Carl Paivio
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Carl Paivio (born Karl Einar Päiviö; 23 November 1893 – April 1952) was a
Finnish American Finnish Americans ( fi, amerikansuomalaiset, ) comprise Americans with ancestral roots from Finland or Finnish people who immigrated to and reside in the United States. The Finnish-American population numbers a little bit more than 650,000. Man ...
labor activist and anarchist. He became known in 1919 during 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 ...
as Paivio and his fellow anarchist Gust Alonen were convicted of "criminal anarchy" for writing in a radical newspaper. Paivio and Alonen were the first activists convicted in the State of New York for violating the Criminal Anarchy law, although it was passed already in 1902 right after the assassination of the president
William McKinley William McKinley (January 29, 1843September 14, 1901) was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. As a politician he led a realignment that made his Republican Party largely dominant in ...
.


Life

Paivio was born in
Töysä Töysä is a former municipality in Western Finland. It was consolidated to Alavus on 1 January 2013. It is part of the Southern Ostrobothnia region. The municipality had a population of (31 December 2012) and covered an area of of which was w ...
, and emigrated to the United States as an illegal immigrant at the age of 22. He sailed from Finland via Australia as a crew member of a Finnish merchant ship and boarded
Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
in the fall of 1915. December 1917 Paivio moved to New York City and joined the syndicalist trade union
Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...
. He was a member of the Finnish IWW local in the
Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...
. It was known as a radical splinter group within the IWW, opposing all centralized power or centralized organization. The group was publishing a Finnish language anarchist paper called ''Luokkataistelu'' (The Class Struggle), Paivio was the editor and Gust Alonen worked as the co-editor. The
Lusk Committee The Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Seditious Activities, popularly known as the Lusk Committee, was formed in 1919 by the New York State Legislature to investigate individuals and organizations in New York State suspected of sedition. ...
raided the IWW
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 ...
headquarters on 21 June 1919 and found several copies of the ''Luokkataistelu'' paper. The committee was interested on the article ″The Activity of the Rioting Masses″ published in the March edition. Content of this article finally brought Paivio and Alonen the charges of criminal anarchy. The article included the often quoted lines:Cashman, Sean Dennis: ''America Ascendant: From Theodore Roosevelt to FDR in the Century of American Power, 1901-1945''. p. 176. New York University Press, New York, NY, 1998. . Paivio and Alonen were arrested in August and the trial started on 6 October. On 28 October 1919 Supreme Court Justice Bartow S. Weeks sentenced them to prison terms of from four to eight years for "criminal anarchy". The court also called for the deportation of Paivio and Alonen when their sentences expired, but it was never executed. Carl Paivio was released from Clinton Prison in 1923. He continued his activities in several leftist organizations, but according to the autobiography of
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 ...
Paivio later moved from anarchism towards communism. He became the national secretary of 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. ...
affiliated Finnish America Mutual Aid Society and was also employed by the International Workers Order. Through the 1930s and 1940s Paivio was a prominent leftist political organizer, lecturer and instructor. During the Second Red Scare led by United States Senator Joseph McCarthy Paivio was held for deportation under the McCarran–Walter Act and kept on Ellis Island, but he died there before he was deported to Finland.


References


External links


TRIAL #3258
Crime in New York 1850–1950 {{DEFAULTSORT:Paivio, Carl 1893 births 1952 deaths People from Töysä People from Vaasa Province (Grand Duchy of Finland) Emigrants from the Grand Duchy of Finland to the United States Industrial Workers of the World members American anarchists American prisoners and detainees Finnish anarchists American trade unionists of Finnish descent McCarthyism Prisoners and detainees of New York (state)