The California Criminal Syndicalism Act
Stats. 1919
c. 188, p. 281; it was codified at California Penal Code §§ 11400 et seq.) was a

law of California The law of California consists of several levels, including constitutional, statutory, and regulatory law, as well as case law. The California Codes form the general statutory law, and most state agency regulations are available in the Californi ...

in 1919 under Governor William Stephens criminalizing

syndicalism Syndicalism is a revolutionary current within the left-wing of the labor movement that seeks to unionize workers according to industry and advance their demands through strikes with the eventual goal of gaining control over the means of prod ...

. It was enacted on April 30, 1919, and repealed in 1991.Repealed by California Stats. 1991, c. 186 (A.B. 436). One of the Act's best-known convictions was that of Charlotte Anita Whitney, which led to the Act being upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in '' Whitney v. California'' (1927), which was itself explicitly overturned in ''

Brandenburg v. Ohio ''Brandenburg v. Ohio'', 395 U.S. 444 (1969), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court interpreting the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Court held that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that s ...

'' (1969), effectively declaring the Act unconstitutional. The Act must be viewed in the context of the

First Red Scare The First Red Scare was a period during the early 20th-century history of the United States marked by a widespread fear of far-left movements, including Bolshevism and anarchism, due to real and imagined events; real events included the R ...

and the turbulent

labor history of the United States The labor history of the United States describes the history of organized labor, US labor law, and more general history of working people, in the United States. Beginning in the 1930s, unions became important allies of the Democratic Party. T ...

in the early 20th century. From 1910 to 1920, 20 states enacted laws criminalizing syndicalism.

Convictions

One of the Act's best-known convictions was of Charlotte Anita Whitney in 1920, which led to the Act being upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in '' Whitney v. California'' (1927). In April 1930, meetings of the Agricultural Workers' Industrial League (AWIL) across

Imperial Valley , photo = Salton Sea from Space.jpg , photo_caption = The Imperial Valley below the Salton Sea. The US-Mexican border runs diagonally across the lower left of the image. , map_image = Newriverwatershed-1-.jpg , map_caption = Map of Imperial ...

but centered around

El Centro El Centro (Spanish for "The Center") is a city and county seat of Imperial County, California, United States. El Centro is the largest city in the Imperial Valley, the east anchor of the Southern California Border Region, and the core urban are ...

were raided by the

Imperial County Imperial Count (german: Reichsgraf) was a title in the Holy Roman Empire. In the medieval era, it was used exclusively to designate the holder of an imperial county, that is, a fief held directly ( immediately) from the emperor, rather than from ...

Sheriff. Of the hundreds arrested, 16 were charged by the

Grand Jury with violations of the Criminal Syndicalism Act, and 8 were convicted on 13 June 1930 and received sentences ranging from deportation to 42 years in prison. In 1931, the conviction of Frank Spector was reversed by the

California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District The California Courts of Appeal are the State court (United States), state Appellate court, intermediate appellate courts in the U.S. state of California. The state is geographically divided along List of counties in California, county lines int ...

Fresno, California Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...

. All of the convicts were

parole Parole (also known as provisional release or supervised release) is a form of early release of a prison inmate where the prisoner agrees to abide by certain behavioral conditions, including checking-in with their designated parole officers, or ...

d by 1933.

Notes

References

* * * * Criminal Syndicalism Act Syndicalism 1919 in law Criminal Syndicalism Act 1991 in law Criminal Syndicalism Act History of labor relations in the United States Industrial Workers of the World in California Anti-communism in the United States Anti-anarchism in the United States Political repression in the United States Censorship in the United States Freedom of expression in the United States {{US-law-stub