Ohio History Journal

NOTES 149

of its first allocation for administrative and other overhead expenses. Charles E. Pynchon

to Ickes, June 9, 1934, NA RG 48.

56. "Minutes of Unit Committee," April 22, 23, 1934; Dayton Daily News, November

10, 1933, April 20, 23, 1934; Dayton Review, April 27, 1934. Joseph was a close friend

and associate of Milburn L. Wilson and his appointment as manager, coming shortly after

the initial loan of $50,000, was probably on Wilson's recommendation.

57. Conkin, Tomorrow a New World, 107-108, 121.

58. Ibid., 120-124; Harold L. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes: The First

Thousand Days, 1933-1936 (New York, 1953), 159-160, 218-219.

59. M. L. Wilson to Ickes, April 11, 1934, NA, RG 48.

60. Dayton Journal, April 22, 23, 1934; Dayton Review, May 4, 18, 1934; Dayton Daily

News, May 29, 1934. Copies of the committee's resolution were reportedly sent to Presi-

dent Roosevelt, Ickes, Wilson, and Pynchon.

61. Philip M. Glick to the Assistant Secretary of the Interior, May 24, 1934, Glick

to S. H. Thal, May 24, 1934, Ickes to Bulkley, May 28, 1934, NA, RG 48; Dayton Review,

May 18, 1934.

62. Pynchon to Ebert K. Burlew, June 6, 1934, Ickes to Bulkley, June 14, 1934, Ickes

to Senator Simeon D. Fess, June 14, 1934, NA, RG 48; Dayton Review, June 15, 1934.

63. Dayton Daily News, May 29, 1934; Pynchon to Unit Committee of Council of

Social Agencies, June 5, 1934, Ickes to Bulkley, June 14, 1934, Ickes to Hopkins, June

23, 1934, NA, RG 48.

64. Borsodi to Pynchon, June 15, 1934, Pynchon to Ickes, June 25, 1934, NA, RG 48;

Dayton Journal, June 26, 1934; Dayton Daily News, June 25, 1934.

65. Borsodi, Education for Living, I, vii-viii; Dayton Daily News, June 25, 1934; Day-

ton Journal, June 27, 1934.

66. Dayton Journal, June 28, July 3, 1934; Dayton Daily News, July 4, 1934; Pynchon

to Ickes, July 14, 1934, NA, RG 48.

67. Dayton Review, July 13, 27, 1934; Dayton Journal, July 11, 1934; Dayton Daily

News, July 29, 1934.

68. Dayton Daily News, August 9, 1934; Dayton Review, September 14, 28, 1934;

Pynchon to Ickes, September 13, 1934, Louis Glavis to Burlew, January 22, 1935, Pynchon

to Burlew, January 28, 1935, NA, RG 48; Dayton Journal, March 16, September 15,

October 22, December 31, 1935.

THE "NAIVE LIBERAL," THE "DEVIOUS COMMUNIST"

AND THE JOHNSON CASE

1. For the only survey of American criminal syndicalist legislation see Eldridge F.

Dowell, A History of Criminal Syndicalism Legislation in the United States, Johns Hop-

kins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, 57th Series (Baltimore, 1939);

for the statistics see p. 147.

2. The Ohio Criminal Syndicalism Act was patterned after the California statute and

is now Sections 2923.12 - 2923.15, inclusive, of the Ohio Revised Code. Pertinent to this

article are Sections 2923.12 and 2923.13. Section 2923.12 defines criminal syndicalism as

follows: "As used in section 2923.12 to 2923.15 inclusive of the Revised Code 'criminal

syndicalism' is the doctrine which advocates crime; sabotage, which is defined as the

malicious injury or destruction of the property of another; violence; or unlawful methods

of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political reform." Section 2923.13

penalizes the advocacy of criminal syndicalism: "No person shall by word of mouth or

writing advocate or teach the duty, necessity, or propriety of crime, sabotage, violence

or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing industrial or political re-

form; or print, publish, edit, issue, or knowingly circulate, sell, distribute, or publicly

display any book, paper, document, or written matter in any form, containing or advo-

cating, advising or teaching the doctrine that industrial or political reform should be

brought about by crime, sabotage, violence or unlawful methods of terrorism; or openly,

willfully, and deliberately justify, by word of mouth or writing, the commission or the

attempt to commit crime, sabotage, violence, or unlawful methods of terrorism with in-

tent to exemplify, spread or advocate the propriety of the doctrines of criminal syndi-

calism; or organize or help to organize or become a member of, or voluntarily assemble

150 OHIO HISTORY

with any society, group, or assemblage of persons formed to teach or advocate the doc-

trines of criminal sydicalism."

3. Dowell, Criminal Syndicalism Legislation, 78; Ohio House Journal, 1919, 800-801;

Ohio Senate Journal, 1919, 534-535; Laws of Ohio, 1919, Part I, 189-190.

4. Robert K. Murray, Red Scare, A Study of National Hysteria, 1919-1920 (Minneapo-

lis, 1955), 71, 74-76, 111.

5. Murray, Red Scare, 234-235. The Ohio "Red Flag" statute, now Section 2921.07

of the Ohio Revised Code, was signed by Governor Cox in April 1919. Laws of Ohio,

1919, Part I, 58. There have been no legal reports of cases brought under the statute.

6. Helen R. Evans to Forrest Bailey, November 22, 1929, American Civil Liberties

Union Microfilm Archives, the New York Public Library (hereinafter cited as: ACLU

Microfilms). The American Civil Liberties Union Archives are located at the Princeton

University Library; there is also a complete microfilm file of the papers at the New York

Public Library. In writing this article I have used the originals at the Princeton Li-

brary, where available, and have supplemented these by the microfilm at the New York

Public Library. The trial of Gannett and Yoki was continued until the motion for a new

trial was overruled in the Johnson case. Defense attorney, Mrs. Yetta Land, then asked

for a change of venue, and on March 31, 1930, Gannett and Yoki v. State of Ohio was

tried at Cadiz, Ohio, in the Court of Common Pleas for Harrison County. The leaflet

at issue attacked sanitary and other working conditions at the Wheeling Corrugated Com-

pany in Martins Ferry and followed with an appeal to laborers to "recognize the class

war concept" and to organize and demonstrate on International Red Day. The two de-

fendants were convicted after the jury had deliberated for three hours; the convictions

were immediately appealed to the Court of Appeals for Harrison County. Alfred Bettman

for the ACLU and Mrs. Land for the ILD again cooperated in the handling and the

argument of the case, and in December 1930, some seven months after the disposal of

Johnson, the convictions were reversed. See Dowell, Criminal Syndicalism Legislation,

128-129; Helen Evans to Bailey, November 22, 1929, ACLU Microfilms; Yetta Land to

Bailey, December 16, 1929, ACLU Microfilms; Alfred Bettman to Bailey, December 4,

1930, American Civil Liberties Union Archives, Princeton University Library (hereinafter

cited as: ACLU Archives); Bettman to Bailey, January 12, 1931, ACLU Archives; Jour-

nal Entries, Gannett and Yoki v. State of Ohio, Case #2405 (unreported), Seventh Dis-

trict Court of Appeals for Harrison County, Cadiz, Ohio.

7. Opinion, Johnson et al. v. State of Ohio (unreported), Seventh District Court

of Appeals for Belmont County, St. Clairsville, Ohio, ACLU Archives. See also Bettman

to Ida Epstien, July 18, 1930, ACLU Archives.

8. Bettman to Bailey, December 24, 1929, ACLU Microfilms.

9. Motion for a New Trial, Johnson et al. v. State of Ohio, November 21, 1929, ACLU

Microfilms.

10. Sacco and Vanzetti, two obscure Italian immigrants and anarchists, were convicted

for the murder of a paymaster in South Braintree, Massachusetts, in May 1920 and exe-

cuted seven years later. The case became the cause celebre of the 1920's and has since

inspired a large number of books, the most recent of which is Herbert B. Ehrmann, The

Case That Will Not Die (Boston, 1969). Tom Mooney and Warren Billings were ac-

cused and convicted of setting a bomb that killed ten persons and injured forty others

during the San Francisco Preparedness Parade in July 1916. The two most recent volumes

on the case are Curt Gentry, Frame-Up, The Incredible Case of Tom Mooney and War-

ren Billings (New York, 1967) and Richard Frost, The Mooney Case (Stanford, 1968).

The Scottsboro Case involved the conviction of nine young Negroes for the alleged rape

in 1931 of two white girls aboard a freight train passing through Alabama; the most re-

cent study of the case is Dan T. Carter, Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South

(Baton Rouge, 1969).

11. Gentry, Frame-Up, 324, 365; Theodore Draper, American Communism and Soviet

Russia (New York, 1960), 180-182. William D. Haywood, a founder of the Industrial

Workers of the World, was tried for the violation of the Espionage Act of 1917, skipped

bail and fled to Moscow in 1921. For the newest study of the I.W.W., see Patrick Ren-

shaw, The Wobblies: The Story of Syndicalism in the United States (New York, 1967).

In 1946 the International Labor Defense was merged with the Federation for Constitu-

tional Liberties and became the Civil Rights Congress. See Walter Goodman, The Com-

mittee, The Extraordinary Career of the House Committee on Un-American Activities

(New York, 1968), 210.

NOTES 151

12. Poyntz, Reeve and Hacker and their positions are listed on the letterhead of the

International Labor Defense for most of the year, 1929. By November 1929, J. Louis

Engdahl had replaced Juliet Stuart Poyntz, and by the following April George Maurer

had succeeded Carl Hacker. Helen Evans to Bailey, November 27, 1929, ACLU Micro-

films; George Maurer to the ACLU, April 28, 1930, ACLU Archives. Both Engdahl and

Maurer were members of the Communist party; the former was a co-editor of the Daily

Worker. Solon de Leon, The American Labor Who's Who (New York, 1925), 66, 150;

Draper, American Communism, 143, 371.

13. The nineteen members of the Communist party who were also listed on the ILD

letterhead as of November 1929 were Scott Nearing, William Z. Foster, Harrison George,

William F. Dunne, George Maurer, Robert Minor, Benjamin Gitlow, Fred G. Bieden-

kapp, Lovett Fort-Whiteman, Max Bedacht, Albert Weisbord, Ella Reeve Bloor, Earl R.

Browder, Cyril Briggs, Ben Gold, Pat Toohey, Alfred Wagenknecht, Juliet Stuart Poyntz,

and Karl Reeve. Draper, American Communism, 24, 61, 117, 119, 122-123, 143, 169, 176-

177, 221, 232, 266-267, 320, 322, 435. There are short biographical entries on Poyntz,

Reeve, Maurer, Nearing, Foster, George, Gitlow, Dunne, Bedacht, Weisbord, Browder,

Wagenknecht, and Engdahl in de Leon, American Labor Who's Who, 14, 28, 64, 77,

83, 86, 150, 169-170, 188, 193-194, 237, 245.

14. Press release, International Labor Defense, November 23, 1929, ACLU Microfilms.

15. Press release, International Labor Defense. December 19, 1929, ACLU Microfilms.

16. For a study of the origins and early activities of the American Civil Liberties

Union see Donald O. Johnson, The Challenge to American Freedom: World War I and

the Rise of the American Civil Liberties Union (Lexington, Ky., 1963).

17. Jack Rose to Roger Baldwin, October 22, 1929, ACLU Microfilms. See also fn. 6,

above.

18. Bailey to Bettman, October 26, 1929, ACLU Microfilms.

19. Charles Schenck, General Secretary of the Socialist party, had distributed an anti-

conscription pamphlet to men who had been accepted for military service; Eugene Victor

Debs, Socialist leader and 1912 candidate for the Presidency, had made an anti-war

speech at Canton, Ohio, in the spring of 1918. See Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47

(1919), and Debs v. United States, 249 U.S. 211 (1919).

20. Zachariah Chaffee, Jr., Free Speech in the United States (Cambridge, 1941), 67;

John Lord O'Brian, "Alfred Bettman," Journal of the American Institute of Planners,

XI (Autumn 1945), 4-6. The Report of the Attorney in Charge of Pardons is denom-

inated as Exhibit 21 in the Annual Report of the Attorney General of the United States

for the Year 1919 (Washington, 1919), 463-528. In all there were 109 cases involving viola-

tion of the Espionage Act in which Bettman and O'Brian recommended pardons or com-

mutations of sentences. Report of the Attorney General, 1919, 506-509, 515-519, 522-524.

In March 1919 Bettman did, however, advise against the pardoning of Eugene Victor

Debs. See Stanley Coben, A. Mitchell Palmer: Politician (New York, 1963), 201.

21. Ordered by Attorney-General A. Mitchell Palmer in January 1920, the "raids"

led to the arrest of some 4000 aliens reputed to have radical or Communist affiliations.

For descriptions of the episode, see Murray, Red Scare, 210-222, and Coben, A. Mitchell

Palmer, 217-245.

22. O'Brian, "Alfred Bettman," 5; William Harel, "Perhaps the Turn of the Tide,"

New Republic (February 11, 1920), 313-316. In 1931 Bettman authored the "Criminal

Justice Survey Analysis" in the Report on Prosecution (Washington, 1931), 39-221, pub-

lished under the auspices of the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforce-

ment.

23. Bettman to Bailey, January 6, 1930, ACLU Archives.

24. Bailey to Bettman, January 8, 1930; Bailey to J. Louis Engdahl, January 15, 1930.

ACLU Archives.

25. Bailey to Bettman, January 8, 1930, ACLU Archives.

26. Yetta Land to Bailey, December 20, 1929, ACLU Microfilms. In a letter to Bailey

the proscribed lawyer explained that the antagonism of the ILD was in part the result

of the personal feelings of Mrs. Land "because of some cases in which we were both in-

volved but which terminated unfavorably for her" and "on account of some 1919 and

1920 unpleasantness" with Carl Hacker. Phillip Bartell to Bailey, December 26, 1929,

ACLU Microfilms. Mrs. Land offered no explanation for the attitude of the ILD. "I do

not think," she wrote, "it necessary to state the reason therefore . . . ." Yetta Land to

Bailey, December 20, 1929, ACLU Microfilms.

152 OHIO HISTORY

27. Bettman to Bailey, January 16, 1930; Bailey to Bettman, January 28, 1930. ACLU

Archives.

28. Bettman to Bailey, December 24, 1929, ACLU Microfilms; Bettman to Bailey,

January 16, 1930, ACLU Archives.

29. Motion for a New Trial, Johnson et al. v. State of Ohio, November 21, 1929,

ACLU Microfilms.

30. Bettman to Bailey, January 16, 1930, ACLU Archives.

31. Gitlow v. New York, 268 U. S. 652 (1925).

32. Ibid., 666.

33. Ibid., 668.

34. Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357 (1927); Murray, Red Scare, 235.

35. 274 U. S. 357, p. 371.

36. Chaffee, Free Speech in the United States, 319, 344.

37. Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U. S. 380 (1927).

38. Ibid., 382-383.

39. Ibid., 386.

40. Bettman to Bailey, December 18, 1929, ACLU Microfilms.

41. Bettman to Bailey, December 24, 1929, ACLU Microfilms.

42. Bettman to Bailey, May 22, 1930, ACLU Archives.

43. Johnson et al. v. State of Ohio (unreported), Seventh District Court of Appeals

for Belmont County, St. Clairsville, Ohio, ACLU Archives.

44. Johnson et al. v. State of Ohio (unreported), Seventh District Court of Appeals

for Belmont County, ACLU Archives. After Johnson was remanded, the Belmont County

Prosecutor announced that his staff would retry the case. "They are hard losers," Mrs.

Land explained to the ILD, "and are willing to go to bat once more with this case,

knowing full well that the Court of Appeals will reverse them once again." Yetta Land

to Samuel A. Darcy, November 11, 1930, ACLU Archives. The International Labor De-

fense, confronted with the possibility of a new trial, tried to condition Bettman's con-

tinued participation on a procedure not "restricted to legal technicalities," but explanded

to include "the political phase of the issue." Bettman refused in strong language. "If I

participate," he told Mrs. Land, "I can only try the case in my own way. If we could

get the case dismissed on the prosecutor's showing, I would do so. If I would deem it

advisable to go to the jury on the prosecutor's case, I would do so. If it became, in my

opinion, advisable, to put the defense on the stand, I would restrict the questions to

what I deemed necessary to counteract the testimony of the plaintiff. I would seek to

keep out issues not relevant or necessary, for meeting the prosecutor's case." The ILD

labelled the reply of the ACLU attorney as "vague and general"; Mrs. Land, on the con-

trary, thought that Bettman's answer was a "very clear statement that he will proceed

with the case, as he, according to a trial lawyer, sees fit." "If you desire," she informed

the ILD, "to . . . deviate from the strictly legal and technical procedure, and thereby

admit certain evidence into the trial, which is not absolutely relevant and yet which

from the standpoint of the ILD [is necessary], it will be necessary to proceed without

Mr. Bettman." Yetta Land to Bettman, November 21, 1930; Bettman to Yetta Land,

November 22, 1930; Darcy to Yetta Land, December 2, [?] 1930; Yetta Land to Darcy,

December 4, 1930. The foregoing correspondence are copies contained in a covering

letter from Bettman to Bailey, December 15, 1930, ACLU Archives. The revived contro-

versy over trial strategy and ACLU-ILD relations concluded anticlimatically in May 1931

when the Johnson case was dropped by a new prosecuting attorney. See Bettman to

Bailey, May 18, 1931, ACLU Archives.

SOCIALIST PARTY OF OHIO--WAR AND FREE SPEECH

1. William English Walling, ed., The Socialists and the War (New York, 1915), as

cited by David A. Shannon, The Socialist Party of America: A History (New York, 1955),

82.

2 George R. Kirkpatrick, War! What For? (West Lafayette, Ohio, 1910).

3. All background information on the activities of the Socialist Party of America and

its efforts to bring about international Socialist unity for peace is taken from Shannon,

Socialist Party of America, 81-90.