, no organization such as Ours could have accomplished its work on such a small budget if such attorneys on our Committee as Wayne Collins, Clarence Rust and Philip Adams, and others, had not contributed their services. It must also be remembered that many other individuals have freely given their help, including the members of the Executive Committee, who have given generously of their time and energies in directing the policies and work of the local branch.

Build the Membership!

i leave it to you to assess the value of the work that has been done during the past ten years. If you think that the Northern California branch of the A.C.L.U., on the basis of the record, has done a good job in constantly rewinning your liberties in this area, I hope you will help us in strengthening our work by building the Union’s membership.

‘TEST CASE OPINIONS

Copies of the Supreme Court opinions in the Korematsu and Endo test cases arrived too late to allow us to reprint substantial portions of them in this issue of thé “News”, We will carry these opinions, so far as practical, in the February issue of the “News”.

MILITARY RESCINDS EXCLUSION ORDERS AS HIGH COURT DECIDES LEGAL ISSUES

(Continued from Page 1, Col. 2)

and added that the court might as well “say that any military order is constitutional and have done with it.”

“Now, if any fundamental assumption underlies our system,” said Justice Jackson, “it is that guilt is personal and not inheritable. Even if all of one’s antecedents had been convicted of treason, the Constitution forbids its penalties to be. visited upon him, for it provides that ‘no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.’ But here is an attempt to make an otherwise innocent act a crime merely because this prisoner is the son of parents as to whom he had no choice, and belongs to a race from which there is no way to resign.”

Murphy Calls Exclusion An Act of Racism — In the strongest dissent, Justice Murphy said the exclusion order ‘‘goes over the very brink of constitutional power” and falls into the ugly abyss of racism. . . . No reasonable relation to ‘an “immediate, imminent, and impending” public danger is evident to support this racial restriction which is one of the most sweeping and complete deprivations of constitutional rights ‘in the history of this nation in the absence ‘of martial law.

“I dissent’, said Justice Murphy, “from thi legalization of racism. Racial discrimination in any form and in any degree has no justifiable part whatever in our democratic way of life. It is unattractive in any setting but it is utterly revolting among a free people who have embraced the principles set forth in the Constitution of the United States. All residents of this nation are kin in some way by blood or culture to a foreign land. Yet they are primarily and necessary a part of the new and distinct civilization of the United States. They must accordingly be treated at all times as the heirs of the American experiment and as entitled to all the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution.” Justice Roberts, in his dissenting opinion, declared that the Korematsu case is one “of convicting a citizen as a punishment for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration camp, based on his ancestry, and solely because of his ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition toward the United States.”

Endo Decision Unanimous

In a unanimous decision upholding a petition for a writ of habeas* corpus against detention in a relocation center in the Mitsuye Endo case, the court, through Justice. Douglas, declared: “We are of the view that Mitsuye Endo should be given her liberty. In reaching that conclusion we do not come to the underlying constitutional issues which have been argued. For we conclude that, whatever power the War Relocation Authority may have to detain other classes of citizens, it has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal,to its leave procedure.”

Justice Roberts, while concurring in the result, differed sharply with the court’s reasoning. He points out that the court studiously avoided “constitutional issues which are necessarily involved. It is to hide one’s head in the sand to assert that the detention of relator resulted from an excess of authority by subordinate officials.” He contends also, that Congress ratified the acts of the W.R.A. by making appropriations to the Authority. “TI. conclude... squarely faced with a serious constitutional ques- tion,—whether the relator’s detention violated the guarantees of the Bill of Rights. . . . There can be but one answer to that question. An admittedly loyal citizen has been deprived of her liberty for a period of years. Under the Constitution she should be free to come and go as she pleases. Instead, her liberty of motion and other innocent activities have been prohibited and conditioned.”

Another “Resort to Racism”, Says Murphy In recording his disagreement with the reasons advanced for freeing Miss Endo, Justice Murphy | declared, “I am of the view that detention in Relocation Centers of persons of Japanese ancestry regardless of loyalty is not only unauthorized by Congress or the Executive but is another example of the unconstitutional resort to racism inherent in the entire evacuation program .. . racial discrimination of this nature bears no reasonable relation to military necessity and is utterly foreign to the ideals and traditions of the American people.”

The decision obviously leaves open the question as to the constitutional power to confine “disthat the court is loyal” citizens (persons holding evil thoughts) without trial.

Union Comments on Decisions

The A.C.L.U., commenting on the decisions, said: “The Sttpreme Court decision in the evacuation case put the seal of approval on what the Union contended was an unconstitutional exercise of military power because it was based upon race. The dissenting opinions squared with the views advanced by the Union, particularly the observations of Justice Murphy.

“The unanimous opinion of the Court that loyal American citizens cannot be forcibly de- tained supports the contentions made by the Union. It leaves, however, for later determination by the courts the right to forcibly detain citizens alleged to be disloyal. Since such citizens are so classified solely by administrative procedure, it will be necessary to test this procedure in the courts. Evidence indicates that many so classified are not in any real sense disloyal to the United States.

Major Exclusion Litigation Ended

“The decisions end the major litigation over the evacuation and detention of American citizens. Together with the army orders, they will now give the overwhelming ‘majority the right to return to the Coast. The government is evidently arranging for that in orderly fashion. Thousands who have resettled elsewhere will evidently not return. It appears also that every precaution will be taken to avoid instances of violence on the west ;coast, which appear to threaten in only a comparatively few agricultural areas. The WRA, law enforcement officials, the churches and the Committee on American Prin- ciples and Fair Play are all making preparations for avoiding friction. Over 1,100 Japanese-Americans already returned to the Coast by special military permits have experienced no interference with their rights.”

Dismissal of Texas Univ.

The dismissal of Dr. Homer P. Rainey, President of the University of Texas, is the most serious attack ‘on academic freedom during this war, the American Civil Liberties Union said recently in making public a telegram offering Dr. Rainey support in his fight for reinstatement. Dr. Rainey was dismissed by the University Board of Regents November 1st as the culmination of a long series of disagreements about University policies.

The ACLU and. other national organizations, as well as the faculty and student body of Texas University, have protested Dr. Rainey’s dismissal, and urged Texas Governor Coke R. Stevenson to intervene through his power of appointing regents. Three new appointments to the Board were made by the Governor November 14, to replace three members who resigned at the time of Dr. Rainey’s dismissal, and three more are due after January ist, thus constituting a new majority of the nine-man Board.

In the telegram to Dr. Rainey, Prof, James M. O’Neill of Brooklyn College, chairman of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the ACLU said: “Your dismissal on clear issues of academic freedom stands out boldly against an encouraging record on academic freedom elsewhere in the country. We trust that Governor Stevenson will use his powers to reverse the Board of Regents’ action. We offer you whatever assistance this committee and our Texas friends can render in your courageous championship of academic freedom.”

Head Scored By ACLU

members of the Northern California branch of the A.C.L.U. made contributions and pledges toward our current budget of $5150 during November and December. The response to our budget appeal has been better than ever both in the number of contributors and the amount of money received. Please accept this acknowledgement in lieu of a personal letter.

At this writing, 86 persons whose memberships expired during November or December have not yet renewed. If you are one of the 86, won’t you please let us hear from you as soon as possible.