Title: Committee to Aid the Bloomington Students Records
Inclusive Dates: 1960-1968

Creator:

• Committee to Aid the Bloomington Students

Call Number: Mss 213; Micro 796

Quantity: 2.5 c.f. (6 archives boxes) and 1 reel of microfilm (35mm)

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 an organization formed to support the legal defense of Jim Bingham, Ralph Levitt, and Tom Morgan, three officers of the Young Socialist Alliance at Indiana University, who were charged with subversive conspiracy under the Indiana Anti-Subversive Act of 195l. The collection consists of correspondence of the national office in New York, 1960-1966 (some with lawyer Leonard B. Boudin); correspondence and records of various local chapters; microfilmed newsclippings, 1960-1966; and internal records. The latter include summaries of important events in the case, legal documents and memoranda, lists of sponsors and contributors, some financial records, press releases, publications, and a candid evaluation of the character and political views of 195 politically prominent Bloomington residents.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00213

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The Committee to Aid the Bloomington Students (CABS) was formed in 1963 to promote national support and raise funds for the legal defense of three Indiana University students charged with felonies under Indiana's Anti-Subversion Act of 1951. The three students, Ralph Levitt, Jim Bingham, and Tom Morgan were officers in the Indiana University chapter of the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) on March 25, 1963, when a black civil rights activist and national YSA officer, Leroy McRae, spoke on “The Black Revolt in America” to the I.U. chapter of the YSA. The Monroe County (Ind.) public prosecutor, Thomas A. Hoadley, interpreted the speech as advocating the violent overthrow of the governments of the United States and the State of Indiana. On May 1, 1963, Levitt, Bingham, and Morgan were indicted by a local grand jury. In July 1963 two other indictments were brought against the students, charging subversive conspiracy in private meetings held in May 1963.

CABS grew out of the Bloomington Defense Committee, established in 1962 to resist Prosecutor Hoadley's attempt to convince Indiana University to withdraw official recognition from YSA. At the end of 1963 CABS moved its national headquarters to New York City from Bloomington in order to escape the disapproval of the community and the scrutiny of Hoadley. From the New York office, fund-raising, distribution of literature, and several national and regional tours of the three defendants were coordinated with local CABS chapters that generally consisted of YSA activists.

On March 20, 1964, a county circuit court judge found the Indiana Anti-Subversion Act unconstitutional and dismissed the indictments against the three students. Prosecutor Hoadley appealed the ruling to the Indiana Supreme Court, where the indictments based on the private meetings were reinstated on January 25, 1965. In November 1966 a hearing on the constitutionality of the Indiana Anti-Subversion Act was to be held in a federal court but was cancelled, evidently in response to the decision of Prosecutor Hoadley to resign his office. After some delay, the new public prosecutor decided not to pursue the case. CABS issued its final communication to its sponsors and contributors in February 1968.

The collection consists primarily of fund-raising and sponsorship appeals; communications between the CABS national office and local chapters; legal documents; a small amount of internal papers such as financial records, reports of the defendants' tours, and papers used in preparing the legal cases; lists of sponsors and contributors; and newsclippings. These records are arranged in four series: General Correspondence of CABS, General Records, Correspondence and Papers of CABS Chapters, and Scrapbooks of Newsclippings.

The GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE OF CABS illustrates the main activities of the national office in New York: recruiting sponsors (particularly academics), raising money for the defendants' legal defense, and exhorting local chapters to do the same. A major portion of the correspondence dates from October 1963 through March 1964, a period of intensive organizing prior to the first judicial test of the Indiana Anti-Subversion Act on March 20, 1964.

The GENERAL RECORDS include a variety of documents, memoranda, and official CABS literature. Among the records titled “Descriptions of the Case” are summaries of important events prepared both to inform the sponsors of the progress of the case and, apparently, to aid in the legal defense. Included also are some press accounts, transcripts, and drafts of speeches. Other memoranda prepared in the course of the legal defense and copies of many of the court documents are among the General Records as well. The financial records are mainly statements from legal counsel and summaries prepared for the sponsors. Other General Records include printed promotional literature, CABS press releases, and announcements, schedules, and reports pertaining to the defendants' speaking tours. The major part of the lists of sponsors and contributors is a box of file cards giving the names, addresses, and institutional affiliations of individual sponsors.

CABS collected resolutions passed by unions, student groups, and others in support of the defendants, and a few items from the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (ECLC). Through most of CABS's existence one of the defendants' two co-counsels was Leonard B. Boudin, general counsel of the ECLC. Although CABS was reluctant to acknowledge a connection with the ECLC, regarded by many in Bloomington as overly sympathetic to left-wing causes, the ECLC took considerable credit for the Bloomington students' legal successes.

Also among the records in this series is a printed transcript of the speech by Leroy McRae that led to the original indictment of Levitt, Bingham, and Morgan. CABS sold copies of the speech as a fund-raising device. Finally, someone apparently connected with CABS prepared a typewritten, candid political and personal appraisal of 195 prominent Bloomington residents, probably in anticipation of Prosecutor Hoadley's investigation of persons associated with the YSA. Individuals described were members of political organizations, journalists, lawyers, university faculty, administrators and students, and others. The document's main purpose seems to be to point out those who could and might choose to identify members of the YSA.

The CORRESPONDENCE AND PAPERS OF CABS CHAPTERS series primarily contains routine correspondence between local chapters and individual contacts, and the national office. Some files also contain financial statements, press releases, and reports on the defendants' promotional activities in the locality.

Although most of the items included in the SCRAPBOOK OF NEWSCLIPPINGS relate to Levitt, Bingham, and Morgan's legal case and personal activities, several other subjects are covered. Clippings from the period prior to the indictments under the anti-subversion law describe the activities of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in Bloomington and the controversy over its recognition as a campus organization and, later, a similar controversy over the YSA. In early 1963, Prosecutor Hoadley arrested and tried an Indiana University student, Nancy Dillingham, for possession of marijuana and charged that she was a confidante and marijuana supplier of Bloomington socialists. Both Dillingham and the YSA denied that she had any connection with the YSA. The clippings cover these incidents and Dillingham's trial. In addition, clippings were kept regarding certain activities of other Bloomington figures associated with the YSA.

Acquisition Information

Presented by the Socialist Workers Party via Jack Barnes, 1978. Accession Number: M78-328

Processing Information

Processed by Menzi Behrnd-Klodt and Thomas Flory, March 1980.

Mss 213	Series: General Correspondence of CABS
Box   1 Folder   1-6	1962 November-1964 March
Box   2 Folder   1-5	1964 April-1967, undated
Box   2 Folder   6	Form Letters, 1963-1968, undated
	Series: General Records	⇧
Box   2 Folder   7	Descriptions of the Case - Speeches, Publications, Memos, 1963-1964(?), undated
Box   2 Folder   8	Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, Literature, 1963-1965, undated
Box   5 Folder   1-2	Legal Documents, 1963-1967
Box   5 Folder   3	Legal Papers Pertaining to Cases
Box   3 Folder   1	McRae, Leroy, The Indiana “Subversion” Speech, 1963
Box   3 Folder   2	Papers, Financial Records, Literature, 1963-1965, undated
Box   3 Folder   3	Political and Personal Comments on Bloomington Figures, undated
Box   3 Folder   4	Press Releases, Resolutions, Editorials, 1963-1965
Box   3 Folder   5	Speaking Announcements and Miscellaneous Papers, 1963-1965, undated
	Sponsors and Contributors
Box   3 Folder   6	Mailing Lists, 1963-1965
Box   6	Cards
	Series: Correspondence and Papers of CABS Chapters	⇧
Box   3 Folder   7	Antioch College CABS, 1963-1964, undated
Box   3 Folder   8	Baltimore CABS and Maryland Contacts, 1963-1964
Box   3 Folder   9	Bard College CABS, 1963
Box   3 Folder   10	Berkeley CABS, 1963-1966
Box   3 Folder   11	Boston CABS, 1963-1966, undated
Box   3 Folder   12	Carleton College CABS, 1963-1964, undated
Box   3 Folder   13	Chicago CABS, 1963-1965
Box   3 Folder   14	Cleveland CABS, 1963-1965, undated
Box   3 Folder   15	Denver CABS and Boulder Contacts, 1965
Box   3 Folder   16	Detroit CABS, 1963-1965, undated
Box   3 Folder   17	Hofstra University Contacts, 1963
Box   3 Folder   18	Iowa, University of, Contact, 1963
Box   4 Folder   1	Los Angeles CABS, 1963-1965, undated
Box   4 Folder   2	Louisville CABS, 1963
Box   4 Folder   3	Madison (Wisconsin) CABS, 1963-1965, undated
Box   4 Folder   4	Michigan State University YSA, 1963, undated
Box   4 Folder   5	Michigan, University of, CABS and Contacts, 1963-1966, undated
Box   4 Folder   6	Minneapolis CABS, 1963-1966, undated
Box   4 Folder   7	Nashville Contact, 1963
Box   4 Folder   8	New Jersey Contacts, 1963-1965
Box   4 Folder   9	Philadelphia CABS and Contacts, 1963-1965, undated
Box   4 Folder   10	San Francisco CABS, 1963-1965
Box   4 Folder   11	San Jose CABS, 1965
Box   4 Folder   12	Toronto CABS and Canadian Contacts, 1963-1965
Box   4 Folder   13	Tucson CABS, 1963
Micro 796 Reel   1 Frame   1-561	Series: Scrapbooks of Newsclippings, 1960-1966	⇧