The Alien Registration Act, popularly known as the Smith Act,
76th United States Congress
The 76th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1939, ...
, 3d session, ch. 439, , is a
United States federal statute
An Act of Congress is a statute enacted by the United States Congress. Acts may apply only to individual entities (called private laws), or to the general public ( public laws). For a bill to become an act, the text must pass through both house ...
that was enacted on June 28, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of the
U.S. government by force or violence, and required all non-
citizen
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
adult residents to register with the federal government.
Approximately 215 people were indicted under the legislation, including alleged
communists
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...
and
socialists
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the eco ...
. Prosecutions under the Smith Act continued until a series of
U.S. Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
decisions in 1957 reversed a number of convictions under the Act as being
unconstitutional
Constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applicable constitution. When l ...
. The law has been amended several times.
Legislative history
The U.S. government has attempted on several occasions to regulate speech in wartime, beginning with the
Alien and Sedition Acts
The Alien and Sedition Acts were a set of four laws enacted in 1798 that applied restrictions to immigration and speech in the United States. The Naturalization Act increased the requirements to seek citizenship, the Alien Friends Act allowed th ...
of 1798. During and following
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, a series of statutes addressed a complex of concerns that included enemy espionage and disruption, anti-war activism, and the radical ideologies of
anarchism
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...
and
Bolshevism
Bolshevism (from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, fo ...
, all identified with immigrant communities. Congressional investigations of 'extremist' organizations in 1935 resulted in calls for the renewal of those statutes. The
Foreign Agents Registration Act
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)2 U.S.C. § 611 ''et seq.'' is a United States law that imposes public disclosure obligations on persons representing foreign interests. of 1938 addressed a particular concern but not the general problem. As U.S. involvement in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
seemed ever more likely, the possibility of betrayal from within gained currency. The
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
had given this possibility a name, a "
fifth column
A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group or nation from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or another nation. According to Harris Mylonas and Scott Radnitz, "fifth columns" are “domestic actors who work to un ...
", and the popular press in the U.S. blamed internal subversion for the fall of France to the Nazis in just six weeks in May and June 1940. Patriotic organizations and the popular press raised alarms and provided examples. In July 1940, ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine called fifth-column talk a "national phenomenon".
In the late 1930s, several legislative proposals tried to address sedition itself and the underlying concern with the presence of large numbers of non-citizens, including citizens of countries with which the U.S. might soon be at war. An omnibus bill that included several measures died in 1939, but the
Senate Judiciary Committee
The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nominations, a ...
revived it in May 1940. It drew some of its language from statutes recently passed at the state level, and combined anti-alien and anti-sedition sections with language crafted specifically to help the government in its attempts to deport Australian-born union leader
Harry Bridges. With little debate, the
House of Representatives
House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...
approved it by a vote of 382 to 4, with 45 not voting, on June 22, 1940, the day the French signed an
armistice with Germany
The Armistice of 11 November 1918 was the armistice signed at Le Francport near Compiègne that ended fighting on land, sea, and air in World War I between the Entente and their last remaining opponent, Germany. Previous armistices ...
. The
Senate
A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
did not take a recorded vote.
[Steele, ''Free Speech'', p.81.] It was signed into law by
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
on June 28, 1940. The Act is referred to by the name of its principal author, Rep.
Howard W. Smith
Howard Worth Smith (February 2, 1883 – October 3, 1976) was an American politician. A Democratic U.S. Representative from Virginia, he was a leader of the informal but powerful conservative coalition.
Early life and education
Howard W ...
(
Democrat
Democrat, Democrats, or Democratic may refer to:
Politics
*A proponent of democracy, or democratic government; a form of government involving rule by the people.
*A member of a Democratic Party:
**Democratic Party (United States) (D)
**Democratic ...
-
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
), a leader of the anti-labor bloc in Congress.
[Grantham, Dewey. ''The South in Modern America: A Region at Odds'' (Fayetteville, AR: ]University of Arkansas Press
The University of Arkansas Press is a university press that is part of the University of Arkansas and has been a member of the Association of University Presses since 1984. Its mission is to publish peer-reviewed books and academic journals. It wa ...
, 2001), p.18.
A few weeks later, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' discussed the context in which the alien registration provisions were included and the Act passed:
['']The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''
Delbert Clark, "Aliens to Begin Registering Tuesday", August 25, 1940
accessed June 27, 2012
Also in June, the President transferred the
Immigration and Naturalization Service
The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was an agency of the U.S. Department of Labor from 1933 to 1940 and the U.S. Department of Justice from 1940 to 2003.
Referred to by some as former INS and by others as legacy INS, ...
from the
Department of Labor
The Ministry of Labour ('' UK''), or Labor ('' US''), also known as the Department of Labour, or Labor, is a government department responsible for setting labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, training, a ...
to the
Department of Justice
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a v ...
(DOJ), demonstrating that the federal government viewed its alien population as a security concern as war grew more likely.
In mid-August, officials of the DOJ held a two-day conference with state officials they called "Law Enforcement Problems of National Defense".
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general.
In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
Jackson
Jackson may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Jackson (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name
Places
Australia
* Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region
* Jackson North, Qu ...
and
FBI Director
The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a United States' federal law enforcement agency, and is responsible for its day-to-day operations. The FBI Director is appointed for a single ...
Hoover delineated the proper roles for federal and state authorities with respect to seditious activities. They successfully forestalled state regulation of aliens and found state officials receptive to their arguments that states needed to prevent vigilantism and protect aliens, while trusting federal authorities to use the Smith Act to deal with espionage and "fifth column" activities.
On October 13, 1941, the 77th United States Congress amended the Smith Act, authorizing a
criminal offense
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...
for the unlawful reproduction of
alien registration receipt cards.
Provisions
Title I. Subversive activities. The Smith Act set federal criminal penalties that included fines or imprisonment for as long as twenty years, and denied all employment by the federal government for five years following a conviction for anyone who:
The Smith Act's prohibition of proselytizing on behalf of revolution repeated language found in previous statutes. It went beyond earlier legislation in outlawing action to "organize any society, group, or assembly" that works toward that end and then extended that prohibition to "membership" or "affiliation"—a term it did not define—with such a group.
Title II. Deportation. Because the Supreme Court in ''Kessler v. Strecker'' (1939) held that the
Immigration Act of 1918
The United States Immigration Act of 1918 (ch. 186, ) was enacted on October 16, 1918.''New York Times'' accessed July 13, 2010 It is also known as the Dillingham-Hardwick Act. It was intended to correct what President Woodrow Wilson's administra ...
allowed the deportation of an alien only if his membership in a group advocating the violent overthrow of the government had not ceased, the Smith Act allowed for the deportation of any alien who "at the time of entering the United States, or ... at any time thereafter" was a member of or affiliated with such an organization.
The Smith Act expanded the grounds for deporting aliens to include weapons violations and abetting illegal immigration. It added heroin to the category of drug violations.
Title III. Alien registration. The Smith Act required aliens applying for visas to register and be fingerprinted. Every other alien resident of the United States:
Registration would be under oath and include:
Guardians had to register minors, who had to register in person and be fingerprinted within 30 days of their fourteenth birthday. Post offices were designated as the location for registering and fingerprinting. Aliens were to notify the government if their residence changed, and to confirm their residence every three months. Penalties included fines up to $1000 and up to six months imprisonment.
Alien registration
Registrations began on August 27, 1940, and the newly created Alien Registration Division of the Immigration and Naturalization Service planned to register between three and three-and-a-half million people at 45,000 post offices by December 26, after which those not registered became subject to the Smith Act's penalties. The Division held the view that registration benefited the alien, who "is now safeguarded from bigoted persecution." The alien was to bring a completed form to a post office and be fingerprinted. Registration cards would be delivered by mail and would serve "in the nature of protection of the alien later runs afoul of the police." The details required for registration had been expanded since the passage of the Act to include race, employer's name and address, relatives in the U.S., organization memberships, application for citizenship, and military service record for the U.S. or any other country.
Solicitor General Francis Biddle
Francis Beverley Biddle (May 9, 1886 – October 4, 1968) was an American lawyer and judge who was the United States Attorney General during World War II. He also served as the primary American judge during the postwar Nuremberg Trials as well a ...
had responsibility for the Division,
which was headed by
Earl G. Harrison
Earl Grant Harrison (April 27, 1899 – July 28, 1955) was an American attorney, academician, and public servant. He worked on behalf of displaced persons in the aftermath of the Second World War, when he brought attention to the plight of Jewish ...
during its first six months. In a radio address meant to reassure aliens, Biddle said: "It was not the intention of Congress to start a witch hunt or a program of persecution." Calling it a "patriotic duty", he said:
Government efforts to encourage registration asked citizens to participate:
The number registered passed 4.7 million by January 1941.
After the U.S. declared war in 1941, federal authorities used data gathered from alien registrations to identify citizens of enemy nations and take 2,971 of them into custody by the end of the year. A different set of requirements was imposed during the war on ''enemy aliens'', citizens of nations with which the U.S. was at war by presidential proclamations of January 14, 1942, without reference to the Smith Act.
In December 1950, following an Immigration and Naturalization Service hearing,
Claudia Jones
Claudia Vera Jones (; 21 February 1915 – 24 December 1964) was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the US, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and black national ...
, a citizen of Trinidad, was ordered deported from the U.S. for violating the
McCarran Act
The Internal Security Act of 1950, (Public Law 81-831), also known as the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, the McCarran Act after its principal sponsor Sen. Pat McCarran (D-Nevada), or the Concentration Camp Law, is a United States fede ...
as an alien (non-U.S. citizen) who had joined the
Communist Party
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A ...
(CPUSA). The evidence of her party membership included information she provided when completing her Alien Registration form on December 24, 1940.
Legal proceedings
Harry Bridges
The Smith Act was written so that federal authorities could deport radical labor organizer
Harry Bridges, an immigrant from Australia.
Deportation hearings against Bridges in 1939 found he did not qualify for deportation because he was not ''currently''—as the required—a member of or affiliated with an organization that advocated the overthrow of the government. The Smith Act allowed deportation of an alien who had been "at any time" since arriving in the U.S. a member of, or affiliated with, such an organization. A second round of deportation hearings ended after ten weeks in June 1941. In September, the special examiner who led the hearings recommended deportation, but the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) reversed that order after finding the government's two key witnesses unreliable. In May 1942, though the Roosevelt administration was now putting its anti-Communist activities on hold in the interest of furthering the
Soviet-American alliance, Attorney General Biddle overruled the BIA and ordered Bridges deported. Bridges appealed and lost in District Court and the Court of Appeals, but the
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
held 5–3 on June 18, 1945, in the case of ''Bridges v. Wixon'' that the government had not proven Bridges was "affiliated" with the CPUSA, a word it interpreted to require more than "sympathy" or "mere cooperation".
[FindLaw]
Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135 (1945)
accessed June 22, 2012. Wixon was an official of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Minneapolis 1941
![Goldman-Albert-1942](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Goldman-Albert-1942.jpg)
On June 27, 1941, as part of a campaign to end labor militancy in the defense industry, FBI agents raided the Minneapolis and St. Paul offices of the
Socialist Workers Party (SWP), a Trotskyist splinter party that controlled Local 544 of the
Teamsters union
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), also known as the Teamsters Union, is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of The Team Drivers International Union and The Teamsters National Union, the un ...
though it had fewer than two thousand members in 30 U.S. cities. The union had grown steadily in the late 1930s, had organized federal relief workers and led a strike against the
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
(WPA), a New Deal agency. In mid-July, a federal
grand jury
A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a pe ...
indicted 29 people, either members of the SWP or Local 544 of the
Teamsters union
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), also known as the Teamsters Union, is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of The Team Drivers International Union and The Teamsters National Union, the un ...
, or both.
SWP defendants included
James P. Cannon,
Carl Skoglund Carl Skoglund (April 10, 1884 – December 11, 1960) was a Swedish-American socialist, affectionately called ''Skogie'' by all his American friends and comrades. He was born in Dalsland and went to the United States in 1911, sailing in steerage firs ...
,
Farrell Dobbs
Farrell Dobbs (July 25, 1907 – October 31, 1983) was an American Trotskyist, trade unionist, politician, and historian.
Early years
Dobbs was born in Queen City, Missouri, where his father was a worker in a coal company garage. The family ...
,
Grace Carlson
Grace Holmes Carlson (1906–1992) was an American Marxist politician.
Background
Grace Holmes Carlson was born on November 13, 1906, in St. Paul, Minnesota and studied in local Catholic schools. ,
Harry DeBoer, ,
Albert Goldman
Albert Harry Goldman (April 15, 1927 – March 28, 1994) was an American academic and author.
Goldman wrote about the culture and personalities of the American music industry both in books and as a contributor to magazines. He is best known f ...
, and twelve other party leaders. Goldman acted as the defendants' lawyer during the trial. The SWP had been influential in Minneapolis since the
Teamsters Strike of 1934. It advocated strikes and the continuation of labor union militancy during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
under its
Proletarian Military Policy The Proletarian Military Policy was a policy adopted by the Fourth International in response to World War II. It was an attempt to apply transitional demands such as trade union control of military training and the election of officers to transform ...
. An SWP member edited ''the Northwest Organizer'', the weekly newspaper of the Minneapolis Teamsters, and the local union remained militant even as the national union grew more conservative. The
CPUSA
The Communist Party USA, officially the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA), is a communist party in the United States which was established in 1919 after a split in the Socialist Party of America following the Russian Revo ...
supported the trial and conviction of Trotskyists under the Smith Act. The defendants were accused of having plotted to overthrow the U.S. government in violation of the newly passed Smith Act and of the
Sedition Act of 1861, to enforce which, according to Wallace MG as at March 1920, it seems no serious previous attempt had ever been made.
When critics argued that the government should adhere to the doctrine enunciated by Justice
Holmes
Holmes may refer to:
Name
* Holmes (surname)
* Holmes (given name)
* Baron Holmes, noble title created twice in the Peerage of Ireland
* Chris Holmes, Baron Holmes of Richmond (born 1971), British former swimmer and life peer
Places
In the Uni ...
that free speech could only be prosecuted if it presented "a clear and present danger", Attorney General Biddle replied that Congress had considered both that standard and the international situation when writing the Smith Act's proscriptions. At trial, the judge took Biddle's view and refused to instruct the jury in the "clear and present danger" standard as the defendants' attorneys requested. The trial began in Federal District Court in Minneapolis on October 27, 1941. The prosecution presented evidence that the accused had amassed a small arsenal of pistols and rifles and conducted target practices and drills. Some had met with
Trotsky
Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian M ...
in Mexico, and many witnesses testified to their revolutionary rhetoric.
The judge ordered that five of the defendants be acquitted on both counts for lack of evidence. After deliberating for 56 hours, the jury found the other 23 defendants (one had committed suicide during the trial) not guilty of violating the 1861 statute by conspiring to overthrow the government by force. The jury found 18 of the defendants guilty of violating the Smith Act either by distributing written material designed to cause insubordination in the armed forces or by advocating the overthrow of the government by force. The jury recommended leniency. On December 8, 1941, 12 defendants received 16-month sentences and the remaining 11 received 12-months. ''Time'' magazine minimized the danger from the SWP, calling it "a nestful of mice". 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) and critics on the left worried that the case created a dangerous precedent.
On appeal, a unanimous three-judge panel of the
Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (in case citations, 8th Cir.) is a United States federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the following United States district courts:
* Eastern District of Arkansas
* Western Distr ...
upheld the convictions of the 18. The judges found it unnecessary to consider the "clear and present danger" standard in "situations where the legislative body had outlawed certain utterances". The Supreme Court declined to review the case. Those convicted began to serve their sentences on December 31, 1943. The last of them were released in February 1945. Biddle, in his memoirs published in 1962, regretted having authorized the prosecution.
Nazi sympathizers
Early in 1942, President Roosevelt, supported by the rest of his Cabinet, urged Attorney General Biddle to prosecute fascist sympathizers and anti-Semites. Biddle thought the Smith Act inadequate, but Congress refused to renew the Sedition Act of 1918 as he asked.
In 1942, 16 members of the "
Mankind United" semi-religious cult, including founder Arthur Bell, were arrested by the FBI under the act. Although 12 were found guilty, they all won on appeal and none served a jail sentence.
Historian
Leo P. Ribuffo coined the term "Brown Scare" to cover the events leading up to the Washington 1944 sedition trial.
President Roosevelt, who especially held non-interventionist
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...
in disdain, had already asked J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI to investigate pro-Nazi individuals back in 1935. The pro-fascist right in the United States collapsed within a year of the
attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...
in the midst of the investigations.
Crusader White Shirts
In March 1942, the government charged , founder of the , with violating the Smith Act by attempting to spread dissent in the armed forces. ''Life'' had published a photo of Christians in 1939 under the heading "Some of the Voices of Hate". Christians said he promoted a "human effort monetary system" and supported "a paper and ink revolution for economic liberty". After a four-day trial, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison on June 8.
Washington 1944
Thirty prominent individuals were indicted in
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
, in July 1942, accused of violations of the Smith Act,
in what became the largest sedition trial in the US.
After delays while the government amended the charges and struggled to construct its case, the trial, expanded to 33 defendants, began on April 17, 1944. The defendants were a heterogeneous group that held either isolationist or pro-fascist views. In the case of ''United States v.
McWilliams'' named after
Joe McWilliams
Joseph Elsberry McWilliams (1904 – 1996) was an American right-wing political figure of the 1940s, and the principal defendant in the federal Smith Act sedition trial of 1944.
Biography
McWilliams was born in 1904 to a poor pioneer family in H ...
, the prosecutor,
O. John Rogge, hoped to prove they were Nazi propaganda agents by demonstrating the similarity between their statements and enemy propaganda. The weakness of the government's case, combined with the trial's slow progress in the face of disruption by the defendants, led the press to lose interest. A mistrial was declared on November 29, 1944, following the death of the trial judge,
Edward C. Eicher
Edward Clayton Eicher (December 16, 1878 – November 30, 1944) was a United States representative from Iowa, federal securities regulator and Chief Justice of the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia. He was consid ...
.
[Steele, ''Free Speech'', 227]Among the defendants were:
George Sylvester Viereck
George Sylvester Viereck (December 31, 1884 – March 18, 1962) was a German-American poet, writer, and pro-German propagandist, latterly on behalf of the German Nazi government.
Biography
Early life
Sylvester's father, Louis Viereck, was born ...
, Lawrence Dennis,
Elizabeth Dilling
Elizabeth Eloise Kirkpatrick Dilling (April 19, 1894 – May 26, 1966) was an American writer and political activist.Dye, 6 In 1934, she published ''The Red Network—A Who's Who and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots'', which catalogs over 1,3 ...
,
William Dudley Pelley
William Dudley Pelley (March 12, 1890 – June 30, 1965) was an American fascist leader, occultist, spiritualist and writer.
Pelley came to prominence as a writer, winning two O. Henry Awards and penning screenplays for Hollywood films. His ...
,
Joe McWilliams
Joseph Elsberry McWilliams (1904 – 1996) was an American right-wing political figure of the 1940s, and the principal defendant in the federal Smith Act sedition trial of 1944.
Biography
McWilliams was born in 1904 to a poor pioneer family in H ...
,
Robert Edward Edmondson
Robert Edward Edmondson (1872 in Dayton, Ohio – April 12, 1959, Bend, Oregon) was an antisemitic pamphleteer and a defendant in the Great Sedition Trial of 1944. He was an organizer of the Pan-Aryan Conference.The Berlin Observer (US militar ...
,
James True
James B. True Jr. (July 1, 1880 – September 24, 1946) was a critic of the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). His opposition focused on New Deal programs and used anti-Semitic and isolationist themes. He published a newsletter and ...
,
Gerald Winrod
Gerald Burton Winrod (March 7, 1900 – November 11, 1957) was an American antisemitic evangelist, author, and political activist. He was charged with sedition during World War II, charges were later dropped.
Biography
He was born on March 7, 19 ...
,
William Griffin,
Prescott Freese Dennett, and ''in absentia''
Ulrich Fleischhauer
Ulrich Fleischhauer (14 July 1876 – 20 October 1960) (Pseudonyms ''Ulrich Bodung'', and ''Israel Fryman'') was a leading publisher of antisemitic books and news articles reporting on a perceived Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory and "nefarious pl ...
.
Defendant
Lawrence Dennis
Lawrence Dennis (December 25, 1893 – August 20, 1977) was a mixed-race American diplomat, consultant and author. He advocated fascism in America after the Great Depression, arguing that liberal capitalism was doomed and one-party planning of ...
mocked the affair by subtitling his account of the trial ''The Great Sedition Trial of 1944''.
Only Rogge wanted to retry the case to "stop the spread of racial and religious intolerance."
Supreme Court decisions since the 1942 indictments made convictions appear ever more unlikely.
Roger Baldwin of the ACLU campaigned against renewing the prosecutions, securing the endorsement of many of the defendants' ideological opponents, including the
American Jewish Committee
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a Jewish advocacy group established on November 11, 1906. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according to ''The New York Times'', is "widely regarded as the dean of American Jewish org ...
, while the CPUSA held out for prosecuting them all to the limit.
Tom Clark, Biddle's replacement as Attorney General in the
Truman administration, vacillated about the case. In October 1946, he fired Rogge in a public dispute about publicizing DOJ information about right-wing activities. With the end of World War II, attention turned from the defeated ideologies of the Axis powers to the threat of Communism, and in December 1946 the government had the charges dismissed.
Communist Party trials
After a ten-month trial at the
Foley Square Courthouse
The Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse (originally the United States Courthouse or the Foley Square Courthouse) is a 37-story courthouse at 40 Centre Street on Foley Square in the Civic Center neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York ...
in
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, eleven leaders of the Communist Party were convicted under the Smith Act in 1949. Ten defendants received sentences of five years and $10,000 fines. An eleventh defendant,
Robert G. Thompson
Robert George Thompson (June 21, 1915 – October 16, 1965) was a distinguished US soldier who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (United States) during World War II but was later jailed for several years for his communist sympathie ...
, a distinguished hero of the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, was sentenced to three years in consideration of his military record. The five defense attorneys were cited for
contempt of court
Contempt of court, often referred to simply as "contempt", is the crime of being disobedient to or disrespectful toward a court of law and its officers in the form of behavior that opposes or defies the authority, justice, and dignity of the cour ...
and given prison sentences. Those convicted appealed the verdicts, and the Supreme Court upheld their convictions in 1951 in ''
Dennis v. United States
''Dennis v. United States'', 341 U.S. 494 (1951), was a United States Supreme Court case relating to Eugene Dennis, General Secretary of the Communist Party USA. The Court ruled that Dennis did not have the right under the First Amendment to the ...
'' in a 6–2 decision.
Following that decision, the DOJ prosecuted dozens of cases. In total, by May 1956, another 131 communists were indicted, of whom 98 were convicted, nine acquitted, while juries brought no verdict in the other cases. Other party leaders indicted included
Claudia Jones
Claudia Vera Jones (; 21 February 1915 – 24 December 1964) was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the US, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and black national ...
and
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (August 7, 1890 – September 5, 1964) was a labor leader, activist, and feminist who played a leading role in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Flynn was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union ...
, a founding member of the ACLU who had been expelled in 1940 for being a Communist.
Appeals from other trials reached the Supreme Court with varying results. On June 17, 1957, ''
Yates v. United States
''Yates v. United States'', 354 U.S. 298 (1957), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that the First Amendment protected radical and reactionary speech, unless it posed a " clear and present danger."
Background
...
'' held
unconstitutional
Constitutionality is said to be the condition of acting in accordance with an applicable constitution; "Webster On Line" the status of a law, a procedure, or an act's accordance with the laws or set forth in the applicable constitution. When l ...
the convictions of numerous party leaders in a ruling that distinguished between advocacy of an idea for incitement and the teaching of an idea as a concept. The same day, the Court ruled 6–1 in ''
Watkins v. United States
''Watkins v. United States'', 354 U.S. 178 (1957), is a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that held that the power of the United States Congress is not unlimited in conducting investigations and that nothing in the United States C ...
'' that defendants could use the
First Amendment
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
as a defense against "abuses of the legislative process". On June 5, 1961, the Supreme Court
upheld by 5–4 the conviction of
Junius Scales under the "membership clause" of the Smith Act. Scales began serving a six-year sentence on October 2, 1961. He was released after serving fifteen months when President John F. Kennedy commuted his sentence in 1962.
[Ari L. Goldman]
"Junius Scales, Communist Sent to Prison, Dies at 82"
''The New York Times'', August 7, 2002, accessed April 23, 2011
''The New York Times'', December 28, 1962, accessed April 23, 2011
Trials of "second string" communist leaders also occurred in the 1950s, including that of
Maurice Braverman
Maurice Braverman (1916–2002) was a 20th-century American civil rights lawyer and some-time Communist Party member (and Party lawyer) who was convicted in 1952 under the Smith Act, served 28 of 36 months, then immediately faced disbarment, again ...
.
See also
*
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 ...
*
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 neg ...
*
Hatch Act of 1939
The Hatch Act of 1939, An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, is a United States federal law. Its main provision prohibits civil service employees in the executive branch of the federal government, except the president and vice presi ...
*
Anti-Propaganda Act of 1940
Anti-Propaganda Act of 1940 or Voorhis Anti-Propaganda Act is a United States statute requiring the registration of organizations ''subject to foreign control'' while accomplishing activities in the United States. The public law was penned amidst ...
*
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner.
The term origin ...
*
Subversive activities registration
Footnotes
External links
Text of the Smith Act as passed, 1940 the Smith Act's legal history
{{Authority control
1940 in American law
Anti-communism in the United States
Espionage in the United States
McCarthyism
Political repression in the United States
Smith Act
The Alien Registration Act, popularly known as the Smith Act, 76th United States Congress, 3d session, ch. 439, , is a United States federal statute that was enacted on June 28, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of th ...
United States federal criminal legislation
United States federal defense and national security legislation
76th United States Congress
June 1940 events