I/ I I \ne l\rne{\can . C\\J\\ \..\be{t\es Dn,on ~eco{dS and . ?ub\\CO.\\Qt'\S \9'00-\9'0A \)\)oa\e Pro uesf Start here. This volume is a finding aid to a ProQuest Research Collection in Microform. To learn more visit: www.proquest.com or call (800) 521-0600 About ProQuest: ProQuest connects people with vetted, reliable information. Key to serious research, the company has forged a 70-year reputation as a gateway to the world's knowledge -from dissertations to governmental and cultural archives to news, in all its forms. Its role is essential to libraries and other organizations whose missions depend on the delivery of complete, trustworthy information. 789 E. Eisenhower Parkway • P.O Box 1346 • Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 • USA •Tel: 734.461.4700 • Toll-free 800-521-0600 • www.proquest.com University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA HISTORY CREATES OUR CLIENTS: THE ACLU'S 57-YEAR RECORD by Alan Reitman Associate Director American Civil Liberties Union If this nation possesses a Constitution, a Bill of Rights, courts dedicated to legal principles, and in theory just about everybody believes individual rights should be protected impartially--of what possible use is an organization like the American Civil Liberties Union? The civil liberties chronicle of the last 57 years, which matches some of the most chaotic decades in American history, clearly reveals how badly needed is this private, non-partisan organization devoted solely to the protection of the Bill of Rights. A leading constitutional scholar, the late Professor Zechariah Chafee, once asserted that "the life-span of the ACLU has coincided with the whole constitutional development of freedom of speech." This brief introduction is insufficient to record the Union's half-century defense of civil liberties. The following summary of some high points in the life of a unique organization points up the truth of an ACLU maxim: "History. the social pressures of each era, create our clients." Born out of the crucible of World War I, in the 1920's the Union fought to preserve liberty in the face of fear-motivated attacks on aliens, unorthodox political groups and trade unions. The government, driven by anxiety over the success of the Russian Revolution, conducted wholesale deportation of aliens suspected of radical beliefs through the notorious Palmer raids. The ACLU defended the right of trade unions to hold meetings and to organize. State and local police were used in pitched battles to deny workers even the right to strike--a right corollary to freedom of expression--because of public fright that unions were the vanguard of another American Revolution. IrlPaterson, textile strikers enlisted the ACLU's aid in challenging restrictions of their freedom of speech. They were successful, but not until after a prosecution for unlawful assembly put Roger Baldwin and five other strikers in jail. Key cases, now casually cited in history books, enlarged public consciousness of civil liberties values. In 1925 the Union attacked Tennessee's anti-evolution law in the famous Scopes trial. While Scopes was convicted and fined $100, the Bryan-Darrow courtroom confrontation was instrumental in ending a serious governmental threat to freedom of thought and academic liberty. The Sacco-Vanzetti case, crystallizing all the hatred and fear of radical political belief, saw the ACLU strive to assure the defendants a fair trial. The Union went again and again to the courts in landmark cases to attack multiplying criminal syndicalism and sedition laws. 2 The ravages of the Depression 30's created social strains that cut deeply into civil liberties but also paved the way to fresh advances. The eviction of the Bonus Army from Washington, through the use of tear gas on men, women and children in the dead of night, provoked sharp protest and opposition from the ACLU. The federal (Fish) investigating committee unearthed so-called ''plots" and "Communist intrigues.'' Their flimsy charges fell apart once their guilt by association base was exposed, but not before people were pilloried by the pitiless exposure to the publicity such hearings attracted. The attacks on labor unions were sparked anew by such New Deal social reform measures as the Wagner Act's collective bargaining guarantees, which fostered the organization of industrial unions. Court-obtained injunctions aimed at threatening labor's rights to strike, speak, and peaceably assemble were fought by ACLU lawyers. The zenith was reached when the ACLU, together with the CIO, took its fight against Mayor ("I Am The Law") Hague's violation of free speech and assembly in Jersey City to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ended all municipal bans on peaceful assembly anywhere in the U.S. Demonstrating the ACLU's belief in equal application of the law, we successfully argued in the Supreme Court against the NLRB's denial of free speech to the Ford Motor Company as long as their anti-union statements to employees were not accompanied by coercion. While the economic reform-marked 30's swelled the ACLU case files, interest was stirred in other areas, too. The festering sores of racial prejudice, dramatically illustrated in the Scottsboro case, were laid open by an ACLU field investigation; and we aided the appeal which led to eventual Supreme Court reversal of the rape charge on the ground that the nine Negro boys had not had a fair trial. The never-ending battle against censorship was spotlighted by the historic decision admitting James Joyce's Ulysses to the U.S., a long legal struggle backed by ACLU. Surprisingly the incursions of freedom in the war-time 40's were not as monstrous as in World War I. The Union decided that military conscrip­ tion in the face of fascism's overt threat should not be challenged and noted that rights of dissenters were better protected. But while the scope of violations may have lessened, there still were depredations of freedom that required ACLU action. The most glaring was the tragic military order evacuating 100,000 Japanese-Americans into Pacific coast detention centers. The national ACLU joined the California and Washington state affiliates in several test cases and protests but to no avail. The confinement of the Japanese-Americans, their treatment in camps, their final release and the restoration of their rights were matters of major importance to the ACLU. Political repression was fought in the first Smith act prosecution, against the Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party, based not on acts of violence but statements of policy in SWP publications. The struggle for minority rights cast a long shadow over the civil liberties scene. The Supreme Court, under ACLU prodding, reversed its ruling that Jehovah Witnesses· children could be expelled from school for 3 refusing to salute the flag. Successes were scored in abolishing Texas· white primary, desegregating black children in New Jersey schools and in winning the franchise for Indians in Arizona and New Mexico. However, such victories could not offset the ominous clouds of Cold-War repression that first hung over the nation in the latter part of the decade. As war-time cooperation with Russia palled, the old fear of Soviet aggression produced fresh domestic anxieties. The government instigated a loyalty-security program that found ACLU arguing strenuously against violations of free speech and due process. State legislatures adopted similar stringent measures. The House Un-American Activities Committee initiated new forays into colleges and professions which under­ scored the ACLU's call for the Committee's abolition. On the more physical level, veterans' groups provoked a riot against a Paul Robeson concert in Peekskill, N.Y In a major public report, the ACLU protested the denial to the concert-goers of freedom of assembly and successfully thwarted an ordinance designed to prevent such outbreaks from recurring by denying the right to hold meetings! Historians have correctly characterized the 1950's as the period in which civil liberties faced its most severe threat because of the inexorable pressure of the US-USSR confrontation. And the dark night of McCarthyism called up the Union's most vigorous and vigilant efforts. Whether it was the Wisconsin Senator's vicious assault on the Union itself, or State Department and Army personnel; the unrelenting hearings of HUAC; the scare-induced firings of teachers for refusing to inform on past associates; the witch-hunts of the government's security investigations, paralleled by state and local probes; loyalty oaths and investigations in private industry (the ACLU report on blacklisting of radio and TV performers exposed the entertainment world's fear-inspired anti-Communist hiring policies); the government's bans on foreign travel-­ the ACLU was challenged again. It backed or led numerous court tests which resulted in the Supreme Court checking the maurauding of investigating committees, voiding loyalty oaths, and creating an improved climate of respect for individual rights. Even though unceasing effort was required to make the yeast of freedom rise over the Cold War oven, other areas were not neglected. The wall between church and state was cemented in decisions ending Bible reading and prayers in schools. For the first time, movies were legally recognized as enjoying the protection of the First Amendment. The evil of government news suppression was exposed in a detailed report on the abuses of burgeoning government departments in the Truman and Eisen- hower administrations. The major civil rights break-throughs, the high court's 1954 Brown educational desegregation decision and the Civil Rights Act of 1957, involved the Union litigatively and legislatively The importance of the slogan, "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,'' was illustrated in fighting the Congressional campaign to punish the Supreme Court's pro-civil liberties stand by crippling the Court's power to 1eview cases in key a1eas.