000389

FIGHT AGAINST DEPOR TATION

FREE FERRERO and SALLITTO •

H ••• humbly and fervently to beseech the kind Author of these blessings ... to render this country more and more a safe and propitious asylum for the unfortunate of other countries. "

GEORGE WASHINGTON

])HIOE ;:; CE X'l'S

SOCIALIST· lABOR .LORIDA _ lIItVERStn COllECHOI . LIBRARY Demand the Right 0/ Political Asylum

Deportation Is a Weapon Against Labor and Liberty G IVE ~IE YOUR TIRED, YO UR POOR, Y O UR H UD DLED ~l AS S E S Y EA RXIXG T OB REATHE FREE, THE " -H ETCHED R EFU SE OF YO UR T E E~ll X G SHORE; SEXD THEf'E, THE H ul\lELESS, T E~l P EST T OST, TO M E; J LIFT lilY L AlIlP B ESI DE THE GO L DE:" DOOR.

(In scription Oil S tatile of Liberty) FREE FERRERO AND SALLITTO •

?;he Fatls "Our Liberty depends on freedom of the press." - Thomas Jefferson. Vincent Ferrero and Domenick Sallitto have lived in these United States thirty and fifteen years respectively. They entered the country legally and have since been working and supporting themselves while living the simple and honest life of workers. They are, admittedly, of clear record and of high moral character. Sallitto has a motherless, Amer­ ican-born, three year old child who would be left .alone, should he be deported. On the night of April 11, 1934, these two men were .arrested by U. S. Immigration Authorities in Oak­ land, California. Their homes were raided in the dead of night; their premises were searched and their papers and personal letters seized without a search warrant. They were thrown and kept in the County Jail for three days and then released on a bail of $1000 each. Ferrero and Sallitto were charged with no crime, for they had committed no overt act of any kind. Nevertheless, after a sequence of star chamber hearings, they were ordered deported to Fascist Italy. The men were never given a public trial. Indeed, it would be impossible to bring a charge against them which might stand the publicity of an open trial. Why, then, have these men been so summarily condemned to deportation? Because they are designate victims of the Depor­ tation Laws, mainly and essentially meant to be a means of persecution against workers, organized labor and political dissenters with radical leanings. Ferrero and Sallitto, in the Spring of 1934, owned a small restaurant which they ran themselves. 3 · Above the kitchen there was a small mezzanine floor which they sublet for office space to various people, among whom was the editor of the Anarchist magazine "Man". This latter particular, however, was held to be a crime by the tools of reaction, and Ferrero and Sallitto became the target of persecu-) tion for having assumed to be sufficiently free citizens to rent office space to the editor of an Anarchist monthly which was sponsoring the cause of the workers and which was and still is circulat­ ing through the U. S. Mail. The ruthless anti-labor attitude of the authorities in California-where the rabid red-baiting spirit of William R. Hearst reigns supreme-is well known. There the agricultural workers' unions have been brutally suppressed. There the year 1934 witnessed the strike of the longshoremen who were beaten, gassed and shot down. There, too, took place the conviction of the Imperial Valley strikers and to add to this torture inflicted upon workers by the same servants of Hearst, we cannot help but men­ tion the San Francisco General Strike and the farcical trial and tragic convictions in connection with the Sacramento Criminal Syndicalism case. Any unorthodox opinion is persecuted in the attempt to defeat Labor's efforts to organize and raise its living standards. The Immigration Laws prove to be of great help in this attempt; in fact out of 103 workers arrested during the general strike, 73 were held for deportation proceedings. In the early months of 1934 the Immigration Autorities-evidently after having obtained the mailing list from the local Post Office-hounded the readers of "Man". Anyone of them who could be accused or suspected of being foreign-born was an­ noyed and threatened with being driven out of the country. So it was as a part of the general proceed­ ings of suppression that Ferrero and Sallitto, who had rented office space to so persecuted a journal, should fall victims of the drive and be arrested for deportation. 4 Star chamber hearings were the only "trial" ever given these two men. The hearings were . held by the inspector in charge of the Oakland Immigration Service, one E. E. Benson, who also acted as arrest­ ing officer and prosecution witness. The procedures used by this Benson were such that he could be ac­ cused of crime himself with much more ground than Ferrero and Sallitto. The inspectors, in defiance of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, had ransacked, not only the homes of Ferrero and Sal­ litto, but also their restaurant. The evidence thus illegally obtained-even if it were of any con­ sequence, which it was not-could not have been properly introduced at the hearings. But of what value is the Constitution in comparison with the .authority of an Immigration inspector? In fact, one of them, a certain J. Farrelly, testified that he was not familiar with the Fourth Amendment and that nothing in the Constitution could stop him from searching the home of a radical without a warrant. Besides, he added, this was the custom of his department. The above statements made by people whose duty is to carry out the law even to the point of risk­ ing their own lives, gives us the opportunity to make an important conclusion. It is not the law alone that is bad, but worse than the law are the inspectors and officers, men and women whose sole .duty by solemn oath is to apply the law, but whose .sole practice and custom is to interpret it as they .see fit and as it suits them, to the point of making it worse than it is. Lest our statements on the summary, inquisitorial .and autocratic methods of the Immigration Service hirelings seem too far fetched we shall quote from .a speech (January, 1926) of the late Louis Marshall, one of America's leading constitutional lawyers: "At any time an immigration inspector (salary .$1800) comes to the conclusion that any person is an alien, that he did not observe to the letter everyone of the numerous provisions in the immigration law 5 he may bring that mctn before himself. (Our ital­ lic-Ed.) . Mr. Immigration Inspector becomes. at once judicial officer. He is to determine the fate of the ma n whom he has arrested and brought be­ fore himself. He now becomes examining council. He begins to bullyrag the individual, to apply the third degree. He tries to get such evidence as he may from other persons. He makes a record such as he pleases of the facts he thus elicits. He then presents those facts with his conclusion to the Sec­ retary of Labor. The Secretary of Labor submits that to a clerk (salary $2400) to consider as to whether or not, upon the face of the papers, there is sufficient ground for the deportation of that mdividual. He then decides that the person is to be deported..... There never has been anything more shocking than that in our legislation. It is practical­ ly allowing one official to determine whether or not a person is entit led to remain in this country with­ out any chance to review his determination." At one of the hearings Ferrero was questioned as to whether or not he was an Anarchist. To this he replied that he refused to recognize anyone's right to probe into his own thought and beliefs, an inqui­ sitorial pretense against which a few years ago Prof. Einstein revolted saying that he would re­ nounce coming into the United States rather than submit to it. We need only look on page 18 of the Dec. 6, 1932 issue of the N. Y. Times which reported an inter­ view between Prof. Einstein and an American consul in Germany before he sailed for this Country, an interview in which he stated: "What's this an inquisition? Is this an attempt at chicanery? I don't propose to answer such silly questions. I didn't ask to go to America. Your coun­ trymen invited me; yes begged me. If I am to enter your country as a suspect I don't want to go at all. If you don't want to give me a visa please say so. Then I' ll know where I stand- T),ut don't ask me humiliating questions." 6. In Japan they have a law making it a crime to entertain thoughts against the Government. We are not far from this in our own country if two men can be arrested and deported for opinions they may hold, regardless of their acts and with comp lete lack of evidence of any sort against them-in fact, solely on suspicion of thought. In March, 1935, Ferrero was suddenly notified to be ready in five days to be deported to Italy. In view of the very short notice, an extension of time was obtained. Meannwhile, the Department of Labor granted him a permit for "voluntary departure" to a country of his choice. This is nothing but the rankest sort of bluff, since the Italian Consul re­ fuses to issue a passport for any foreign country and insists that both men must return to Italy to meet the tragic fate that awaits there all those op­ posed to Fascism. Finally, an order came from Washington for Fer­ rero to surrender for deportation on December 28, 1935. He gave himself up at Ellis Island on the 27th, but his scheduled departure was temporarily stopped by a writ of habeas corpus. His re lease on bai l having been refused, Ferrero, since that day, has been held on the Is land. The case against Domenick Sallitto is even more flimsy. Not a particle of written or printed evidence was ever introduced against him. The "proof" of Sa llitto's being an anarchist is the disproved and refuted testimony of a stoo l-pigeon-one inspector Farrelly-that Sallitto acted as a chairman at a public, open, three-cornered debate in San Fran­ cisco, on the subject of the Reichstag Fire in Ger­ many. At this debate the speakers were represen­ tatives of the Socialist Party, the Comm unist Party and the editor of "Man", wh ile Sallitto acted as an impartial chairman. But in the eyes of this ignor­ ant nitwit inspector this was an "anarchist meet­ ing" and he declared that, had he known the people in the audience were foreigners, he would have arrested everyone of them on t he spot! ~ So weak was the case against Sallitto that the record was sent back from Washington with a r equ est for more convincing evidence. In spector Benson thereupon call ed another hearing and imper­ turbably intraduced in to Sallitto's record excerpts taken from th e record of another case. The fact that there is not a bit of direct evidence in this case has also been acknowledg ed by an opinion r end ered by the Washington Board of Review. Sallitto was held for almost two months at Angel Island,Califor nia, until a writ of habeas cor pus obtained his release. While in New York, he was ordered to surrender at Ellis Isl and for deportation on the 11th of January, 1936. But a writ of habeas corpus stopped the departure, and he also has been held without bail at the Island, since that date. Hearings on the wr it of habeas corpus were held on F ebruary 4th, in the F ederal District Court in the Southern District of New York. On March 26, Judge Francis G. Caffey handed down hi s r eaction­ ary decision in denying a writ of habeas cor pus. Immediate steps are now being taken by the Defense Conference to obtain an appeal and to have the men released on bail pending action on the appeal.

1)eportation and Fascism

F errero and Sallitto are Italians. They are part of one of the largest immigrant nationalities in this country. They, like so many others of their contrymen, in the long period they have lived here, have worked hard, helping to build up the wealth -of the country for those who own it. Italian immigrants came to America at a time when the only jobs open were the poorest paid un­ .skilled jobs, the roughest, hardest jobs. And even to-day Italian workers are to be found in industry .at the lowest end... as unskilled labor on the rail­ roads, in the mines, in the textile mills, in the dye .shops. They are mostly part of the basic unskilled 8 labor of the country, a section of labor which the employers want to keep down, making super­ profits from their low paid work. But Italian and other foreign workers are no longer resigned to their old lot and have gradually joined the great struggle of Labor for its emancipa­ tion. They begin to stir, they are quitting being passive. Are the bosses going to stand for that? No, American bosses will stop at nothing to choke the growing restlessness of the masses and to trample under foot any effort of Labor to stand on its own feet and take a larger part of what it has produced. So, while giving the natives the choice between jailor a bowl of cheap soup, they are engineering another deportation drive against the foreign born workers. And who should come to the help of the bosses if not Fascism? Fascism, which has destroyed every human and civil right of the workers; Fascism, which has reduced them to an even worse status than that of helots. It is a well known fact that the consulates of fascist countries here are nothing short of agencies of espionage. Fascist consuls very well know the workers' aversion to the bloody regimes of the black and brown shirts, and they work hand in hand with the Immigration author­ ities to have as many recalcitrant workers as pos­ sible deported to the country of their birth, where severe punishment can be meted out to them. In the case of Ferrero and Sallitto the connivance of the Italian authority with the Immigration Service has come to light many times. The follow­ ing letter excerpts, found in Sallitto's record, will give an idea of the sinister collaboration. .They were in the form of notations attached to the record at Ellis Island, and were copied by the attorney in the case before they disappeared. One stated merely: "The Italian Government wants to be notified of deportation date." The other, under date of Sep­ tember 8, 1935, Oakland, California, was a notation by the inspector stating in part: '9 "However, as a tip will state that I understand -t he Italian Consul is very much interested in the deportation of this alien and would be only too glad to issue a passport for alien's return to Italy." Since the coming of Fascism in Italy, the deporta­ tion drive against workers coming from fascist countries has taken on a really terrible character. Imprisonment, if not secret death, awaits them at the hands of the black assassins who have achieved power by means of the knife, the axe and the firing squad. A special Italian law exists applying to deportees: "The citizen who outside the territory of the State carries on activities detrimental to the na­ tional interests, shall be punished with a prison term of five to fifteen years." It is a known fact that all Italian anti-fascists, either deported by foreign dictatoria l governments or voluntarily repatriated, have been sent to jail or to t he "confino" (Island confinement) . We can fu lly realize, under these circumstances, what would be the fate of Ferrero and Sallitto should they be deported to Italy, once the cradle of free thought and expression, but now the complete negation of anything that spells individuality, any­ .thing that stands for the rights of the workers. Under covel' of "democracy", with the rankest hypocrisy, the American Department of Labor joins hands with the fascist forces abroad. Frances Perkins herself declared against shipping muni­ tions to warring countries and even urged workers to strike against such shipments. But she counten­ ances and supports the deportation of men to Fasc­ ist Italy-men, who at the very best, will be sent to dig ditches for Mussolini's armies in the burning heat and drenching rains of Ethiopia.But we well 'r emember the rousing welcome and the honors bes­ -towed by the U. S. authorities on Fascist arnbas­ .sador s, Fascist students and other depu ti es from that country. 10 .Jlmerican Liberty or Persecution ofc(;houghO Are Ferrero and Sallitto being persecuted because they have perpetrated a crime? Are they being deported because they are unworthy citizens, be­ cause they are of low moral character? No, they are persecuted because they dare to think, to have ideas of their own, because they believe that there is such a thing as the right of free speech and free press. And does the California Immigration Service demand their deportation because they have been fo und guilty of some crime ? No, the California office demands the deportation of Ferrero and Sal­ litto to appease the reactionary thirst of the Hearst mob and Vigilantes back home. They are not even appealing to the law ; they are appealing to hat red and prej udice, to bias and descriminati on. To real­ ize this, we need only read the following letter under date of October 29, 1935, to Commissioner' D. W. McCormack from Mr. Edward W. Cahill, Dist ri ct Commiss ioner of Immigration at San Fran­ cisco with reference to both the Sa llitto and Fer­ rero cases: "Some of the newspapers out here are calling frequently inquiring as to whether or not there has been a final decis ion on these cases. There are also a number of civic organizations showing unusual interest in the two cases. "One of our Inspectors, who is very familiar with the facts in these cases, informs me that these men appear to feel rather proud of being labelled as anarchists. They are known in the community as anarchists, and should they succeed in overcoming the order of deportation, we shall have to be pre­ pared to 'take it on the chin' as the publicity will be very much against our department." Cha llenged to produce proof of these assertions, Mr. Cah ill, prefers not to answer. Here we have a ] 1 w ell organized attempt to suppress every vestige of liberty for militant workers. Has anybody heard of any attempt being made to deport the well organ­ .ized Fascists undermining the very principles of democracy in this country? No-because the very essence of this wave of react ionary persecution is a imed at institu ting and bringing about Fascism in the United States. And the political clause of t he Immigration Law serves the purpose of the reac­ tionary movement, as do the officers of the law who, by th eir short-sightedn ess and malice, aggravate the already too subtle intricacies of the law itself. Let us ever remember that thoughts and ideas are in themselves incoercible, and they should be expressed and debated in an atmosphere of complete freedom. The right to choose, accept or reject them re st s with the people. Whenever the pow ers that be resort to discrimination, intimidation and sup­ pression of ideas we are confronted with an incipient tyranny, with the hindering of progress and a return to barbarism-we are confronted with Fascism. So true is this, that we find the fun­ damental laws of this country based on and per­ m eated by these principles. The deportation la ws against foreign born radicals, enacted during the World War hysteria, 'Constitute the perversion, in fact and spirit, of the afore-enunciated truths. The wave of reactionary folly and the mass deportation launched during the 'Great War (to make the world safe for democracy) were buried under the pressure of popular indigna­ tion. This folly, this frenzy, reached a tragic climax in the tossing out of Andrea Salsedo from a window of the 14th floor of the Department of Jus­ tice Building in New York in 1920. To-day, after fifteen years, the reactionary mob is again clamoring for new repressions and new victims. And they are so determined to get what they want that they go to the length of deeming the renting of office space to the editor of a radical magazine as sufficient evidence for the persecution 12 and deportation of two individuals. Can this fact. alone, as is the contention in this typical case, de­ termine the political views and ideas of an indi­ vidual? Stop the Deportation! Although these workers were arrested in April, 1934, it has taken some time for the facts of their case to filter out and to reach the organized labor movement, which has the most power to force the government to free them. Much progress has been made within the last six months. Defense conferences have been organized in San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland, New York and elsewhere. Thousands of protests have poured into the Department of Labor at Washing­ ton from unions, organizations and individuals. The work for the defense has been supported mainly by Labor unions, but also by such bodies as the New York and Brooklyn Federation of Churches, the General Defense Committee, the 1. W. W., the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Committee for the Protection of Foreign Born, the 1. L. D., besides University and profes­ sorial groups and such prominent individuals as Scott Nearing, Kirby Page, Kate Crane-Gartz, Col. J. E. Scott Wood, O. G. Villard Ludwig Lore, Norman Thomas and a host of others. Tom Mooney has sent a letter to the defense, from his living grave in the same California that arrested Ferrero and Sallitto, to demand the release of these two, fellow workers. The Immigration authorities have been startled by the unexpected flood of protests and are beginning to awaken to the fact that they are not dealing with two helpless people whom they can shove out of the country without the flicker of an eyelash. They realize that they will have to reconsider their actions, since the infamy created by the threatened deportation of Ferrero and Sallitto 13 Is so great that it arouses the in dignation of a multitude of people. Among t he unions t hat have protested and have -endorsed the defense, in the name of the hundreds of thousands of workers in their organizations, are the Joint Board of the Dress and Waistmakers Union and numerous unions affiliated with the 1. L. G. W. U., the Federation of Dyers, Finishers, Printers and Bleachers of America, the Toledo Cen­ tral Trades, the Central Labor Union of Phila­ delphia and Vicinity, t he Tri-City Labor Council, Clinton, Iowa, the Brot herhood of Railway Train­ men, Cleveland, Ohio. On December 23, 1935, a Labor delegation visited Assistant Secretary McGrady in Washington who at first refused to see the delegation by denying he had agreed to the appointment. However, after several prominent A. F. of L. leaders, resident in Washington, brought pressure to bear upon him­ be did consent to see the men. The delegation demanded that McGrady drop the proceedings and cancel the order of deportation against Ferrero and Sallitto. This McGrady refused to do. He claimed to know nothing about the cases despite the fact this "labor" man had personally signed the deportation order. The del­ egation asked, then, on what ground were these two men to be deported. Flustered by this and other irksome questions, McGrady sent for the Depart­ ment's files on the two cases and for an attorney of the Labor Department to advise him. He declared, then, that the men had been found guilty of advocat­ ing the overthrow of the U. S. Government. The only proof he could produce of this was the renting of part of the restaurant in Oakland to the magazine "Man". The delegation was able to see at first hand the tremendous volume of written protests which had already swamped the Labor Department. Frances Perkins has also been interviewed, and 'being pressed to review the cases, has sent the 14 defense committee a letter in which she claims she has no power to go against the decision of her sub­ ordinates! It is plain from the results of these interviews, as well as from the denial of bail and t he continued detention of the men at Ellis Is land, that the great­ est possible pressure must be made, and at once, to save them from t he clutches of the Black Shirts. Here are two workers, who have spent almost all of their adult life in this country, persecuted and threatened with deportation solely on account of their ideas, and not even as their ideas result from the record, but as they are supposed (or imagined) by an Immigration inspector moved by his own ig­ norance, his prejudice or by Hearstian or consular fascist pressure. For nobody has been able to produce evidence of any criminal offense against these men, nor have they ever been anything except har d working, decent members of the community. It is not only the foreign born who are involved her e. Such sinister proceedings as have snatched Ferrero and Sallitto away from their friends and threaten to send them to a terrible fate in Italy are going on every day in underhand ways, hidden from the knowledge of the liberty-loving citizens. Attacks of this kind, while apparently aimed at the foreign born workers, are in fact a severe blow to the rights and freedom of the natives as well. The descrimination is only a guile and if such trampling under foot of the most eleme ntary rights of t he foreign born is tolerated, the ultimate result will be a complete defeat of the whole working class. The black shadow of Fascism looms ahead, and unless every force in the country will rally to the defense of Freedom and strike back at these bold strides of oppression, it will succeed in spread­ ing its black, deadly pall over America. These de­ portations must be resisted and must be stopped NOW. The ill famed Alien and Sedition Laws which t hreatened to blacken t he still fresh glory of the 15 American Revolution were repealed by a tremend­ ous wave of popular indignation. So must the' present inhuman and uncostitutional Deportation Laws be repealed. There is no other way. . Hundreds of honest loyal workers are threatened with being thrown into the clutches of bloody Euro­ pean fascist dictatorships. It is high t ime that the workers, the liberty-loving people and public opinion in general put a stop to this monstrosity. It is high time that freedom of opinion be respected for all, whether natives or foreign born, that not only the medieval inquisition of individual con­ sci en ce be expurged from American statute book s and practice, but that the right of asylum be granted to political refugees of more unhappy countries. How You Can Help FIRST OF ALL send a protest to Miss Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor, Washington, D. C. and request that the orders of deportation against Ferrero and Sallitto be cancelled. 2. If you belong to an organization, see that it joins the Ferrero-Sallitto Defence Conference nearest your city. 3. Send in your name and address and donations to the Ferrero-Sallitto Defence Conference, Box 181, Station D, New York City; 2422 N. Halsted St., Chicago, Ill.; 415 So. 19th St., Philadelphia, Pa.; P. O. Box 1589, San Fran- , cisco, Cal.; 969;3 .St...Clair ..:\. ve., ,Cleyeland.. ..Ohio...:. ... ," ..~ . .,', ~ .'

Published by the F errero-Sallitto Defense Confer ence of New Yo rk P. O. Box 181, Station D New York, N. Y. 16