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ACLU

459 bytes added, 01:33, January 25, 2018
/* National Civil Liberties Bureau */ added 1943 report of California State Senate fact-finding committee
==History==
===National Civil Liberties Bureau===
The ACLU began as the National Civil Liberties Bureau (NCLB), a committee of the American Union Against Militarism (AUAM), a Socialist front group established to exploit antiwar sentiment during World War I.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://blogs.princeton.edu/mudd/2012/09/the-birth-of-the-civil-liberties-bureau-and-the-national-civil-liberties-bureau1917-1919/ |title=The Birth of the Civil Liberties Bureau and The National Civil Liberties Bureau,1917-1919 |date=September 5, 2012 }}</ref> AUAM was co-founded by Morris Hillquit, a Latvian immigrant lawyer who served as liaison between the Socialist International and the Socialist Party of the U.S.<ref>Michael Kazin, quoted in Juliet Kleber, "[https://newrepublic.com/article/141647/opposition-world-war-one-galvanized-left How Opposition to World War I Galvanized the Left]," ''The New Republic'', March 28, 2017</ref> In 1919, the American Socialist Party expressed official support for the Kremlin's fledgling Communist International,<ref>"The Socialist Party of the United States, therefore, declares itself in support of the Third (Moscow) International..." Document No. 7: "Minority Report Adopted by Overwhelming Party Vote on Referendum on Submission to the Emergency National Convention Held at Chicago, September, 1919," reprinted in Joint Legislative Committee of the State of New York Investigating Seditious Activities, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=Vq0XAAAAYAAJ Revolutionary Radicalism: Its History, Purpose and Tactics], Part I, Vol. I (Albany: J.B. Lyon Company, 1920), p. 626</ref> and the following year applied for membership in the Comintern.<ref>[https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/parties/spusa/1920/0312-bran-applicationtoci.pdf Application of the Socialist Party of America for Membership in the Communist International], March 12, 1920</ref> That year, the NCLB changed its name to ACLU.
In 1924, William J. Burns, former director of the Department of Justice's Bureau of Investigations (precursor of the FBI), testified before Congress:
The ACLU's founding members were [[Roger Baldwin]], [[Crystal Eastman]], [[Walter Nelles]], [[Morris Ernst]], [[Albert DeSilver]], [[Arthur Garfield Hays]], [[Helen Keller]], [[Jane Addams]], [[Felix Frankfurter]], and [[Elizabeth Gurley Flynn]]. Baldwin, the driving force behind the ACLU in its early years, testified in 1938 that he had expressed his views in the Harvard Classbook three years previously as follows:
{{cquote|I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the State itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek social ownership of property , the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal.<ref>Affidavit of Roger N. Baldwin, December 31, 1938, Investigation of un-American propaganda activities in the United States. Hearings before a Special Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives, 75th-78th Congress, pp. 3081-3082.</ref>}}
In 1940, during the Nazi-Soviet pact, under threat of being listed by HUAC as a Communist front, the ACLU purged from its Executive Committee any "member of any political organization which supports totalitarian dictatorship in any country, or who by his public declaration and connections indicates his support of such a principle."<ref>Lucille Milner and Martin F. Luthke, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=s9XBz5mD1OkC Education of an American Liberal]'' (eBookIt.com, 2013), ISBN 1456602063</ref> Among those purged was Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, who would go on to serve as National Chairwoman of the Communist Party USA.<ref>[http://content.cdlib.org/view?query=&docId=kt396n99b3&chunk.id=d0e2699&toc.depth=1&toc.id=0&&x=0&y=0 History of the American Civil Liberties Union], Eleventh Report of the Senate Fact-Finding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities, California Legislature, 1961</ref>
 
Nevertheless, its continued front activity caused the ACLU to be listed as a Communist front by a joint committee of the California Legislature in 1943:
{{cquote|The American Civil Liberties Union may be definitely classed as a Communist front or ‘transmission belt’ organization.<ref>Communist Front Organizations, Fourth Report of the Senate Fact-Finding Committee On Un-American Activities, California Legislature, 1948, p. 107 (PDF p. 117)</ref>}}
Among the NCLB's early high-profile cases include its defense of the [[Rand School of Social Science]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gKM6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA337|title=The National Civic Federation Review, Volumes 4-5|date=1919}}</ref>
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