The People's Freedom Union was a left wing American political group which existed from 1919 to 1920. Established as a federation of liberal and radical organizations in New York City, the People's Freedom Union conducted marches in support of political prisoners detained under the Espionage Act during World War I, campaigned for a restoration of American civil rights suspended under the war, and agitated against American intervention in Mexico and Soviet Russia.
The People's Freedom Union was the organizational successor of the People's Council of America, an anti-war organization established in New York City by pacifist and socialist political activists in an effort to end American participation in the European war. [1] The group was headquartered at 138 West 13th Street, premises it shared with the American Civil Liberties Union. [1] The organization declared itself a federation of "several New York groups" which intended to practice "the One Big Union idea applied to the peace-and-freedom movement." [2]
The People's Freedom Union was organized in opposition to the expansion of militarism and imperialism in the post-war world. It declared in its literature that "imperialism is not dead, even though the kaiser and the other emperors have gone" and postulated that the empire-building foreign policy of Great Britain, France, Japan, the United States, and other nations was setting the table for a new round of war. [2] The group therefore sought to organize "liberal and radical forces of the world" in advance of the next conflagration, to "get ready now before the passions of war again sweep them aside." [2]
The group also sought the reestablishment of American civil liberties suspended during the World War I under the Espionage Act, declaring that "democracy without the unrestricted right to discuss public policies is the shabbiest of pretenses." [2] It cited the recent banning and dispersal of public meetings, suppression of dissident newspapers, and the deportation and imprisonment of critical public speakers as examples of the abusive state of then-current law. [2]
The People's Freedom Union declared its intent to take on "concrete tasks not already covered" by other groups participating in the federation, with a design to "gradually absorb other groups". [2] The group was governed by an executive committee, with permanent officers and committees organized around specific projects handling day-to-day affairs. [2]
The People's Freedom Union maintained a publication department under the imprint of "The People's Print", which issued weekly leaflets on pertinent topics in the news and was responsible for the issuance and sale of occasional pamphlets. [2] The group also established a speaker's bureau which coordinated speaking tours of "men and women of national and international note who have a message bearing upon the objects for which the organization stands." [2]
The People's Freedom Union organized a march up Fifth Avenue in New York on Christmas morning, 1919, in support of political prisoners. [3] The march was to be followed by a dispersal in groups of 10 to picket on behalf of prisoners outside churches throughout New York City in hopes of stirring attendees in support of the cause of freeing prisoners of conscience jailed under the Espionage Act during the war. [3] The march was ultimately broken up by the New York Police Department. [4]
A critic of the organization later opined that this demonstration a "rather melodramatic", in which the participants paraded in single file, carrying banners in support of their cause. [5] This criticism, contained in the report of the Lusk Committee established in 1919 by the New York State Senate, declared that marchers had been "led astray with respect to the great forces at play on the public opinion of the American people" and that:
The persons who have participated in this movement, not necessarily familiar with the objects and the purposes which actuate it, are sowing the seeds of disorder and doing their part to imperil the structure of American institutions. [5]
The organization also organized a demonstration on February 12, 1920, at the White House in Washington, DC, in an effort to move President Woodrow Wilson to grant amnesty to political prisoners. [4]
Executive Secretary of the People's Freedom Union was Frances M. Witherspoon. [6]
Secretary of the Free Political Prisoners Committee of the People's Freedom Union was Tracy Dickinson Mygatt. [3] Other well-known individuals involved in the organization included Evans Clark, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, Lewis Gannett, Harry W. Laidler, Jessica Smith, and Norman Thomas, [7] as well as sociologist Winthrop D. Lane. [8]
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 negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds.
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 Russian 1917 October Revolution and anarchist bombings. At its height in 1919–1920, concerns over the effects of radical political agitation in American society and the alleged spread of socialism, communism and anarchism in the American labor movement fueled a general sense of concern.
In the United States Senate, the La Follette Civil Liberties Committee, or more formally, Committee on Education and Labor, Subcommittee Investigating Violations of Free Speech and the Rights of Labor (1936–1941), began as an inquiry into a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) investigation of methods used by employers in certain industries to avoid collective bargaining with unions.
The American Union Against Militarism (AUAM) was an American pacifist organization established in response to World War I. The organization attempted to keep the United States out of the European conflict through mass demonstrations, public lectures, and the printed word. Failing in that effort with American entry into the war in April 1917, the Union battled against conscription, action which subjected it to state repression, and military intervention. The organization was eventually dissolved after the war in 1922.
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.
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 Russian Soviet Government Bureau (1919-1921), sometimes known as the "Soviet Bureau," was an unofficial diplomatic organization established by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in the United States during the Russian Civil War. The Soviet Bureau primarily functioned as a trade and information agency of the Soviet government. Suspected of engaging in political subversion, the Soviet Bureau was raided by law enforcement authorities at the behest of the Lusk Committee of the New York State legislature in 1919. The Bureau was terminated early in 1921.
The Overman Committee was a special subcommittee of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary chaired by North Carolina Democrat Lee Slater Overman. Between September 1918 and June 1919, it investigated German and Bolshevik elements in the United States. It was an early forerunner of the better known House Un-American Activities Committee, and represented the first congressional committee investigation of communism.
Louis C. Fraina was a founding member of the Communist Party USA in 1919. After running afoul of the Communist International in 1921 over the alleged misappropriation of funds, Fraina left the organized radical movement, emerging in 1926 as a left wing public intellectual by the name of Lewis Corey. During the McCarthy era, deportation proceedings were initiated against Fraina-Corey. After a protracted legal battle, Corey died of a cerebral hemorrhage before the action against him was formally abandoned.
The Left Wing Manifesto is the name bestowed upon two distinct programmatic documents of the Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party during the factional war in the Socialist Party of America of 1919.
The following is a bibliography on American Communism, listing some of the most important works on the topic.
The Union of Russian Workers in the United States and Canada, commonly known as the "Union of Russian Workers" was an anarchist political association of Russian emigrants in the United States. The group was established shortly after the failure of the Russian Revolution of 1905 and was essentially annihilated in America by the 1919 Red Scare in which it was targeted by the Bureau of Investigation of the U.S. Department of Justice. Thousands of the group's adherents were arrested and hundreds deported in 1919 and 1920; still more voluntarily returned to Soviet Russia. During its brief existence the organization, which was only loosely affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World, published numerous books and pamphlets in Russian by anarchist writers, operated reading rooms and conducted courses to teach newly arrived Russians English, and fulfilled a social function for emigrants half a world from home.
The Russian Socialist Federation was a semi-autonomous American political organization which was part of the Socialist Party of America from 1915 until the split of the national organization into rival socialist and communist organizations in the summer of 1919. Elements of the Russian Socialist Federation became key components of both the Communist Party of America and the rival Communist Labor Party of America as "Russian Federations" within these organizations. Following the unification of these two groups in 1921, the resulting unified Russian Communist Federation gradually evolved into the so-called Russian Bureau of the Communist Party, USA.
The People's Council of America for Democracy and the Terms of Peace, commonly known as the "People's Council," was an American pacifist political organization established in New York City in May 1917. Organized in opposition to the decision of the Woodrow Wilson administration's decision to enter World War I, the People's Council attempted to mobilize American workers and intellectuals against the war effort through publication of literature and the conduct of mass meetings and public demonstrations. The organization's dissident views made it a target of federal, state, and local authorities, who disrupted its meetings and arrested a number of its leading participants under provisions of the Espionage Act. The People's Council was succeeded in 1919 by a new group based in the same New York City headquarters, the People's Freedom Union.
The Revolutionary Age was an American radical newspaper edited by Louis C. Fraina and published from November 1918 until August 1919. Originally the publication of Local Boston, Socialist Party, the paper evolved into the de facto national organ of the Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party which battled for control of the Socialist Party throughout the spring and summer of 1919. With the establishment of the Left Wing National Council in June 1919, the paper was moved from Boston to New York City gained status as the official voice of the nascent American communist movement. The publication was terminated in August 1919, replaced by the official organ of the new Communist Party of America, a weekly newspaper known as The Communist.
Archibald E. Stevenson was an American attorney and legislative researcher. Stevenson is best remembered for his work as Assistant Counsel of the Lusk Committee of the New York State Senate from 1919 to 1920, the activities of which led to a series of sensational raids and trials of self-professed revolutionary socialists. Stevenson was also the de facto author and editor of the committee's four-volume report, which anticipated congressional investigations of communism conducted in subsequent years.
The Workers Defense Union (WDU) was a legal defense organization in the United States, established in New York City in November 1918 to lend aid in cases involving trade union and radical political activists. The group was organized by Industrial Workers of the World organizer Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, working closely with radical trade unionist Fred Biedenkapp. Both would subsequently become active members of the Workers (Communist) Party of America. The WDU became a local affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1920, with Flynn joining the National Committee of that organization, before finally dissolving as an independent entity in 1923.
The International Labor Defense (ILD) (1925–1947) was a legal advocacy organization established in 1925 in the United States as the American section of the Comintern's International Red Aid network. The ILD defended Sacco and Vanzetti, was active in the anti-lynching, movements for civil rights, and prominently participated in the defense and legal appeals in the cause célèbre of the Scottsboro Boys in the early 1930s. Its work contributed to the appeal of the Communist Party among African Americans in the South. In addition to fundraising for defense and assisting in defense strategies, from January 1926 it published Labor Defender, a monthly illustrated magazine that achieved wide circulation. In 1946 the ILD was merged with the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties to form the Civil Rights Congress, which served as the new legal defense organization of the Communist Party USA. It intended to expand its appeal, especially to African Americans in the South. In several prominent cases in which blacks had been sentenced to death in the South, the CRC campaigned on behalf of black defendants. It had some conflict with former allies, such as the NAACP, and became increasingly isolated. Because of federal government pressure against organizations it considered subversive, such as the CRC, it became less useful in representing defendants in criminal justice cases. The CRC was dissolved in 1956. At the same time, in this period, black leaders were expanding the activities and reach of the Civil Rights Movement. In 1954, in a case managed by the NAACP, the US Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional.
McAlister Coleman was an American journalist, author, and political activist on behalf of socialism and organized labor. Coleman gained public notice as a leading leftist critic of the Lusk Committee of the New York State Legislature in 1920. He was subsequently a frequent candidate for public office on the ticket of the Socialist Party of America. Coleman is today best remembered as an early biographer of Eugene V. Debs as well as the author of a 1943 work of social history, Men and Coal.
Evans Clark (1888–1970) was an American writer strongly committed to first to Communist and Socialist causes and then liberal socio-economic issues, served for a quarter century as first executive director of the Twentieth Century Fund, and was husband of Freda Kirchwey.