Formation of ACLU

 

INDIVIDUALS & ORGANIZATION

ASSOCIATED WITH CREATION OF ACLU

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a work in progress.  It is placed on the GKO web site so you can view it as our research continues. For a list of those individuals listed, with details regarding their leftist work, refer to the individuals section at the bottom segment of this file.  Thank you.

 

 

 

LEFTIST ORGANIZATIONS LEADING UP TO

ACLU WITHIN THE UNITED STATES

 

Emergency Peace Federation

Louis Lochner, leader

 

 

American League To Limit Armaments (18 Dec 1914 from Emergency Peace Federation)

Members included:

Morris Hillquit

L. Hollingsworth  Wood

Stephen Wise

George Foster Peabody

John Haynes Holmes

Jane Addams

 

 

American Union Against Militarism [AUAM] (early 1915)

1. Purpose was to prevent further militarism of US through legislation.

2. Executive committee decided to expand scope of work, thus forming the AUAM.

3. Civil Liberties Bureau (department within AUAM, Oct. 1917) (made self ruling, apart from AUAM)

a. Roger Baldwin, director (Roger Baldwin Foundation)

b. Came into being once US entered WWI

c. Up until WWI, AUAM worked on legislation that would prevent arming and entering war.

d. Once we entered WWI, the AUAM founded a number of CLB chapters in D.C. and NYC

e. Encouraged membership to cooperate with the Socialist Party of that time.

f. Friends belonging to "Fellowship of Reconciliation" pursuaded Baldwin to form National Civil Liberties Bureau in Oct. 1917.

g. Connections with AUAM were then severed as Baldwin spun the NCLB off of AUM

4. Roger Baldwin (1884-1981) Roger Baldwin was a known anarchist who helped organize the National Civil Liberties Union (NCLU) in  1917.  He served as director at that time.  Baldwin promoted conscientious objection and was eventually imprisoned for draft evasion and was subsequently released in 1919. It was at a party in his honor that the attendees decided to establish the NCLU, as an integral part of AUAM (American League to Limit Armaments). The NCLU was, in fact, the direct forerunner of today's ACLU.

 

                               

National Civil Liberties Bureau [NCLB] (Oct 1917)

1. Roger Balwin, director (see above)

2. Friends from "Fellowship of Reconciliation" pursuaded Baldwin to form this org from AUAM

3. Severed all connections with AUAM.

4. Primary function was to encourage conscientious objection among citizenry of US

5. Took up legal battles of a few conscientious objectors during that time.

6. Assisted radical groups in their effort to subvert the war effort in US

7. "...to do everything possible to promote Red radicalism" (Biographical Dictionary Of The Left).

8. Baldwin was arrested for draft evasion. Released in July 1919.

9. Party was given in Baldwin's honor and those who attended agreed to form the ACLU from the embers of NCLB.

10. Those notable who attended were: Norman Thomas, host, who, incidentally became the patriarch of the Socialist Party; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who became the national chairman for the American Communist Party; and Agnes Smedley, who became a Soviet agent operating in China.

 

 

American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] (1919)

1. Foundations of ACLU were formed in 1919 when, at a party given in honor of imprisoned Roger Baldwin, those who attended decided to form the ACLU from the embers of the NCLB, which apparently became stagnant due to the absence of Baldwin from his imprisonment (not sure of date) and his release in 1919.

2. Harry Ward, chairman in 1920; Baldwin, director; Louis Budenz, publicity director.

3. ACLU National Committee (listed below) contained the most active socialists and communists of that time.

 

 

                                                ACLU National Committee (1920 to 1930)

Jane Addams (1860-1935): Jane Addams was a known anti-war activist during the time of World War I. It was her stated belief that it was the mission of social reformers to transform society so to make peace possible. It was her believe that, because the world faced immeasurable threats of an International nature, society must look to a "new morality," transforming "nationalism into internationalism"--"patriotism into humanitarianism."  It has been said that Addams turned to social work after being forced out of medical school where she had suffered from depression and had become ill. Many of her friends and former associates also deserted her because they believed her to be a dangerous radical.  She founded Hull House in Chicago (1889) where she sought to care for, and educate the poor. It was at Hull House that she died in 1935. Addams commonly fought for woman's suffrage, racial equality, civil liberties, immigrant protection, and labor unions within the United States. In 1915, she called an emergency meeting at the Hague that was referred to as the Int'l Congress of Women. Their aim was to find a way to stop the war. What came out of that meeting was a plan to found the Women's Peace Party, which eventually, in 1919, became known as the Women's Int'l League For Peace and Freedom. Addams was elected as the first president of this organization. The WILPF encouraged neutral mediation of war by key female members traveling to the capitals of all nations entrenched in war. In 1931, she shared a nobel peace prize for her efforts to promote global peace.  She shared the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote peace.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890-1964): A political radical within the United States. She was one of the founders of the ACLU. She had joined the Communist Party of the United States in 1937, serving as its national chairperson between the years of 1961 and 1964.

William Zebulon Foster (1881-1961): An American labor leader, also a radical politician and U.S. presidential candidate (1924, 1928, 1932). In addition, he was national chairman of the Communist Party of the United States (1945-1956).

Felix Frankfurter (1882 to 1965): Born in Austria, co-founder of ACLU, served as a associate justice on U.S. Supreme Court (1939 to 1962)

Harold J. Laski (1893-1950): Political scientist from UK, member of Fabian Society, led British Labor Party between 1945 and 1946.

Morris Hillquit

Robert Morss Lovett

Abraham J. Muste

Jeanette Rankin (1889-1973): Politician and American reformer, a leader in women’s suffrage movement (Montana), first woman representative in U.S. (1917 to 1919, 1941 to 1943), only lawmaker to oppose WWI and WWII at the time.

Scott Nearing

Vida Scudder

Norman Thomas (1884-1968): Socialist leader in U.S., co-founder ACLU in 1920, Socialist Party candidate for president on six occasion (1928 and 1948).

Oswald Garrison Villard

L. Hollingsworth Wood

 

                                                New ACLU Members (1920 to 1930)

Clarence Darrow

Eugene V. Debs

John Dewey

Morris Ernst

George W. Kirchwey

Alexander Meiklejohn

Monsignor John A. Ryan

 

                                                New ACLU Members (1930 to 1940)

Vito Marcantonio

Virginius Dabney

Mary Van Kleeck

William H. Kilpatrick

Heywood Broun

Pearl Buck

Frank P. Graham

Mary Simkhovitch

Quincy Howe

Corliss Lamont

Thurgood Marshall

Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam

Elmer Rice

Sherwood Eddy

Whitney North Seymour

Robert E. Sherwood

 

                                                New ACLU Members (1940 to 1950)

Francis Biddle

George S. Counts

Norman Cousins

Elmer Davis

Melvyn Douglas

Walter Gellhorn

William H. Hastie

Robert M. Hutchins

Feda Kirchwey

Max Lerner

Archibald Mc Leish

John P. Marquand

A. Philip Randolph

Elmo Roper

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

Lillian Smith

Roy Wilkins

 

                                                Additional ACLU Members (1950 to )

Sarah G. Blanding

Catherine D. Bower

John Mason Brown

Stuart Chase

Grenville Clark

Henry S. Commager

J. Frank Dobie

Louis Hacker

August Heckscher

John Hersey

Palmer Hoyt

Gerald W. Johnson

Walter Millis

Saul K. Padover

Telford Taylor

James A. Wechsler

Edward Bennett Williams

Alan Barth

Benjamin Kizer

Robert S. Lynd

James G. Patton

 

 

Today’s ACLU

To come……