Albert DeSilver (August 27, 1888 – December 7, 1924) was a founding member of the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

(ACLU). DeSilver graduated from

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

in 1910, where he was a member of

Skull and Bones Skull and Bones, also known as The Order, Order 322 or The Brotherhood of Death, is an undergraduate senior secret student society at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The oldest senior class society at the university, Skull and Bone ...

, and then earned a law degree at

Columbia Law School Columbia Law School (Columbia Law or CLS) is the law school of Columbia University, a private Ivy League university in New York City. Columbia Law is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious law schools in the world and has always ranked i ...

(1913) (editor

Columbia Law Review The ''Columbia Law Review'' is a law review edited and published by students at Columbia Law School. The journal publishes scholarly articles, essays, and student notes. It was established in 1901 by Joseph E. Corrigan and John M. Woolsey, who se ...

). Though he was being groomed for a place in New York's legal establishment, he resigned his law practice in 1918 to become one of the founding members of the

National Civil Liberties Bureau The National Civil Liberties Bureau (NCLB) was an American civil rights organization founded in 1917, dedicated to opposing World War I, and specifically focusing on assisting conscientious objectors. The National Civil Liberties Bureau was the r ...

(later known as the

) to devote himself full-time to defending

conscientious objector A conscientious objector (often shortened to conchie) is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion. The term has also been extended to objec ...

s, other citizens, and immigrants against persecution under new laws such as the

Espionage Act of 1917 The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law enacted on June 15, 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code (War ...

and the

Sedition Act of 1918 The Sedition Act of 1918 () was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a ne ...

. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, DeSilver used his own

war bond War bonds (sometimes referred to as Victory bonds, particularly in propaganda) are debt securities issued by a government to finance military operations and other expenditure in times of war without raising taxes to an unpopular level. They are ...

s to post

bail Bail is a set of pre-trial restrictions that are imposed on a suspect to ensure that they will not hamper the judicial process. Bail is the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when required. In some countrie ...

for defendants in

free speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recog ...

cases. At the founding of the ACLU in 1920, DeSilver was named Associate Director and worked in legal defense, public education, and lobbying. While alive, DeSilver provided more than half of the ACLU's operating funds on an annual basis. He was killed by an express train at 36. After his death, DeSilver's wife, Margaret, continued contributing to the ACLU each year in his name.

References

Sources

* Walter Nelles, ''A Liberal in Wartime: The Education of Albert DeSilver.'' New York: WW Norton, 1940.

External links

The Albert DeSilver story
via ACLU Florida {{DEFAULTSORT:DeSilver, Albert 1888 births 1924 deaths 20th-century American lawyers Yale University alumni Columbia Law School alumni American Civil Liberties Union people