Title: Civil Rights Defense Committee Records
Inclusive Dates: 1941-1958

Creator:

• Civil Rights Defense Committee

Call Number: Mss 79

Quantity: 0.8 c.f. (2 archives boxes)

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Records of the Civil Rights Defense Committee (CRDC), an organization formed in 1941 which unsuccessfully fought the conviction of 18 members of the Minneapolis Teamsters Local 544. In the first conviction under the Smith Act, the defendants were jailed for their membership in the Socialist Workers Party. In addition to files on the above case, sometimes known as the “Minnesota labor case,” there are files on the committee's defense of Local 544 officers Kelly Postal and Carl Skoglund and on three marginally-related cases. Included are correspondence, legal records, publicity, clippings, and financial records.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00079

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The Civil Rights Defense Committee was organized in August 1941, to defend the 28 socialist members of the Minneapolis Teamsters Union, #544, who were charged with seditious conspiracy in the “Minnesota labor case.” From the materials in the collection, the functioning of the Civil Rights Defense Committee appears virtually indistinguishable from the issues of this case and the two cases which arose from it. This case, which was the first conviction under the Smith Act, arose out of an inter-union dispute and the influence of the Socialist Workers Party in Local #544. During the 1930s Local #544 emerged as one of the most powerful trade unions in the Midwest as a result of its militant unionism. However, after 1934, its socialist political views became an increasing source of friction between the local and Daniel J. Tobin, the more conservative head of the AFL Teamsters International. When Tobin attempted to take control of the local in June 1941, #544 voted to affiliate with the CIO. Tobin's personal influence with President Roosevelt led to a governmental investigation and indictment of 28 members of the local and of the Socialist Workers Party by a Federal Grand Jury in 1941 for violation of the Smith Act.

Provisions of this act were such that the defendants were accused for their verbal expressions of opinion rather than their actions. It was the Civil Rights Defense Committee's exposure of this threat to freedom of speech which allowed the Committee to win wide support for the defendants. In addition, the Committee gained strong support from labor because of the anti-labor implications of the act. These supporters were organized into a national committee composed of individuals prominent in many fields; and thirty local committees, largely made up of unionists. The Committee's activities were directed by the National Secretary, George Novack, and National Chairman, James T. Farrell. Until 1943, the Committee was involved in fund raising and publicity work, but despite the efforts of the CRDC, the conviction of the 18 defendants, who were found guilty, was upheld through several appeals, and the defendants were sentenced to sixteen-month prison terms. The Committee then tried unsuccessfully to gain a presidential pardon for the prisoners.

The expiration of the sentences in 1945 did not end the activities of the CRDC, for two cases which arose from the Minnesota labor case remained to be settled. The first of these involved Kelly Postal, the secretary-treasurer of Local #544, who had transferred its funds to local control when the local left the AFL in 1941. As a result of the FBI investigations of the Minnesota labor case, Postal was charged with embezzlement. The materials in this collection are vague concerning the Committee's activities with reference to Postal, although the Committee was concerned by this threat to local democracy within the trade union movement. Postal was found guilty and served one year of a five-year sentence.

The second case arose from attempts of the government to deport Carl Skoglund, the immigrant president of Local #544, for his former Communist Party membership. In 1941, the FBI offered to drop its prosecution of Skoglund if he would testify in the government's case against the 28; but, having rejected this, Skoglund was imprisoned with the other 17 defendants. In 1949 the CRDC, which had been inactive, was reorganized to defend Skoglund when the government reopened its deportation proceedings. In April 1954, after numerous appeals, Skoglund's deportation, ordered under the McCarren Act of 1952, was prevented only by the seventy-year-old Skoglund's cardiac condition. Further appeals then won a suspension and the cancellation of Skoglund's Alien Bail bond in 1958. The case was finally closed by Skoglund's death shortly thereafter.

The collection has been arranged under six subject headings--three dealing with the three cases with which the Civil Rights Defense Committee was involved, and three smaller cases which appear to have been of personal interest to George Weissman, the donor of the collection and treasurer of the CRDC after 1953. Although the materials on the first three cases are of the same type, consisting of correspondence, legal materials, publicity materials, clippings, and financial records, the depth of documentation varies with each case.

Materials on the early years of the Minnesota labor case are absent; hence, information concerning the organization of the CRDC is scarce. There are, however, considerable records on the functioning of the Committee consisting of printed material, form letters, legal materials, and financial records. Scarcity of material on the Postal case suggests a lesser involvement on the part of the Committee; this portion of the collection includes a form letter, printed pamphlet, and court records. The most complete documentation in the collection concerns the Skoglund case, probably due to the fact that this case coincides with Weissman's tenure as treasurer of the CRDC. Included in this part of the collection are extensive correspondence, legal materials, newspaper clippings, publicity materials, and financial records.

The three final cases are quite small and only of tangential interest to the CRDC. The Socialist Workers Party of Michigan case of 1954 includes a photostated copy of the court stipulation. The Tan See Bou case concerns an attempt to deport an alien seaman for socialist sympathies; the materials on this case consist of correspondence to Weissman from See's California lawyer. The material on the final case consists of a letter to Weissman and a legal review of attempts to deport immigrant John Janosco in 1958.

Acquisition Information

Presented by George L. Weissman, New York, New York, April 30, 1968. Accession Number: M68-108

Custodial History

This collection was donated to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin by Mr. Weissman together with a number of other collections concerned with civil rights and labor issues with which Weissman was involved, including the Committee to Combat Racial Injustice (Mss 51), the Kutcher Civil Rights Committee, which was a direct outgrowth of the CRDC (Mss 52), and the George Weissman Papers, which are concerned with Don West's attempt to unionize Southern workers (Mss 77).

Processing Information

Processed by Eleanor Niermann and Carolyn J. Mattern, March 27, 1970.

Mss 79	Minnesota labor case
Box   1 Folder   1	Correspondence, 1945 October-November
Box   1 Folder   2	Form letters sent to local committees, 1943 October-1944 April, undated
Box   1 Folder   3	Appeal letters, 1943-1944 December
	Publicity material
Box   1 Folder   4	Press releases and radio speech, 1943 November-1944 October
Box   1 Folder   5	Reprints, 1941 July-1944 July
Box   1 Folder   6	Handbills, posters, and pamphlets, 1941-1944
Box   1 Folder   7	Smith Act subject file, 1939 June-1941 July, undated
Box   1 Folder   8	Annual reports, 1944 April and July
	Legal material
Box   1 Folder   9	Appellant's briefs, 1943 September-October
Box   1 Folder   10	Petitions for pardon, 1948 April-August
Box   1 Folder   11	Financial records, 1941 July-1945 April
	Kelly Postal case
Box   1 Folder   12	Legal material, appellant's brief, 1943
Box   1 Folder   13	Appeal letters and folder, 1943 May
Box   1 Volume   1-2	Legal material, court record, 1942
	Carl Skoglund case
	Correspondence
Box   2 Folder   1	1943 June-1951 October
Box   2 Folder   2	1952 July-1957 June, undated
Box   2 Folder   3	Committee membership list, 1949
Box   2 Folder   4	Committee opinion statements, 1949 May-August
Box   2 Folder   5	Publicity materials, 1949 September-October
Box   2 Folder   6	Press releases, 1949 December-1954 December
Box   2 Folder   7	Appeal letters, 1949 April-1954 November
Box   2 Folder   8	Clippings, 1949 July-October and 1954 December
Box   2 Folder   9	Legal materials, appeal briefs and petition, 1941 January-1954 August
	Financial records
Box   2 Folder   10	Bank statements, 1953 April-1958 February
Box   2 Folder   11	Check list, 1949 July-1955 September
Box   2 Folder   12	Savings pass book, 1949 July-1955 January
Box   2 Folder   13	Check stubs, 1948 August-1949 January
Box   2 Folder   14	Receipt book, 1949 June-1955 January
Box   2 Folder   15	Expenses listed by subject, 1949 July-1953 February
Box   2 Folder   16	Clipping file on immigration, 1949 July-1954 December
Box   2 Folder   17	Miscellany, 1950 July-1956 February, undated
	Socialist Workers Party of Michigan case
Box   2 Folder   18	Legal material, Chancery Court stipulation, 1954 February
	Tan See Bou case
Box   2 Folder   19	Correspondence, 1955 May, undated
	John Janosco case
Box   2 Folder   20	Letter, 1958 March