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Comparing “Communazis”:
Axis Supporters, Domestic Communists, and the Federal Government in World War II
Miles Hartl
History 4296-003: Battle Front and Home Front: The United States in World War II
November 17, 2014
2
Twentieth century American history devotes considerable time to two arch-nemeses of
the United States. The first of these, the Axis triumvirate of Germany, Japan, and Italy, provoked
America’s entrance into a total war on the European and Pacific Theaters at the expense of
billions of U.S. dollars and 405,399 American lives.1 The second of these, the international rise
of communism, provoked the space race, two near-misses at nuclear Armageddon, the bitterly
divisive struggle over Indochina, covert political intervention in Latin America, and a surge in
defense spending that remains hewn into the deficits of the 21stcentury. Despite an exhaustive
effort on the part of historians to chronicle these struggles abroad, considerably less attention is
devoted to the federal government’s relationship with both ideologies on the home front.
Specifically, a strange silence descends on the activities of domestic communists and Axis
sympathizers during the Second World War. Given the near totality of America’s commitment to
fighting Germany, Japan, and Italy during this time period, the idea that a significant percentage
of Americans would continue to side with Axis ideology tends to be dismissed as a time-wasting,
intellectually barren examination of suicidal cranks and deviants. On the flip side, communism is
often relegated to the status of a “Cold War concern” given the U.S.S.R.’s Allied status from
1941 to 1945 and the pervasive efforts on the part of the United States government to drum up
support for the fight against the Axis. Hence, American communists are frequently overlooked in
the hierarchy of research interests.
Nevertheless, the dismissal of homegrown Axis and communist support in the greater
context of World War II misses a pivotal moment in the understanding of both. Contrary to
charges of irrelevancy, the millions of Axis sympathizers, including members of the German-
American Bund and other pro-Nazi organizations, constituted a significant minority of
1
Defense Casualty Analysis System, “World War II,” Defense Manpower DataCenter, last modified 2014, accessed September
25, 2014, https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/pages/casualties_ww2.xhtml.
3
Americans. At the same time, the Communist Party constituted “a not unimportant factor in the
political life of the United States.”2 Clearly, the members of these organizations did not simply
vanish into the ether, nor did they abandon their long-held principles when America entered
World War II. Nor did they disappear from the radar of a presidential administration intent on
investigating them since 1934. Given the mutual hostility between communist and capitalist
ideology before and after the conflict, it is also important to examine the government’s
relationship with communists at a time when the Soviet Union was viewed as an indispensable
ally to the United States. A close look at relevant historical evidence reveals that both groups
were persecuted under the label of “Communazis,” though this title does not describe a
homogenous experience.
This paper argues that the World War II-era communist/federal government struggle
paradoxically represents a more complex, dynamic, and significant case study than the
suppression of American fascists. The “World War II era” shall herein be defined as the period
from 1938/1939 (the prologue to the war’s beginning in Europe) to 1945 (the year of Germany
and Japan’s surrender to the Allied powers). All significant federal government organizations
and employees shall be identified followed by an analysis of all significant individuals and
organizations persecuted due to their allegiance to the Axis and “communist” causes. From these
facts, a comparative conclusion will assess their experiences against definitions of “complexity,”
“dynamism,” and “significance.”
Before proceeding, it is important to identify all relevant federal politicians and political
committees that sought to persecute Axis and communist supporters. Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
representing the government’s executive branch as President of the United States, needs virtually
2
“Comintern Officer Praises U.S. Party:Cites Work With Progressives Here as 20th
Year of Organization is Marked,” New York
Times, March 5, 1939, ProQuest Historical Newspapers:TheNew York Times (1851-2010) with Index (1851-1993).
4
no introduction, serving in office from 1933 to his death in 1945 and frequently influencing,
rather than instigating, legal and diplomatic relations with American fascists and communists.
Representing the legislative branch, the House Un-American Activities Committee (abbreviated
H.U.A.C.) was founded in 1938 as a reorganization of the Fish Committee (founded 1930 to
investigate communism) and McCormack-Dickstein Committee (founded 1934-1937 to
investigate both Nazi and communist propaganda). H.U.A.C. was originally chaired by
Democratic Texas senator Martin Dies, and was also known as the Dies Committee throughout
the senator’s 1938-1944 tenure. Congress passed the Foreign Agents Registration Act in 1938,
requiring alien agents to file with the State Department. The Alien Registration Act is also
known as the Smith Act, and was enacted on June 29, 1940 to criminalize advocacy to overthrow
the government of the United States and force all non-citizen adults to register with the
Immigration and Naturalization Service. The Voorhis Act of 1940 (sponsored by staunch anti-
communist Jerry Voorhis) did the same to political organizations under foreign control, forcing
them to register with the Justice Department. The Supreme Court of the United States and
various federal and state courts, each to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis, formed the judicial
branch of this trilateral apparatus.
The story of U.S.-based Axis support must be divided into three parts in the context of
World War II: those individuals in support of Italy, those in support of Germany, and those in
support of Japan. The Italian perspective comes first in terms of chronology and brevity. Benito
Mussolini (leader of Italy’s National Fascist Party) became Prime Minister in 1922, and his
regime was the first of the Axis governments to release propaganda within the United States.3
Given the vast number of Italian-Americans identified by the 1930 census, this presented a
3
Morris Schonbach, Native American Fascism During the 1930s and 1940s (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1985), 70.
5
substantial problem to anti-fascist authorities.4 The benefit of hindsight, however, proves that
this threat was vastly overrated. On December 22, 1929, the Italian Fascist League voluntarily
dissolved following complaints by Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson to the Italian
government.5 Despite concerns about the status of the Sons of Italy and other organizations, the
federal government directed the majority of its attention to supporters of Nazi Germany in the
1930s.6 During the war years, federal authorities interned 367 Italian-Americans and arrested
3,567.7 Among the interned was Domenico Trombetta, publisher of the fascist periodical Il
Grido Della Stirpe, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on May 24, 1943 for failing to
register as a foreign agent.8 A subsequent trial sentenced him to prison on September 4, 1943 and
forced his periodical to cease publication.9 Generoso Pope, a sand-and-gravel dealer from New
York and owner of the newspapers Il Progreso Italo-Americano and Correire d’America, also
caused trouble for the federal government. While Pope served as Chairman of the Italian
Division of the Democratic National Committee, he vehemently supported Mussolini’s cause.
Following Congress’ unanimous declaration of war against Japan and Italy on December 11,
1941, political pressure and personal misgivings over anti-Semitic legislation proposed by
Mussolini forced Pope to reassess his convictions.10 The publicist formally denounced
Mussolini’s government and apologized for his actions within months of the Pearl Harbor attack;
he later went on to support the Italian-American war bond drive and work with the American
4
Ibid., 75.
5
Ibid., 82.
6
Ibid., 85.
7
Don Whitehead, The F.B.I. Story (New York: Random House, 1956), 343.
8
“Trombettais Indicted: Accused of Failing to Register as Italian Agent,” New York Times, May 25, 1943, accessed December 2,
2014, Proquest Historical Newspapers.
9
Schonbach, 115.
10
Ibid., 116; Italian American Experience: an Encyclopedia, s.v. “Pope, Generoso (1891-1950),” accessed December 10, 2014,
http://books.google.com/books?id=JUyAAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA488&lpg=PA488&dq=generoso+pope+democratic+national+com
mittee&source=bl&ots=W7tGBgyOtt&sig=PAO1N9s3nXDN3R2w8tttsnyVcUM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ySWHVMqANI6zyAT9_4
KYCA&ved=0CDUQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=generoso%20pope%20democratic%20national%20committee&f=false”
6
Committee for Italian Democracy to “rehabilitate” himself with Roosevelt.11 These incidents
constitute the most significant relations of the federal government to Italian fascists during
World War II.12
The experience of Japanese-government supporters follows roughly the same pattern with
one potential exception. Mainly, the federal government sought to intervene in suspected cases
of espionage and propaganda. Concern over the former heavily inspired the passage of the 1938
McCormack Act.13 Throughout the 1940s, various Japanese consular officials were harassed for
alleged espionage.14 No convincing evidence, however, suggests that a Japanese “Fifth Column”
was operating within the United States during the war years.15 Propaganda outlets, on the other
hand, were a real phenomenon. The Jikyoku Iinkai (or Japanese Committee on Trade and
Information) operated out of San Francisco from 1937 to 1940 and worked to distribute literature
in favor of the Japanese government throughout the United States. In June 1938, Joseph H.
Smyth purchased the periodical The Living Age and began endorsing the Japanese cause with
funding from the Japanese Consulate of New York City.16 After Smyth and his colleagues
attempted to extend their influence, they became targets for a U.S. Justice Department
investigation in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. On November 12, 1942, the Federal District Court
for Eastern New York sentenced them to seven years in prison.17 The American consuls Ralph
Townsend, Frederick Vincent Williams and David Warren Ryder also received funding from the
Jikyoku Iinkai and were subject to a separate investigation. Williams’ payment was directed
primarily towards his speeches supporting the Japanese cause, while Townsend and Ryder
11
Ibid.
12
Schonbach, 117.
13
Ibid., 211.
14
Ibid., 210.
15
Ibid., 202-03.
16
Ibid., 213.
17
Ibid. 213-14.
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printed pamphlets.18 Upon investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, Townsend admitted to
misrepresenting his purpose when he filed as a foreign lobbyist with the State Department. For
this violation of the McCormack Act, he received a sentence of up to two years in prison.19
Similar punishments fell on a handful of others, including prolific pro-Japanese writer John C.
LeClair.20
All of these incidents clearly concerned specific cases of pro-Japanese propaganda.
Despite the objections of many civil libertarians to the actions of H.U.A.C. and other
committees, each of the accused received trials with due process. The same, however, cannot be
said regarding one of the most notorious human rights violations of the American war effort—
the mass internment of Japanese Americans. Following the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor by the
Japanese military on December 7, 1941, President Roosevelt released Executive Order 9066 on
February 19, 1942. This order called for “the Secretary of War and Military Commanders . . . to
prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military
Commander may determine . . . [and] the right of any person to remain in, or leave [these
internment areas] shall be subject to whatever restriction the Secretary of War or the appropriate
Military Commander may impose in his discretion.”21 In all, approximately 120,000 Japanese-
Americans were relocated from the West Coast.22 Yet were these provisions effective in
restraining the activities of pro-Japanese and pro-Axis supporters? For the sake of pacing, this
crucial question will be addressed later in this paper.
18
“106 Register as Foreign Agents Here,” Washington Post, October 11, 1938; Sydney Greenbie. “Ryder-Williams Trial
Unwinds Japanese Intrigue,” Christian Science Monitor, June 3, 1942.
19
Schonbach, 214.
20
Ibid., 214-15.
21
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Executive Order 9066 – Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas, February 19,
1942, General Records of the United States Government, Record Group 11, National Archives.
22
Documents from the National Archives: Internment of Japanese Americans (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing
Company, 1989), 9-10.
8
German-American Nazi sympathizers constitute the last Axis element to be covered here,
and they provide the most case studies in the fascist-federal government feud. Each individual
and organization involved meets the definition of “Nazi bundist” and “bund movement member”
(not to confuse the latter two terms with those individuals strictly associated with the German-
American Bund, referred to as “Bundists” or “Bund members”).23 An overwhelming majority of
bundists were 1920s German emigrants, and Nazi propaganda first infiltrated the United States in
1924 when National Socialist Party official Kurt G. W. Ludecke sneaked into the country and
distributed leaflets to German-Americans.24 The first fascist organizations to contribute
economic support to Hitler’s Germany were the Chicago, Detroit, and New York City-based
Teutonia Societies, though they were largely ineffective.25 Similar groups, such as the
Landesgruppe of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei and Friends of the Hitler
Movement, were formed between 1930 and 1939 under the supervision of Hitler’s American
confidant, Ernst Hanfstaengl.26 The German-American Bund emerged in 1936 as a
reorganization of the Friends of the New Germany, itself a 1933 replacement for Gau-USA and
the Free Society of Teutonia.27 By far the most significant pro-fascist German-American
organization, the German-American Bund, maintained an upwards of 10,000 members through
the 1930s.28 By the decade’s end, the increasingly toxic actions of Adolf Hitler forced the
organization to forgo incorporation of German nationals and the display of Nazi memorabilia. In
1939, New York City’s district attorney, Thomas E. Dewey, sentenced German-American Bund
leader Fritz Julius Kuhn to a maximum of five years in prison on charges of embezzlement and
23
Sander A. Diamond, The Nazi Movement in the United States 1924-1941 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974), 7.
24
Ibid., 8; Schonbach, 122.
25
Schonbach, 122-24.
26
Ibid., 124.
27
Susan Canedy, America’s Nazis, A Democratic Dilemma: A History of the German-American Bund (Menlo Park, CA:
Markgraf Publications Croup, 1990), 50-74.
28
Ibid., 86.
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tax evasion.29 The Bund did survive into the early 1940s though, as effective leadership and
group unity crumbled in the wake of increasing federal investigation and the Treasury
Department’s closing of Bund offices on December 11, 1941.30
The federal government’s pursuit of bundists began with a minor 1933 Federal Bureau of
Investigation inquiry into pro-Nazi activities, though the president and the McCormack Dickstein
Committee paid closer attention to the problem in 1934.31 As the World War II era dawned, the
dissolution of pro-Hitler organizations did not mean the end of their most die-hard leaders, nor
did it entail the end of bundist propaganda. In the summer of 1941 alone, more than three million
pro-Nazi publications entered the United States from Germany and were redistributed by
American supporters.32 As a result, all three branches of the federal government worked to
combat an effective native fascist movement from undermining the war effort. A key figure in
the continued release of Nazi propaganda was George Sylvester Viereck, an unrepentant Nazi
apologist and German immigrant. On October 9, 1941, the F.B.I. arrested Viereck for failing to
comply with terms of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.33 Justice F. Dickinson Letts and the
Supreme Court of the District of Columbia sentenced him to two to six years in prison with a
fine of $1,500 on March 14, 1942.34 Witness testimony also suggested that U.S. senators
Hamilton Fish, Rush Holt, Stephen A. Day, and Ernest Lundeen had conspired “under the capital
dome” to insert speeches secretly written by Viereck into the congressional record.35 Federal
prosecutor William Power Maloney pursued charges against each of these men, though he was
only able to prove that Senator Fish’s secretary George Hill had any knowledge of propaganda
29
Ibid., 213-26.
30
Schonbach, 373.
31
Ibid., 134,138.
32
Ibid., 325.
33
“Viereck Seized as Chief Agent for Nazis in U.S.: Accused of Receiving up to $40,000 in a Single Year,” Philadelphia
Evening Bulletin, October 9, 1941.
34
“Viereck is Sentenced to 2 to 6 Years, Reads 1,000-word Statement to Court,”Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, March 14, 1942.
35
“Says Viereck Put Nazi Views in Congress Record: Prosecutor Links Hitler Agent with Lundeen-Sweeney Group,”
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, February 18, 1942.
10
distribution.36 One year into Viereck’s prison term, the Supreme Court of the United States
ordered a retrial in a five to two decision due to “foul” manipulations of the jury by Maloney.37
Despite this turn of events, the District of Columbia General District Court sentenced Viereck to
one to five years in prison on July 31, 1943.38 The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed his 1944 pleas
for further appeal.39
Another government target was Father Charles Coughlin and his “Christian Front”
organization. Coughlin, a radio broadcaster and publisher of the periodical Social Justice,
promoted anti-communist, pro-Nazi, and anti-Semitic views. He attracted a radio audience of
over three million people as late as 1938.40 The F.B.I. arrested several members of the Christian
Front in Brooklyn in January 1940, though their public trial dropped the charges based on free
speech concerns.41 This precedent spared Coughlin from formal persecution. Nevertheless, the
Post Office Department suspended mailing of Social Justice when Attorney General Francis
Biddle accused the periodical of violating of the Espionage Act in April 1942.42 This setback,
combined with the loss of Coughlin’s radio outlets by the National Association of Broadcasters
in 1939, effectively ended the preacher’s career. 43 In late 1942, the Supreme Court of the United
States heard testimony in U.S. v. Fritz Julius Kuhn and Nineteen Other Cases. Despite the
defendants’ argument that no part of the German-American Bund was committed to anti-
Americanism or retained a conflicting allegiance to Germany, the prosecution prevailed by
36 Charles Higham, American Swastika (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company Inc., 1985), 45-50.
37
“High Court Upsets Viereck Verdict: Conviction of Nazi Agent Void; U.S. Attorney’s Conduct Denounced,” Philadelphia
Evening Bulletin, March 1, 1943.
38
“Viereck is Sentenced as an Alien Agent: Pro-German Propagandist Gets One to Five Years,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin,
July 31, 1943.
39
George Sylvester Viereck, Petitioner, v. the United States of America., 321 (U.S. 794 1944).
40
Schonbach, 293.
41
Ibid., 298-99.
42
Ibid., 309.
43
Ibid., 300
11
emphasizing the critical influence of Berlin over Bundist philosophy.44 As a result, Kuhn was
interned at a federal camp in New Mexico and was later deported to Germany after the war’s
end. That same year, the outspoken Axis-supporters Robert Noble, F. K. Ferenz (a Bund
associate) and Ellis Jones were convicted for violating provisions of the Subversive Organization
Registration Act, though an appeals court subsequently dropped these charges.45
Despite these cases, the most dramatic single effort by the federal government to
prosecute native fascists occurred from 1944 to 1947. “The Great Sedition Trail” was partially
influenced by the American Jewish Committee. It targeted bundists, isolationists, pacifists,
socialists, nativists, German Americans and anti-Semites for alleged allegiance to Nazi Germany.
From July 21, 1942 to January 3, 1944, a federal grand jury issued multiple indictments against
dozens of alleged violators of the Smith and Espionage acts.46 Those accused included George
Viereck, James F. Garner, and German-American Bund leaders Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze and
August Klapprott.47 The trial itself began on April 17, 1944 and quickly degenerated into a
disastrous political show. One by one, press outlets left the courtroom as the trial’s organization
and purpose deteriorated. On November 29, 1944, presiding judge Edward C. Eicher died of a
heart attack and was replaced by Judge Bolitha Laws. Realizing the futility of further
prosecution, Laws dismissed all charges to end what he described as “a travesty on justice” on
November 22, 1946.48 By war’s end, Allied victory and government actions had virtually
obliterated global and American fascism.49 Despite the future existence of organizations such as
the American Nazi Party (founded 1959), none have merited comprehensive federal
44
Diamond, 348.
45
Time Life Inc., “Voices of Defeat: Dissident Groups Sow Lies and HateWithin theUS,” Life Magazine, April13, 1942, 86.
46
Schonbach, 415.
47
Ibid.
48
“Court Dismisses Mass Sedition: Judge Calls it ‘Travesty on Justice,’” The Cornell Daily Sun, November 23, 1946, accessed
12/4/14, http://cdsun.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/cornell?a=d&d=CDS19461123.2.18.
49
Schonbach, 441.
12
governmental investigation nor displayed the same degree of strength and organization as the
German-American Bund.
In contrast to the persecution of Axis supporters, the communist-American relationship
with the federal government during World War II represented a political struggle capriciously
teetering between conflict and cooperation. Before proceeding with the historical details, a
definition of what constituted a “communist” must be established. For over one hundred years,
“communists” have defined only one element of the radical left. As such, supporters of various
“socialist” organizations and Soviet Union sympathizers frequently do not fall under its
definition. The focus of this investigation centers on a “highly concentrated” minority of
Americans—those whose social and political lives were centered under the banner of the
distinctly “communist” Communist Party U.S.A.50 This political party, abbreviated C.P.U. for
the sake of convenience, was founded in 1919 and emerged in the 1920s through a relationship
with trade unions.51 Throughout the 1930s, the party experienced internal conflict over
willingness to compromise ideology for the sake of political cooperation. Two of the most
pressing issues concerned whether or not anti-fascist unity should constitute the party’s primary
goal and to what extent it should criticize the Roosevelt Administration as an aid to capitalism.52
Both of these dilemmas would continue throughout the war years and provide the core questions
of the communist/federal government relationship.
As 1939 dawned, party chairman Earl Browder announced the C.P.U.’s explicit intent to
“take [its] place within the traditional American two-party system.”53 Having abandoned a
traditional opposition to American military funding following consultation with Soviet officials
50
Maurice Isserman. Which Side Were You On? The American Communist Party During the Second World War (Middletown,
CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1982), 36.
51
Edward P. Johanningsmeier, Forging American Communism: The Life of William Z. Foster (Princeton University Press, 1994),
3.
52
Ibid., 12.
53
Earl Browder, Fighting for Peace (New York: International Publishers, 1939), 200.
13
in the aftermath of the 1938 Munich Pact,54 Communist priorities centered on the need to prepare
for conflict in addition to supporting New Deal programs and limiting the power of the House
Un-American Activities Committee.55 However, international affairs would quickly change the
party’s tune in the first of a long series of policy reversals. The signing of the Molotov-
Ribbentrop Pact on August 23, 1939 ensured mutual non-aggression between the Soviet Union
and Nazi Germany. As a perpetual subservient to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the
C.P.U. scrambled to reverse its position on preparing to fight the Axis with minimal damage.56
The resulting about-face, memorably described by the anti-communist newspaper New Leader as
the act of “a decapitated chicken running wildly around the barnyard,”57 was solidified by a Party
letter to President Roosevelt expressing “firm accord with the stand of the President . . . against
American involvement in the war.”58 Yet this stance did little to prevent public retaliation against
domestic communists following Stalin’s September 17 attack on Poland. Viewing the C.P.U. as a
mouthpiece for an aggressive, totalitarian system of government, many Americans came to
regard its members as the mirror image of Nazi Bundists.59 As such, journalists and civilians
adopted the “Communazi” meme to lump both arguments into a shared scrutiny.60
September 1939 also witnessed the first critical assault on the party’s political apparatus
by the federal government. From 1926 to 1929, Earl Browder had traveled to China to assist in
labor-organizing activities and work with the Chinese Communist Party.61 In the course of his
time abroad, Browder had allegedly traveled using false passports and assumed names.62 These
facts attracted the attention of the Justice Department and H.U.A.C. chairman Martin Dies, the
54
Isserman, 26.
55
Ibid., 27.
56
Ibid., 33.
57
New Leader, September 2, 1939, 3:1.
58
Communist, XVII (October 1939), 899-904.
59
Isserman, 44.
60
Ibid.
61
Ibid., 5.
62
Ibid., 48.
14
latter pursuing these charges with an aggressive zeal ten years after their occurrence. Earl
Browder was dragged before the committee on September 5 and, in the course of a grueling
investigation, let slip that he had in fact traveled using false documents.63 The Communist Party
leader was indicted the next month, swiftly followed by the federal government’s prosecution of
Communist Party treasurer William Weiner, Daily Worker publicist Harry Gannes, and
California Communist Party district organizer William Schneiderman.64 That the House Un-
American Activities Committee selectively targeted high-ranking C.P.U. influences is obvious,
though the records of the H.U.A.C. chairman reveal a deeper justification for his actions. In his
1940 book The Trojan Horse in America, Dies claimed that “a fifth column for propaganda must
operate largely in the open even though its purposes and controls remain secret…in the last
analysis, the fifth column of propaganda may be more menacing to our national security than the
fifth column of espionage” (italics added).65 In other words, even the legal activities of
communist supporters could now be deemed a threat to the United States in the eyes of the law.
Earl Browder’s trial began on January 17, 1940 in the New York City Federal District
Court.66 The C.P.U. chairman was sentenced to a four-year prison term and fined $2,000. This
penalty impacted heavily on Communist Party affairs. Philosophically, the attack on the
Communist Party’s leader ended a longstanding hesitancy to criticize President Roosevelt.
Slightly over a month after Browder’s conviction, he railed that communist priorities should
switch from promoting a “third term” for FDR but to supporting a “third party.”67 An aggressive
anti-war campaign emerged around the slogan “The Yanks Aren’t Coming,”68 this time taking
63
“Browder Admits False Passports:BeforeDies Group,” New York Times, September 6, 1939, ProQuest Historical Newspapers:
The New York Times (1851-2010) with Index (1851-1993).
64
Isserman, 49.
65
Martin Dies, The Trojan Horse in America (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1940), 11.
66
Isserman, 55.
67
Earl Browder, The People Against the Warmakers (New York: Worker’s Library, 1940), 17.
68
“4000 Listen to Earl Browder Attack U.S. Aid to Finland,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, February 10, 1939.
15
great care to emphasize the negative effect of war on First Amendment rights.69 Browder’s
imprisonment, however, torpedoed any fledgling hope of an effective Communist campaign in
the 1940 national elections. The chairman ran as a presidential candidate alongside black vice
presidential candidate James Ford, though court orders prohibited Browder (free on bail) from
traveling outside the jurisdiction of the New York Federal Court.70 As a result, he could not
physically campaign and relied instead on the efforts William Z. Foster and his vice presidential
pick to tour the country.71
Yet not even these men could overcome the damage inflicted by the federal government’s
1940 “Red Scare.” Washington aimed at excluding the C.P.U. from as many state ballots as
possible, and was aided to a limited yet crucial extent by the Roosevelt Administration.72 In the
fall of 1939, President Roosevelt gave Attorney General Frank Murphy authorization to probe
prominent Communist Party officials, leading to an investigation of those responsible for
propaganda publications by a federal grand jury in Washington and the F.B.I.’s arrest of twelve
people in Detroit and Milwaukee in February 1940.73 Mid-June to September 1940 brought more
bad news from the United States Congress, which passed the Alien Registration and Voorhis
Registration Acts in both houses with overwhelming margins.74 The specifics of these laws need
not be reiterated, though it is interesting to note that the original inspiration for the Voorhis Act
came from correspondence with the Dies Committee from Morris Ernst, a New York lawyer and
rabid anti-communist.75 Although the Voorhis Registration Act subsequently created major
headaches for Axis supporters, it owed its inspiration to anti-communist sentiment.
69
Isserman, 63.
70
“Communists Name Browder Again,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, June 3, 1940.; Isserman, 71.
71
Isserman, 71.
72
Ibid., 67.
73
Ibid.
74
Ibid., 68-69.
75
Ibid., 68.
16
Unsurprisingly, the House Un-American Activities Committee thrived in this
environment, imprisoning multiple communist officials in the spring of 1940.76 The “Scare” as a
whole succeeded in restricting the Browder-Ford ticket to the ballots of just twenty-two states.77
Under these dangerous political conditions, the Communist Party covertly turned from
campaigning to influencing organized labor in an effort to achieve its goals. Essentially, the
latest strategy of resisting American war involvement would focus on halting the production of
war resources in crucial chemical plants, shipyards, and aircraft factories through worker
strikes.78 Yet even this strategy did not escape detection by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Undercover agents within the C.P.U. reported strike plans to F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover,
who informed Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau that communist section leaders
would “follow their own initiative in delaying production” in San Francisco.79 Deeply disturbed,
Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and Secretary of War Henry Stimson appealed to President
Roosevelt to intervene; in response, Roosevelt acknowledged the communist influence over
strikes and sought to broaden the F.B.I.’s “investigative responsibility” over dissident labor
movements.80 Furthermore, Roosevelt seriously debated directing the responsibility of strike
investigations to military intelligence, then reconsidered due to the influence of Secretary of
Labor Francis Perkins and finally opted for the establishment of the National Defense Mediation
Board to regulate disputes.81 Quite expectedly, Communist unionist decried the new institution
as “an all-out labor busting and strike-breaking device.”82 In response, Roosevelt warned in a
May 27, 1941 radio address that the government would “use all of its power to express the will
76
Ibid., 69.
77
Ibid., 71.
78
Joel Seidman, “Labor Policy of the Communist Party During World War II,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, vol. 4,
no. 1 (October 1950): 57 accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2519321.
79
Harold Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes: the Lowering Clouds 1939-1941 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955),
190.
80
Isserman, 89-90.
81
Ickes, 461.
82
Bert Cochran, Labor and Communism: The Conflict that Shaped American Unions (Princeton University Press, 1980), 181-82.
17
of the people, and to prevent interference with the production of materials essential to the
nation’s security.”83 This was not an empty threat. In a dramatic culmination of Communist Party
tactics, workers at the North American Aviation plant near Los Angeles went on strike
demanding wage increases.84 With a quarter of the country’s fighter aircraft on the line,
Roosevelt intervened when a majority of workers ignored a back-to-work mandate.85 Thousands
of federal troops marched on the plant on Monday, June 9, 1941, ending the strike and marking
the first recorded use of federal troops to break a strike in the 20th century.86 The impact of this
event crippled the communists’ influence over the United Automobile Workers’ aviation branch
while emboldening its opponents.87
Up to this point, the wartime struggle of the Communist Party of America resembled a
slightly more sophisticated mirror image of the struggle of fascist Americans—both essentially
detailing a sustained bludgeoning at the hands of federal authorities. Yet the summer of 1941
would throw a dramatic twist into the communist narrative, one with residual effects for years
and important implications for the conclusions of this analysis. On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler
shattered the provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact by unleashing Fall Barbarossa, a
formal invasion of the Soviet Union. Once again, the American Communist Party was thrown
into chaos. After sinking so much time, energy, and effort into campaigns against the war, the
C.P.U. once again debated an embarrassing reversal of opinion. The final verdict adopted an
“enemy of the enemy”-type rationalization; the defense of the Soviet Union would now assume
top priority. While William Foster affirmed that the Communist Party’s support of the Roosevelt
Administration “in all the blows that it may deliver against Hitler, [did not] forget the imperialist
83
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Public Papers and Addresses, vol. 10, 1941, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950), 191-92.
84
Isserman, 97.
85
Ibid., 97-98.
86
Ibid., 98.
87
Cochran, 182.
18
character of the government nor its imperialist aims,”88 these reservations did not appear in
published resolutions.89 In other words, the Communist Party was now fully supporting
American defense policies. From here, previous ideological convictions began to crumble in the
wake of the party’s newfound priority. To give one example, black communist leader James Ford
argued, “It would be equally wrong to press [for black rights] without regard to the main task of
the destruction of Hitler, without which no serious fight for Negro rights is possible.”90 The
federal government’s persecution of the Communist Party slackened as a result of this allegiance,
though F.B.I. surveillance continued steadily past the war’s end.91 Additionally, several legal
concessions turned in the C.P.U.’s favor. As December 1941 concluded, the House of
Representatives effectively transferred the investigation of foreigners from the State Department
to the Justice Department.92 Martin Dies attempted to add a clause demanding that Communist
Party members register with the Justice Department, but the Senate repudiated his amendment.93
After reconsideration, Roosevelt also commuted Earl Browder’s prison sentence in part to
prepare for an upcoming meeting with the Soviet foreign minister and in part due to the urging of
Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Elbert Thomas.94
Browder’s return to the forefront of party leadership signaled further changes in
traditional communist priorities, the biggest related to the issue of labor strikes. In an effort to
quell discontent in critical mining and steel corporations, the federal government brokered a
compromise to sustain wage increases to adjust for rising costs of living.95 The Communist Party
supported this decision, though it took things a step further by supporting strikes “only in defense
88
William Z. Foster and Robert Minor, The Fight Against Hitlerism (New York: Workers Library, 1941), 21.
89
Isserman, 107.
90
Communist XX, October 1941, 894-95.
91
Isserman, 126 149.
92
Ibid., 130.
93
Ibid.
94
Ibid., 131.
95
Ibid., 136.
19
of the workers’ most basic economic interests or to protect the life of the trade unions, and then
only as a last resort.”96 When several union members broke ranks in 1943, the Communist Party
supported the Roosevelt Administration’s “Hold the Line” order forcing them back to work.97
While communist literary critic Mike Gold warned of “stupid, cruel and un-American
persecutions and mob actions against aliens,”98 the Communist party said nothing against the
internment of naturalized Japanese citizens.99 Clearly, ideology was being sacrificed for the sake
of politics, though these changes were mere shadows compared to the radical about-face that
would define the remainder of the C.P.U.’s war years.
As November 1943 wound to a close, the major Allied powers agreed at the Tehran
Conference to set a date for the liberation of Western Europe. The meeting’s joint communiqué
pledged that the Allies would “work together in the peace that will follow,” a gesture interpreted
by Browder to mean that the socialist struggle had to be postponed.100 In other words, Browder
was now encouraging cooperation with capitalism for the sake of world order. Resulting
arguments among the C.P.U. leadership led to the formal dissolution of the party on May 20,
1944 right after it endorsed a fourth term for Franklin Delano Roosevelt,101 followed by its
reformation after a 14-month hiatus.102
As World War II concluded, the Grand Alliance began to unravel in the wake of the
defeat of Nazi Germany.103 Once again, the Communist Party reversed its stance on Tehran,104
though this change-of-heart fatally coincided with an increasingly anti-communist stance on the
96
Daily Worker, November 14, 1941, 6:3.
97
Isserman, 161.
98
Daily Worker, January 8, 1942, 7:1.
99
Isserman, 144.
100
Isserman, 192.
101
“U.S. Communists Back Roosevelt,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, May 20, 1944.
102
“Communist Party in Politics Again,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, July 28, 1945.
103
Isserman, 214-17.
104
Ibid., 230.
20
part of the American public and federal government.105 Earl Browder was expelled from the
party by party delegates,106 though the end of his tenure came at the expense of party unity.107 As
a result, all wartime political gains were destroyed in an implosion of party leadership and
organization lasting through the 1960s.108
With both the pro-Axis and communist narratives established, it is time to return to the
central question of this investigation—namely, which government/dissident struggle represents
the more “complex,” “dynamic,” and overall “significant” conflict in historical retrospect.
Clearly, both Axis supporters and communists were sustained targets of the federal government
throughout World War II despite attempts of the latter to cooperate within the system from late
1941 to 1945. Both domestic communists and Axis supporters produced written and spoken
propaganda to defend their philosophies, and the federal government targeted both forms at least
once for each movement. Additionally, both individuals and organizations affiliated with Axis
support or communism were targeted by the state. The similarities between both factions,
however, largely end there. Fascist ideology sustained a profound hatred for communist
ideology, and the Communist Party reciprocated these feelings. Additionally, communists
organized along the lines of a political party, and they sustained that structure with one
interruption throughout the war. Axis supporters preferred to operate in largely fraternal groups.
Most of these had been driven into bankruptcy by the war’s start, and they dissolved completely
by the war’s end.
105
Ibid., 244.
106
“Browder is Silent on Loss of Office,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, September 27, 1945.
107
Isserman, 241-43.
108
Ibid., 255-56.
21
The definition of “complexity” implies an intricate and composite nature,109 avoiding
simplistic causes and effects and a one-dimensional storyline. Similarly, the definition of
“dynamic” entails a system “characterized by constant change, activity or progress”110 The
relationship between the federal government and the Communist Party U.S.A. clearly epitomizes
each of these characteristics from 1939 to 1945. Regarding the war, C.P.U. opinion switched
from support for military preparation through the first half of 1939, to support for the
government’s opposition to entering a global war (August 1939 to early 1940), to opposing the
government’s attempt to prepare for warfare (early 1940 to June 22, 1941), to supporting the
government’s involvement in World War II to aid the Soviet Union (June 22, 1941 to war’s end).
Regarding political activism, C.P.U. strategy switched from influencing the two-party system
through campaigning, to supporting the establishment of a third party, to working through
organized labor to accomplish political dissent, to throwing official support behind the Roosevelt
Administration. If these sequences do not embody “dynamism” at face value, then the concept is
meaningless.
The motivations behind these changes and the federal government’s response to them
also embody the definition of “complexity.” Through all things, the Communist Party U.S.A.
supported the Soviet Union first and foremost, an allegiance clearly demonstrated through the
organization’s radical swings in opinion and lengths to which it justified them. Domestic
political circumstances, however, often dictated the lengths to which support or dissent could go.
Communist leaders initially hesitated to criticize Roosevelt due to the president’s support of New
Deal policies and his immense popularity, though the trial of Earl Browder and Red Scare of
109
Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “complexity,” accessed 11/5/14,
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/37689?redirectedFrom=complexity#eid.
110
Oxford Dictionaries, s.v. “dynamic,” accessed 11/5/14,
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/dynamic.
22
1940 demanded a sharp condemnation. All defiance of war efforts had to dance around
classification as sedition, and not all were successful in this goal. All support for government war
efforts prior to Fall Barbarossa was moderate in the face of government persecution, though
Germany’s 1941 attack on the Soviet Union forced adamant support of American war efforts.
Similarly, the federal government’s persecution of communists appeared to slacken when the
C.P.U. endorsed the Allied cause. Ideological motivations influenced the course of these events,
but pragmatic concerns also had an enormous influence over the way they unfolded. The
historical result was multi-faceted, capricious, and dependent on a broad range of circumstances.
In contrast, the relationship between Axis supporters and the federal government
displayed the characteristics of a search-and-destroy mission directed against unshakable
convictions throughout the course of the entire war. Apart from the recantation of Generoso
Pope, no prominently indicted Axis supporters ever expressed the slightest willingness to
compromise with federal authorities. The government returned the favor through an unremitting
and escalating anti-fascist campaign—limited in its success and efficiency but thoroughly
unwilling to concede legitimacy to the enemy under consideration. The only significant
exception to this rule, the cooperation of senators Rush Holt, Stephen A. Day, Ernest Lundeen,
and Hamilton Fish to help distribute George Viereck’s propaganda at taxpayer expense,
represents a clear outlier in a grander scheme. A major reason for unalterable tension stems from
the fact that the federal government was pursuing those insane enough to support the German,
Japanese, and Italian cause in the middle of a society conducting total war against it. Pro-Axis
resistance unlike that of American communists, was not conducted by a single political
organization at World War II’s beginning, but rather by individuals and small fraternal groups.
Perhaps the differences among each individual yields “complexity,” though their interaction with
23
the federal government represented a single narrative in almost all circumstances. The pro-Axis
war experience, in simplest possible terms, was a simple one.
Lastly, the question of “significance” assesses what “complexity” and “dynamism” mean
in historical context. Which relationship most profoundly affected the individuals and
organizations involved, which interaction reveals the most about the government and its targets,
and which lessons are the most important? To answer these questions, the key themes of both
government-dissident relations must be examined back-to-back. In most cases, federal
prosecutors went to great lengths to charge their targets with technical legal violations over
claims of “sedition.” When this consideration was suspended in the Great Sedition Trial, the
result was condemned as a public relations and civil liberties disaster of historic and epic
proportions. Herein lies an important lesson regarding freedom of speech, though similar lessons
arise from an analysis of communist persecution. Once again, technical charges almost always
eclipsed sedition charges. Concerning the effect of crackdowns, the federal government
succeeded in partially incapacitating communist leader Earl Browder, crippling the C.P.U.’s
1940 political campaigns, and damaging its influence over organized labor. Efforts to strike pro-
Axis elements contributed to the indictment of several talking heads and dismantlement of any
remaining influential Nazi organizations. Nevertheless, the sentences meted out to Axis
supporters often amounted to nothing more than fines and short prison terms, with some cases
dropped due to free speech concerns. The efficiency of the government’s investigations was also
flawed. An editorial in Kansas City’s Plaindealer, an African American newspaper, charged that
“Nazi spies [and] Japanese agents . . . have escaped Mr. Dies and his committee . . . Only the
anti-fascist forces who fought these enemies fiercest have been assaulted by [the chairman].”111
111
“Best Editorial of theWeek: No Appeasement,” Plaindealer (Kansas City), February 19, 1943, accessed October 5, 2014,
America’s Historical Newspapers.
24
Indeed, convicted communist leaders frequently received maximum prison terms, and federal
prosecutors explicitly cited the mere fact of their party membership as grounds for suspicion and
indictment.
These facts suggest that communist prosecution was more “significant” than pro-Axis
persecution, though history’s final verdict must consider the problem of Japanese internment.
Those who argue that government crackdowns hurt domestic Axis supporters more than
communists may cite the imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans as an unprecedented
suspension of constitutional rights in support of neutralizing an “enemy.” This line of reasoning,
however, distorts the true motivations driving internment. Prejudice towards Japanese
immigrants predated the turn of the 20th century, and government intelligence determined that
Japanese Americans posed virtually no threat to national security prior to Pearl Harbor.112 The
primary government agitators for internment were those who misread a congressional
commission’s report on Pearl Harbor—claiming that the Japanese consulate in Hawaii was
responsible for passing intelligence on to the Japanese mainland when the report mentioned no
such thing.113 Interestingly, Americans of Italian or German descent did not suffer a similar mass
internment. If a genuine effort were underway to isolate Axis “supporters” in the United States,
as opposed to a racially motivated114”military necessity” based on rumors and speculation, one
would expect all heritages related to the Axis powers to be contained. Most damning of all,
virtually all detainees felt no sympathy for the Japanese government!115 Hence, the internment
issue carries little weight in a debate over the federal government’s relation to genuine fascism.
112
Wendy Ng, Japanese American Internment During World War II: A History and Reference Guide (Westport, CT:Greenwood
Press, 2002), 8, 14.
113
Ibid., 16.
114
Ibid., 14.
115
Ibid., 52.
25
A final word must be said regarding the persistence of principle in the face of
government persecution. Overwhelmingly, Axis supporters maintained their allegiances in the
face of unfavorable political circumstances. Declarations of war, prison sentences, fines, sedition
charges, or organizational collapses failed to change the minds of George Viereck and his
associates. On the other hand, the Communist Party underwent radical conversions and
deconversions in “official” thought due to changing governmental aims. Most have been detailed
in previous sections, though Browder’s stance towards Tehran deserves a “significant”
consideration. That the Communist Party temporarily endorsed capitalism, the arch-nemesis of
Marxist thought, as the path to world order—after the sacrifice and struggle of holding the
communist ideological line during the late 30s through early 40s—is a “significant” piece of
history in any respect. At face value, this change of heart epitomizes the lengths to which the
C.P.U. went to preserve itself in wartime America. In a philosophical sense, it suggests that even
one’s most devoutly held beliefs are subject to suspension for the sake of “order.” This analysis
provides perhaps the most striking example of a non-intuitive conclusion—that American
communists faced deeper challenges than supporters of the Axis from 1939-1945.
In conclusion, the federal government’s World War II-era relations with American
communists superseded its persecution of Axis supporters in overall ”dynamism,” “complexity”
and “significance.” Far from providing a straight narrative detailing conviction after conviction,
a changing political environment dictated the extent to which communists resisted the federal
government or cooperated with the federal government. Rather than demonstrating static
ideological faith, the Communist Party adapted to the needs of the present moment. Unlike their
hesitancy to prosecute “seditious” Axis supporters, government officials labeled Communist
Party allegiance as a red flag for severe punishment. When amassed, these arguments support the
26
strange notion that enemies abroad were not always prioritized in the same way as enemies at
home. Time and again, historians have ignored the struggles of “Communazi” minority in favor
of the struggles of a patriotic American majority. Nevertheless, in light of the significance of
World War II to world history and global politics, the significance of the Axis and communism
in 20th century affairs, and the eternal dilemmas constituting human rights, this conclusion
mandates an audience outside the fringes of academia.
27
BIBLIOGRAPHY
* * * *
Primary Sources
Court Cases
George Sylvester Viereck, Petitioner, v. the United States of America., 321 U.S. 794 (1944).
PETITION. File Date: February 12, 1944. 22 pp. U.S. Supreme Court Records and
Briefs, 1832-1978. Gale, Cengage Learning. Temple University Libraries. 12 October
2014.
http://galenet.galegroup.com.libproxy.temple.edu/servlet/SCRB?uid=0&srchtp=a&ste=1
4&rcn=DW3902559969.
Government Documents
Roosevelt, Franklin D. Executive Order 9066 – Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe
Military Areas. February 19, 1942. General Records of the United States Government,
Record Group 11. National Archives.
Newspapers and Newsletters
Temple University Urban Archives
Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Collection
Greenbie, Sydney. “Ryder-Williams Trial Unwinds Japanese Intrigue,” Christian Science
Monitor, June 3, 1942.
28
“Court Dismisses Mass Sedition: Judge Calls it ‘Travesty on Justice,’” The Cornell Daily Sun,
November 23, 1946. Accessed 12/4/14. http://cdsun.library.cornell.edu/cgi-
bin/cornell?a=d&d=CDS19461123.2.18.
Daily Worker, November 14, 1941, January 8, 1942.
New Leader, September 2, 1939.
“Comintern Officer Praises U.S. Party: Cites Work With Progressives Here as 20th Year of
Organization is Marked,” New York Times, March 5, 1939. ProQuest Historical
Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2010) with Index (1851-1993).
“Browder Admits False Passports: Before Dies Group,” New York Times, September 6, 1939.
ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2010) with Index (1851-
1993)
“Trombetta is Indicted: Accused of Failing to Register as Italian Agent,” New York Times, May
25, 1943, accessed December 2, 2014, Proquest Historical Newspapers.
“Best Editorial of the Week: No Appeasement,” Plaindealer (Kansas City), March 5, 1943.
Accessed October 12, 2014. America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Church Leaders Write FDR On Dies’ Action,” Plaindealer (Kansas City), February 19, 1943.
Accessed October 5, 2014. America’s Historical Newspapers.
“106 Register as Foreign Agents Here,” Washington Post, October 11, 1938.
Magazines
Communist, XVII. October 1939. 899-904.
Communist, XX. October 1941. 894-95.
Time Life Inc. “Voices of Defeat: Dissident Groups Sow Lies and Hate Within the US.” Life
Magazine. April 13, 1942. 86.
Books
Browder, Earl. Fighting for Peace. New York: International Publishers, 1939.
Browder, Earl. The People Against the Warmakers. New York: Workers Library, 1940.
Dies, Martin. The Trojan Horse in America. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1940.
29
Documents from the National Archives: Internment of Japanese Americans. Dubuque, Iowa:
Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1989.
Ickes, Harold. The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes: the Lowering Clouds 1939-1941. New York:
Simon and Schuster, 1955.
Roosevelt, Franklin Delano. Public Papers and Addresses, Vol. 10, 1941. New York: Harper and
Brothers, 1950.
Secondary Sources
Internet Sources
Defense Casualty Analysis System. “World War II.” Defense Manpower Data Center. Last
modified 2014. Accessed September 25, 2014.
https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/pages/casualties_ww2.xhtml.
Journals
Seidman, Joel. “Labor Policy of the Communist Party During World War II.” Industrial and
Labor Relations Review, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Oct. 1950): 55-69. Accessed October 10, 2014.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2519321.
Books
Canedy, Susan. America’s Nazis, A Democratic Dilemma: A History of the German-American
Bund. Menlo Park, CA: Markgraf Publications Croup. 1990.
Cochran, Bert. Labor and Communism: The Conflict that Shaped American Unions. Princeton
University Press, 1980.
Diamond, Sander A. The Nazi Movement in the United States 1924-1941. Ithaca and London:
Cornell University Press, 1974.
30
Higham, Charles. American Swastika. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1985.
Isserman, Maurice. Which Side Were You On? The American Communist Party During the
Second World War. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1982.
Johanningsmeier, Edward P. Forging American Communism: The Life of William Z. Foster.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Ng, Wendy. Japanese American Internment During World War II: A History and Reference
Guide. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002.
Schonbach, Morris. Native American Fascism During the 1930s and 1940s: A Study of Its Roots,
Its Growth, and Its Decline. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985.
Weyl, Nathaniel. Treason: The Story of Disloyalty and Betrayal in American History.
Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1950.
Whitehead, Don. The F.B.I. Story. New York: Random House, 1956.
31

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Final Draft Seminar

  • 1. 1 Comparing “Communazis”: Axis Supporters, Domestic Communists, and the Federal Government in World War II Miles Hartl History 4296-003: Battle Front and Home Front: The United States in World War II November 17, 2014
  • 2. 2 Twentieth century American history devotes considerable time to two arch-nemeses of the United States. The first of these, the Axis triumvirate of Germany, Japan, and Italy, provoked America’s entrance into a total war on the European and Pacific Theaters at the expense of billions of U.S. dollars and 405,399 American lives.1 The second of these, the international rise of communism, provoked the space race, two near-misses at nuclear Armageddon, the bitterly divisive struggle over Indochina, covert political intervention in Latin America, and a surge in defense spending that remains hewn into the deficits of the 21stcentury. Despite an exhaustive effort on the part of historians to chronicle these struggles abroad, considerably less attention is devoted to the federal government’s relationship with both ideologies on the home front. Specifically, a strange silence descends on the activities of domestic communists and Axis sympathizers during the Second World War. Given the near totality of America’s commitment to fighting Germany, Japan, and Italy during this time period, the idea that a significant percentage of Americans would continue to side with Axis ideology tends to be dismissed as a time-wasting, intellectually barren examination of suicidal cranks and deviants. On the flip side, communism is often relegated to the status of a “Cold War concern” given the U.S.S.R.’s Allied status from 1941 to 1945 and the pervasive efforts on the part of the United States government to drum up support for the fight against the Axis. Hence, American communists are frequently overlooked in the hierarchy of research interests. Nevertheless, the dismissal of homegrown Axis and communist support in the greater context of World War II misses a pivotal moment in the understanding of both. Contrary to charges of irrelevancy, the millions of Axis sympathizers, including members of the German- American Bund and other pro-Nazi organizations, constituted a significant minority of 1 Defense Casualty Analysis System, “World War II,” Defense Manpower DataCenter, last modified 2014, accessed September 25, 2014, https://www.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/pages/casualties_ww2.xhtml.
  • 3. 3 Americans. At the same time, the Communist Party constituted “a not unimportant factor in the political life of the United States.”2 Clearly, the members of these organizations did not simply vanish into the ether, nor did they abandon their long-held principles when America entered World War II. Nor did they disappear from the radar of a presidential administration intent on investigating them since 1934. Given the mutual hostility between communist and capitalist ideology before and after the conflict, it is also important to examine the government’s relationship with communists at a time when the Soviet Union was viewed as an indispensable ally to the United States. A close look at relevant historical evidence reveals that both groups were persecuted under the label of “Communazis,” though this title does not describe a homogenous experience. This paper argues that the World War II-era communist/federal government struggle paradoxically represents a more complex, dynamic, and significant case study than the suppression of American fascists. The “World War II era” shall herein be defined as the period from 1938/1939 (the prologue to the war’s beginning in Europe) to 1945 (the year of Germany and Japan’s surrender to the Allied powers). All significant federal government organizations and employees shall be identified followed by an analysis of all significant individuals and organizations persecuted due to their allegiance to the Axis and “communist” causes. From these facts, a comparative conclusion will assess their experiences against definitions of “complexity,” “dynamism,” and “significance.” Before proceeding, it is important to identify all relevant federal politicians and political committees that sought to persecute Axis and communist supporters. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, representing the government’s executive branch as President of the United States, needs virtually 2 “Comintern Officer Praises U.S. Party:Cites Work With Progressives Here as 20th Year of Organization is Marked,” New York Times, March 5, 1939, ProQuest Historical Newspapers:TheNew York Times (1851-2010) with Index (1851-1993).
  • 4. 4 no introduction, serving in office from 1933 to his death in 1945 and frequently influencing, rather than instigating, legal and diplomatic relations with American fascists and communists. Representing the legislative branch, the House Un-American Activities Committee (abbreviated H.U.A.C.) was founded in 1938 as a reorganization of the Fish Committee (founded 1930 to investigate communism) and McCormack-Dickstein Committee (founded 1934-1937 to investigate both Nazi and communist propaganda). H.U.A.C. was originally chaired by Democratic Texas senator Martin Dies, and was also known as the Dies Committee throughout the senator’s 1938-1944 tenure. Congress passed the Foreign Agents Registration Act in 1938, requiring alien agents to file with the State Department. The Alien Registration Act is also known as the Smith Act, and was enacted on June 29, 1940 to criminalize advocacy to overthrow the government of the United States and force all non-citizen adults to register with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The Voorhis Act of 1940 (sponsored by staunch anti- communist Jerry Voorhis) did the same to political organizations under foreign control, forcing them to register with the Justice Department. The Supreme Court of the United States and various federal and state courts, each to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis, formed the judicial branch of this trilateral apparatus. The story of U.S.-based Axis support must be divided into three parts in the context of World War II: those individuals in support of Italy, those in support of Germany, and those in support of Japan. The Italian perspective comes first in terms of chronology and brevity. Benito Mussolini (leader of Italy’s National Fascist Party) became Prime Minister in 1922, and his regime was the first of the Axis governments to release propaganda within the United States.3 Given the vast number of Italian-Americans identified by the 1930 census, this presented a 3 Morris Schonbach, Native American Fascism During the 1930s and 1940s (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1985), 70.
  • 5. 5 substantial problem to anti-fascist authorities.4 The benefit of hindsight, however, proves that this threat was vastly overrated. On December 22, 1929, the Italian Fascist League voluntarily dissolved following complaints by Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson to the Italian government.5 Despite concerns about the status of the Sons of Italy and other organizations, the federal government directed the majority of its attention to supporters of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.6 During the war years, federal authorities interned 367 Italian-Americans and arrested 3,567.7 Among the interned was Domenico Trombetta, publisher of the fascist periodical Il Grido Della Stirpe, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on May 24, 1943 for failing to register as a foreign agent.8 A subsequent trial sentenced him to prison on September 4, 1943 and forced his periodical to cease publication.9 Generoso Pope, a sand-and-gravel dealer from New York and owner of the newspapers Il Progreso Italo-Americano and Correire d’America, also caused trouble for the federal government. While Pope served as Chairman of the Italian Division of the Democratic National Committee, he vehemently supported Mussolini’s cause. Following Congress’ unanimous declaration of war against Japan and Italy on December 11, 1941, political pressure and personal misgivings over anti-Semitic legislation proposed by Mussolini forced Pope to reassess his convictions.10 The publicist formally denounced Mussolini’s government and apologized for his actions within months of the Pearl Harbor attack; he later went on to support the Italian-American war bond drive and work with the American 4 Ibid., 75. 5 Ibid., 82. 6 Ibid., 85. 7 Don Whitehead, The F.B.I. Story (New York: Random House, 1956), 343. 8 “Trombettais Indicted: Accused of Failing to Register as Italian Agent,” New York Times, May 25, 1943, accessed December 2, 2014, Proquest Historical Newspapers. 9 Schonbach, 115. 10 Ibid., 116; Italian American Experience: an Encyclopedia, s.v. “Pope, Generoso (1891-1950),” accessed December 10, 2014, http://books.google.com/books?id=JUyAAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA488&lpg=PA488&dq=generoso+pope+democratic+national+com mittee&source=bl&ots=W7tGBgyOtt&sig=PAO1N9s3nXDN3R2w8tttsnyVcUM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ySWHVMqANI6zyAT9_4 KYCA&ved=0CDUQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=generoso%20pope%20democratic%20national%20committee&f=false”
  • 6. 6 Committee for Italian Democracy to “rehabilitate” himself with Roosevelt.11 These incidents constitute the most significant relations of the federal government to Italian fascists during World War II.12 The experience of Japanese-government supporters follows roughly the same pattern with one potential exception. Mainly, the federal government sought to intervene in suspected cases of espionage and propaganda. Concern over the former heavily inspired the passage of the 1938 McCormack Act.13 Throughout the 1940s, various Japanese consular officials were harassed for alleged espionage.14 No convincing evidence, however, suggests that a Japanese “Fifth Column” was operating within the United States during the war years.15 Propaganda outlets, on the other hand, were a real phenomenon. The Jikyoku Iinkai (or Japanese Committee on Trade and Information) operated out of San Francisco from 1937 to 1940 and worked to distribute literature in favor of the Japanese government throughout the United States. In June 1938, Joseph H. Smyth purchased the periodical The Living Age and began endorsing the Japanese cause with funding from the Japanese Consulate of New York City.16 After Smyth and his colleagues attempted to extend their influence, they became targets for a U.S. Justice Department investigation in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. On November 12, 1942, the Federal District Court for Eastern New York sentenced them to seven years in prison.17 The American consuls Ralph Townsend, Frederick Vincent Williams and David Warren Ryder also received funding from the Jikyoku Iinkai and were subject to a separate investigation. Williams’ payment was directed primarily towards his speeches supporting the Japanese cause, while Townsend and Ryder 11 Ibid. 12 Schonbach, 117. 13 Ibid., 211. 14 Ibid., 210. 15 Ibid., 202-03. 16 Ibid., 213. 17 Ibid. 213-14.
  • 7. 7 printed pamphlets.18 Upon investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, Townsend admitted to misrepresenting his purpose when he filed as a foreign lobbyist with the State Department. For this violation of the McCormack Act, he received a sentence of up to two years in prison.19 Similar punishments fell on a handful of others, including prolific pro-Japanese writer John C. LeClair.20 All of these incidents clearly concerned specific cases of pro-Japanese propaganda. Despite the objections of many civil libertarians to the actions of H.U.A.C. and other committees, each of the accused received trials with due process. The same, however, cannot be said regarding one of the most notorious human rights violations of the American war effort— the mass internment of Japanese Americans. Following the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese military on December 7, 1941, President Roosevelt released Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. This order called for “the Secretary of War and Military Commanders . . . to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine . . . [and] the right of any person to remain in, or leave [these internment areas] shall be subject to whatever restriction the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion.”21 In all, approximately 120,000 Japanese- Americans were relocated from the West Coast.22 Yet were these provisions effective in restraining the activities of pro-Japanese and pro-Axis supporters? For the sake of pacing, this crucial question will be addressed later in this paper. 18 “106 Register as Foreign Agents Here,” Washington Post, October 11, 1938; Sydney Greenbie. “Ryder-Williams Trial Unwinds Japanese Intrigue,” Christian Science Monitor, June 3, 1942. 19 Schonbach, 214. 20 Ibid., 214-15. 21 Franklin D. Roosevelt, Executive Order 9066 – Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas, February 19, 1942, General Records of the United States Government, Record Group 11, National Archives. 22 Documents from the National Archives: Internment of Japanese Americans (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1989), 9-10.
  • 8. 8 German-American Nazi sympathizers constitute the last Axis element to be covered here, and they provide the most case studies in the fascist-federal government feud. Each individual and organization involved meets the definition of “Nazi bundist” and “bund movement member” (not to confuse the latter two terms with those individuals strictly associated with the German- American Bund, referred to as “Bundists” or “Bund members”).23 An overwhelming majority of bundists were 1920s German emigrants, and Nazi propaganda first infiltrated the United States in 1924 when National Socialist Party official Kurt G. W. Ludecke sneaked into the country and distributed leaflets to German-Americans.24 The first fascist organizations to contribute economic support to Hitler’s Germany were the Chicago, Detroit, and New York City-based Teutonia Societies, though they were largely ineffective.25 Similar groups, such as the Landesgruppe of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei and Friends of the Hitler Movement, were formed between 1930 and 1939 under the supervision of Hitler’s American confidant, Ernst Hanfstaengl.26 The German-American Bund emerged in 1936 as a reorganization of the Friends of the New Germany, itself a 1933 replacement for Gau-USA and the Free Society of Teutonia.27 By far the most significant pro-fascist German-American organization, the German-American Bund, maintained an upwards of 10,000 members through the 1930s.28 By the decade’s end, the increasingly toxic actions of Adolf Hitler forced the organization to forgo incorporation of German nationals and the display of Nazi memorabilia. In 1939, New York City’s district attorney, Thomas E. Dewey, sentenced German-American Bund leader Fritz Julius Kuhn to a maximum of five years in prison on charges of embezzlement and 23 Sander A. Diamond, The Nazi Movement in the United States 1924-1941 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974), 7. 24 Ibid., 8; Schonbach, 122. 25 Schonbach, 122-24. 26 Ibid., 124. 27 Susan Canedy, America’s Nazis, A Democratic Dilemma: A History of the German-American Bund (Menlo Park, CA: Markgraf Publications Croup, 1990), 50-74. 28 Ibid., 86.
  • 9. 9 tax evasion.29 The Bund did survive into the early 1940s though, as effective leadership and group unity crumbled in the wake of increasing federal investigation and the Treasury Department’s closing of Bund offices on December 11, 1941.30 The federal government’s pursuit of bundists began with a minor 1933 Federal Bureau of Investigation inquiry into pro-Nazi activities, though the president and the McCormack Dickstein Committee paid closer attention to the problem in 1934.31 As the World War II era dawned, the dissolution of pro-Hitler organizations did not mean the end of their most die-hard leaders, nor did it entail the end of bundist propaganda. In the summer of 1941 alone, more than three million pro-Nazi publications entered the United States from Germany and were redistributed by American supporters.32 As a result, all three branches of the federal government worked to combat an effective native fascist movement from undermining the war effort. A key figure in the continued release of Nazi propaganda was George Sylvester Viereck, an unrepentant Nazi apologist and German immigrant. On October 9, 1941, the F.B.I. arrested Viereck for failing to comply with terms of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.33 Justice F. Dickinson Letts and the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia sentenced him to two to six years in prison with a fine of $1,500 on March 14, 1942.34 Witness testimony also suggested that U.S. senators Hamilton Fish, Rush Holt, Stephen A. Day, and Ernest Lundeen had conspired “under the capital dome” to insert speeches secretly written by Viereck into the congressional record.35 Federal prosecutor William Power Maloney pursued charges against each of these men, though he was only able to prove that Senator Fish’s secretary George Hill had any knowledge of propaganda 29 Ibid., 213-26. 30 Schonbach, 373. 31 Ibid., 134,138. 32 Ibid., 325. 33 “Viereck Seized as Chief Agent for Nazis in U.S.: Accused of Receiving up to $40,000 in a Single Year,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, October 9, 1941. 34 “Viereck is Sentenced to 2 to 6 Years, Reads 1,000-word Statement to Court,”Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, March 14, 1942. 35 “Says Viereck Put Nazi Views in Congress Record: Prosecutor Links Hitler Agent with Lundeen-Sweeney Group,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, February 18, 1942.
  • 10. 10 distribution.36 One year into Viereck’s prison term, the Supreme Court of the United States ordered a retrial in a five to two decision due to “foul” manipulations of the jury by Maloney.37 Despite this turn of events, the District of Columbia General District Court sentenced Viereck to one to five years in prison on July 31, 1943.38 The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed his 1944 pleas for further appeal.39 Another government target was Father Charles Coughlin and his “Christian Front” organization. Coughlin, a radio broadcaster and publisher of the periodical Social Justice, promoted anti-communist, pro-Nazi, and anti-Semitic views. He attracted a radio audience of over three million people as late as 1938.40 The F.B.I. arrested several members of the Christian Front in Brooklyn in January 1940, though their public trial dropped the charges based on free speech concerns.41 This precedent spared Coughlin from formal persecution. Nevertheless, the Post Office Department suspended mailing of Social Justice when Attorney General Francis Biddle accused the periodical of violating of the Espionage Act in April 1942.42 This setback, combined with the loss of Coughlin’s radio outlets by the National Association of Broadcasters in 1939, effectively ended the preacher’s career. 43 In late 1942, the Supreme Court of the United States heard testimony in U.S. v. Fritz Julius Kuhn and Nineteen Other Cases. Despite the defendants’ argument that no part of the German-American Bund was committed to anti- Americanism or retained a conflicting allegiance to Germany, the prosecution prevailed by 36 Charles Higham, American Swastika (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company Inc., 1985), 45-50. 37 “High Court Upsets Viereck Verdict: Conviction of Nazi Agent Void; U.S. Attorney’s Conduct Denounced,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, March 1, 1943. 38 “Viereck is Sentenced as an Alien Agent: Pro-German Propagandist Gets One to Five Years,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, July 31, 1943. 39 George Sylvester Viereck, Petitioner, v. the United States of America., 321 (U.S. 794 1944). 40 Schonbach, 293. 41 Ibid., 298-99. 42 Ibid., 309. 43 Ibid., 300
  • 11. 11 emphasizing the critical influence of Berlin over Bundist philosophy.44 As a result, Kuhn was interned at a federal camp in New Mexico and was later deported to Germany after the war’s end. That same year, the outspoken Axis-supporters Robert Noble, F. K. Ferenz (a Bund associate) and Ellis Jones were convicted for violating provisions of the Subversive Organization Registration Act, though an appeals court subsequently dropped these charges.45 Despite these cases, the most dramatic single effort by the federal government to prosecute native fascists occurred from 1944 to 1947. “The Great Sedition Trail” was partially influenced by the American Jewish Committee. It targeted bundists, isolationists, pacifists, socialists, nativists, German Americans and anti-Semites for alleged allegiance to Nazi Germany. From July 21, 1942 to January 3, 1944, a federal grand jury issued multiple indictments against dozens of alleged violators of the Smith and Espionage acts.46 Those accused included George Viereck, James F. Garner, and German-American Bund leaders Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze and August Klapprott.47 The trial itself began on April 17, 1944 and quickly degenerated into a disastrous political show. One by one, press outlets left the courtroom as the trial’s organization and purpose deteriorated. On November 29, 1944, presiding judge Edward C. Eicher died of a heart attack and was replaced by Judge Bolitha Laws. Realizing the futility of further prosecution, Laws dismissed all charges to end what he described as “a travesty on justice” on November 22, 1946.48 By war’s end, Allied victory and government actions had virtually obliterated global and American fascism.49 Despite the future existence of organizations such as the American Nazi Party (founded 1959), none have merited comprehensive federal 44 Diamond, 348. 45 Time Life Inc., “Voices of Defeat: Dissident Groups Sow Lies and HateWithin theUS,” Life Magazine, April13, 1942, 86. 46 Schonbach, 415. 47 Ibid. 48 “Court Dismisses Mass Sedition: Judge Calls it ‘Travesty on Justice,’” The Cornell Daily Sun, November 23, 1946, accessed 12/4/14, http://cdsun.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/cornell?a=d&d=CDS19461123.2.18. 49 Schonbach, 441.
  • 12. 12 governmental investigation nor displayed the same degree of strength and organization as the German-American Bund. In contrast to the persecution of Axis supporters, the communist-American relationship with the federal government during World War II represented a political struggle capriciously teetering between conflict and cooperation. Before proceeding with the historical details, a definition of what constituted a “communist” must be established. For over one hundred years, “communists” have defined only one element of the radical left. As such, supporters of various “socialist” organizations and Soviet Union sympathizers frequently do not fall under its definition. The focus of this investigation centers on a “highly concentrated” minority of Americans—those whose social and political lives were centered under the banner of the distinctly “communist” Communist Party U.S.A.50 This political party, abbreviated C.P.U. for the sake of convenience, was founded in 1919 and emerged in the 1920s through a relationship with trade unions.51 Throughout the 1930s, the party experienced internal conflict over willingness to compromise ideology for the sake of political cooperation. Two of the most pressing issues concerned whether or not anti-fascist unity should constitute the party’s primary goal and to what extent it should criticize the Roosevelt Administration as an aid to capitalism.52 Both of these dilemmas would continue throughout the war years and provide the core questions of the communist/federal government relationship. As 1939 dawned, party chairman Earl Browder announced the C.P.U.’s explicit intent to “take [its] place within the traditional American two-party system.”53 Having abandoned a traditional opposition to American military funding following consultation with Soviet officials 50 Maurice Isserman. Which Side Were You On? The American Communist Party During the Second World War (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1982), 36. 51 Edward P. Johanningsmeier, Forging American Communism: The Life of William Z. Foster (Princeton University Press, 1994), 3. 52 Ibid., 12. 53 Earl Browder, Fighting for Peace (New York: International Publishers, 1939), 200.
  • 13. 13 in the aftermath of the 1938 Munich Pact,54 Communist priorities centered on the need to prepare for conflict in addition to supporting New Deal programs and limiting the power of the House Un-American Activities Committee.55 However, international affairs would quickly change the party’s tune in the first of a long series of policy reversals. The signing of the Molotov- Ribbentrop Pact on August 23, 1939 ensured mutual non-aggression between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. As a perpetual subservient to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the C.P.U. scrambled to reverse its position on preparing to fight the Axis with minimal damage.56 The resulting about-face, memorably described by the anti-communist newspaper New Leader as the act of “a decapitated chicken running wildly around the barnyard,”57 was solidified by a Party letter to President Roosevelt expressing “firm accord with the stand of the President . . . against American involvement in the war.”58 Yet this stance did little to prevent public retaliation against domestic communists following Stalin’s September 17 attack on Poland. Viewing the C.P.U. as a mouthpiece for an aggressive, totalitarian system of government, many Americans came to regard its members as the mirror image of Nazi Bundists.59 As such, journalists and civilians adopted the “Communazi” meme to lump both arguments into a shared scrutiny.60 September 1939 also witnessed the first critical assault on the party’s political apparatus by the federal government. From 1926 to 1929, Earl Browder had traveled to China to assist in labor-organizing activities and work with the Chinese Communist Party.61 In the course of his time abroad, Browder had allegedly traveled using false passports and assumed names.62 These facts attracted the attention of the Justice Department and H.U.A.C. chairman Martin Dies, the 54 Isserman, 26. 55 Ibid., 27. 56 Ibid., 33. 57 New Leader, September 2, 1939, 3:1. 58 Communist, XVII (October 1939), 899-904. 59 Isserman, 44. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid., 5. 62 Ibid., 48.
  • 14. 14 latter pursuing these charges with an aggressive zeal ten years after their occurrence. Earl Browder was dragged before the committee on September 5 and, in the course of a grueling investigation, let slip that he had in fact traveled using false documents.63 The Communist Party leader was indicted the next month, swiftly followed by the federal government’s prosecution of Communist Party treasurer William Weiner, Daily Worker publicist Harry Gannes, and California Communist Party district organizer William Schneiderman.64 That the House Un- American Activities Committee selectively targeted high-ranking C.P.U. influences is obvious, though the records of the H.U.A.C. chairman reveal a deeper justification for his actions. In his 1940 book The Trojan Horse in America, Dies claimed that “a fifth column for propaganda must operate largely in the open even though its purposes and controls remain secret…in the last analysis, the fifth column of propaganda may be more menacing to our national security than the fifth column of espionage” (italics added).65 In other words, even the legal activities of communist supporters could now be deemed a threat to the United States in the eyes of the law. Earl Browder’s trial began on January 17, 1940 in the New York City Federal District Court.66 The C.P.U. chairman was sentenced to a four-year prison term and fined $2,000. This penalty impacted heavily on Communist Party affairs. Philosophically, the attack on the Communist Party’s leader ended a longstanding hesitancy to criticize President Roosevelt. Slightly over a month after Browder’s conviction, he railed that communist priorities should switch from promoting a “third term” for FDR but to supporting a “third party.”67 An aggressive anti-war campaign emerged around the slogan “The Yanks Aren’t Coming,”68 this time taking 63 “Browder Admits False Passports:BeforeDies Group,” New York Times, September 6, 1939, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2010) with Index (1851-1993). 64 Isserman, 49. 65 Martin Dies, The Trojan Horse in America (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1940), 11. 66 Isserman, 55. 67 Earl Browder, The People Against the Warmakers (New York: Worker’s Library, 1940), 17. 68 “4000 Listen to Earl Browder Attack U.S. Aid to Finland,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, February 10, 1939.
  • 15. 15 great care to emphasize the negative effect of war on First Amendment rights.69 Browder’s imprisonment, however, torpedoed any fledgling hope of an effective Communist campaign in the 1940 national elections. The chairman ran as a presidential candidate alongside black vice presidential candidate James Ford, though court orders prohibited Browder (free on bail) from traveling outside the jurisdiction of the New York Federal Court.70 As a result, he could not physically campaign and relied instead on the efforts William Z. Foster and his vice presidential pick to tour the country.71 Yet not even these men could overcome the damage inflicted by the federal government’s 1940 “Red Scare.” Washington aimed at excluding the C.P.U. from as many state ballots as possible, and was aided to a limited yet crucial extent by the Roosevelt Administration.72 In the fall of 1939, President Roosevelt gave Attorney General Frank Murphy authorization to probe prominent Communist Party officials, leading to an investigation of those responsible for propaganda publications by a federal grand jury in Washington and the F.B.I.’s arrest of twelve people in Detroit and Milwaukee in February 1940.73 Mid-June to September 1940 brought more bad news from the United States Congress, which passed the Alien Registration and Voorhis Registration Acts in both houses with overwhelming margins.74 The specifics of these laws need not be reiterated, though it is interesting to note that the original inspiration for the Voorhis Act came from correspondence with the Dies Committee from Morris Ernst, a New York lawyer and rabid anti-communist.75 Although the Voorhis Registration Act subsequently created major headaches for Axis supporters, it owed its inspiration to anti-communist sentiment. 69 Isserman, 63. 70 “Communists Name Browder Again,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, June 3, 1940.; Isserman, 71. 71 Isserman, 71. 72 Ibid., 67. 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid., 68-69. 75 Ibid., 68.
  • 16. 16 Unsurprisingly, the House Un-American Activities Committee thrived in this environment, imprisoning multiple communist officials in the spring of 1940.76 The “Scare” as a whole succeeded in restricting the Browder-Ford ticket to the ballots of just twenty-two states.77 Under these dangerous political conditions, the Communist Party covertly turned from campaigning to influencing organized labor in an effort to achieve its goals. Essentially, the latest strategy of resisting American war involvement would focus on halting the production of war resources in crucial chemical plants, shipyards, and aircraft factories through worker strikes.78 Yet even this strategy did not escape detection by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Undercover agents within the C.P.U. reported strike plans to F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover, who informed Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau that communist section leaders would “follow their own initiative in delaying production” in San Francisco.79 Deeply disturbed, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox and Secretary of War Henry Stimson appealed to President Roosevelt to intervene; in response, Roosevelt acknowledged the communist influence over strikes and sought to broaden the F.B.I.’s “investigative responsibility” over dissident labor movements.80 Furthermore, Roosevelt seriously debated directing the responsibility of strike investigations to military intelligence, then reconsidered due to the influence of Secretary of Labor Francis Perkins and finally opted for the establishment of the National Defense Mediation Board to regulate disputes.81 Quite expectedly, Communist unionist decried the new institution as “an all-out labor busting and strike-breaking device.”82 In response, Roosevelt warned in a May 27, 1941 radio address that the government would “use all of its power to express the will 76 Ibid., 69. 77 Ibid., 71. 78 Joel Seidman, “Labor Policy of the Communist Party During World War II,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, vol. 4, no. 1 (October 1950): 57 accessed October 10, 2014, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2519321. 79 Harold Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes: the Lowering Clouds 1939-1941 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955), 190. 80 Isserman, 89-90. 81 Ickes, 461. 82 Bert Cochran, Labor and Communism: The Conflict that Shaped American Unions (Princeton University Press, 1980), 181-82.
  • 17. 17 of the people, and to prevent interference with the production of materials essential to the nation’s security.”83 This was not an empty threat. In a dramatic culmination of Communist Party tactics, workers at the North American Aviation plant near Los Angeles went on strike demanding wage increases.84 With a quarter of the country’s fighter aircraft on the line, Roosevelt intervened when a majority of workers ignored a back-to-work mandate.85 Thousands of federal troops marched on the plant on Monday, June 9, 1941, ending the strike and marking the first recorded use of federal troops to break a strike in the 20th century.86 The impact of this event crippled the communists’ influence over the United Automobile Workers’ aviation branch while emboldening its opponents.87 Up to this point, the wartime struggle of the Communist Party of America resembled a slightly more sophisticated mirror image of the struggle of fascist Americans—both essentially detailing a sustained bludgeoning at the hands of federal authorities. Yet the summer of 1941 would throw a dramatic twist into the communist narrative, one with residual effects for years and important implications for the conclusions of this analysis. On June 22, 1941, Adolf Hitler shattered the provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact by unleashing Fall Barbarossa, a formal invasion of the Soviet Union. Once again, the American Communist Party was thrown into chaos. After sinking so much time, energy, and effort into campaigns against the war, the C.P.U. once again debated an embarrassing reversal of opinion. The final verdict adopted an “enemy of the enemy”-type rationalization; the defense of the Soviet Union would now assume top priority. While William Foster affirmed that the Communist Party’s support of the Roosevelt Administration “in all the blows that it may deliver against Hitler, [did not] forget the imperialist 83 Franklin D. Roosevelt, Public Papers and Addresses, vol. 10, 1941, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950), 191-92. 84 Isserman, 97. 85 Ibid., 97-98. 86 Ibid., 98. 87 Cochran, 182.
  • 18. 18 character of the government nor its imperialist aims,”88 these reservations did not appear in published resolutions.89 In other words, the Communist Party was now fully supporting American defense policies. From here, previous ideological convictions began to crumble in the wake of the party’s newfound priority. To give one example, black communist leader James Ford argued, “It would be equally wrong to press [for black rights] without regard to the main task of the destruction of Hitler, without which no serious fight for Negro rights is possible.”90 The federal government’s persecution of the Communist Party slackened as a result of this allegiance, though F.B.I. surveillance continued steadily past the war’s end.91 Additionally, several legal concessions turned in the C.P.U.’s favor. As December 1941 concluded, the House of Representatives effectively transferred the investigation of foreigners from the State Department to the Justice Department.92 Martin Dies attempted to add a clause demanding that Communist Party members register with the Justice Department, but the Senate repudiated his amendment.93 After reconsideration, Roosevelt also commuted Earl Browder’s prison sentence in part to prepare for an upcoming meeting with the Soviet foreign minister and in part due to the urging of Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Elbert Thomas.94 Browder’s return to the forefront of party leadership signaled further changes in traditional communist priorities, the biggest related to the issue of labor strikes. In an effort to quell discontent in critical mining and steel corporations, the federal government brokered a compromise to sustain wage increases to adjust for rising costs of living.95 The Communist Party supported this decision, though it took things a step further by supporting strikes “only in defense 88 William Z. Foster and Robert Minor, The Fight Against Hitlerism (New York: Workers Library, 1941), 21. 89 Isserman, 107. 90 Communist XX, October 1941, 894-95. 91 Isserman, 126 149. 92 Ibid., 130. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid., 131. 95 Ibid., 136.
  • 19. 19 of the workers’ most basic economic interests or to protect the life of the trade unions, and then only as a last resort.”96 When several union members broke ranks in 1943, the Communist Party supported the Roosevelt Administration’s “Hold the Line” order forcing them back to work.97 While communist literary critic Mike Gold warned of “stupid, cruel and un-American persecutions and mob actions against aliens,”98 the Communist party said nothing against the internment of naturalized Japanese citizens.99 Clearly, ideology was being sacrificed for the sake of politics, though these changes were mere shadows compared to the radical about-face that would define the remainder of the C.P.U.’s war years. As November 1943 wound to a close, the major Allied powers agreed at the Tehran Conference to set a date for the liberation of Western Europe. The meeting’s joint communiqué pledged that the Allies would “work together in the peace that will follow,” a gesture interpreted by Browder to mean that the socialist struggle had to be postponed.100 In other words, Browder was now encouraging cooperation with capitalism for the sake of world order. Resulting arguments among the C.P.U. leadership led to the formal dissolution of the party on May 20, 1944 right after it endorsed a fourth term for Franklin Delano Roosevelt,101 followed by its reformation after a 14-month hiatus.102 As World War II concluded, the Grand Alliance began to unravel in the wake of the defeat of Nazi Germany.103 Once again, the Communist Party reversed its stance on Tehran,104 though this change-of-heart fatally coincided with an increasingly anti-communist stance on the 96 Daily Worker, November 14, 1941, 6:3. 97 Isserman, 161. 98 Daily Worker, January 8, 1942, 7:1. 99 Isserman, 144. 100 Isserman, 192. 101 “U.S. Communists Back Roosevelt,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, May 20, 1944. 102 “Communist Party in Politics Again,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, July 28, 1945. 103 Isserman, 214-17. 104 Ibid., 230.
  • 20. 20 part of the American public and federal government.105 Earl Browder was expelled from the party by party delegates,106 though the end of his tenure came at the expense of party unity.107 As a result, all wartime political gains were destroyed in an implosion of party leadership and organization lasting through the 1960s.108 With both the pro-Axis and communist narratives established, it is time to return to the central question of this investigation—namely, which government/dissident struggle represents the more “complex,” “dynamic,” and overall “significant” conflict in historical retrospect. Clearly, both Axis supporters and communists were sustained targets of the federal government throughout World War II despite attempts of the latter to cooperate within the system from late 1941 to 1945. Both domestic communists and Axis supporters produced written and spoken propaganda to defend their philosophies, and the federal government targeted both forms at least once for each movement. Additionally, both individuals and organizations affiliated with Axis support or communism were targeted by the state. The similarities between both factions, however, largely end there. Fascist ideology sustained a profound hatred for communist ideology, and the Communist Party reciprocated these feelings. Additionally, communists organized along the lines of a political party, and they sustained that structure with one interruption throughout the war. Axis supporters preferred to operate in largely fraternal groups. Most of these had been driven into bankruptcy by the war’s start, and they dissolved completely by the war’s end. 105 Ibid., 244. 106 “Browder is Silent on Loss of Office,” Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, September 27, 1945. 107 Isserman, 241-43. 108 Ibid., 255-56.
  • 21. 21 The definition of “complexity” implies an intricate and composite nature,109 avoiding simplistic causes and effects and a one-dimensional storyline. Similarly, the definition of “dynamic” entails a system “characterized by constant change, activity or progress”110 The relationship between the federal government and the Communist Party U.S.A. clearly epitomizes each of these characteristics from 1939 to 1945. Regarding the war, C.P.U. opinion switched from support for military preparation through the first half of 1939, to support for the government’s opposition to entering a global war (August 1939 to early 1940), to opposing the government’s attempt to prepare for warfare (early 1940 to June 22, 1941), to supporting the government’s involvement in World War II to aid the Soviet Union (June 22, 1941 to war’s end). Regarding political activism, C.P.U. strategy switched from influencing the two-party system through campaigning, to supporting the establishment of a third party, to working through organized labor to accomplish political dissent, to throwing official support behind the Roosevelt Administration. If these sequences do not embody “dynamism” at face value, then the concept is meaningless. The motivations behind these changes and the federal government’s response to them also embody the definition of “complexity.” Through all things, the Communist Party U.S.A. supported the Soviet Union first and foremost, an allegiance clearly demonstrated through the organization’s radical swings in opinion and lengths to which it justified them. Domestic political circumstances, however, often dictated the lengths to which support or dissent could go. Communist leaders initially hesitated to criticize Roosevelt due to the president’s support of New Deal policies and his immense popularity, though the trial of Earl Browder and Red Scare of 109 Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “complexity,” accessed 11/5/14, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/37689?redirectedFrom=complexity#eid. 110 Oxford Dictionaries, s.v. “dynamic,” accessed 11/5/14, http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/dynamic.
  • 22. 22 1940 demanded a sharp condemnation. All defiance of war efforts had to dance around classification as sedition, and not all were successful in this goal. All support for government war efforts prior to Fall Barbarossa was moderate in the face of government persecution, though Germany’s 1941 attack on the Soviet Union forced adamant support of American war efforts. Similarly, the federal government’s persecution of communists appeared to slacken when the C.P.U. endorsed the Allied cause. Ideological motivations influenced the course of these events, but pragmatic concerns also had an enormous influence over the way they unfolded. The historical result was multi-faceted, capricious, and dependent on a broad range of circumstances. In contrast, the relationship between Axis supporters and the federal government displayed the characteristics of a search-and-destroy mission directed against unshakable convictions throughout the course of the entire war. Apart from the recantation of Generoso Pope, no prominently indicted Axis supporters ever expressed the slightest willingness to compromise with federal authorities. The government returned the favor through an unremitting and escalating anti-fascist campaign—limited in its success and efficiency but thoroughly unwilling to concede legitimacy to the enemy under consideration. The only significant exception to this rule, the cooperation of senators Rush Holt, Stephen A. Day, Ernest Lundeen, and Hamilton Fish to help distribute George Viereck’s propaganda at taxpayer expense, represents a clear outlier in a grander scheme. A major reason for unalterable tension stems from the fact that the federal government was pursuing those insane enough to support the German, Japanese, and Italian cause in the middle of a society conducting total war against it. Pro-Axis resistance unlike that of American communists, was not conducted by a single political organization at World War II’s beginning, but rather by individuals and small fraternal groups. Perhaps the differences among each individual yields “complexity,” though their interaction with
  • 23. 23 the federal government represented a single narrative in almost all circumstances. The pro-Axis war experience, in simplest possible terms, was a simple one. Lastly, the question of “significance” assesses what “complexity” and “dynamism” mean in historical context. Which relationship most profoundly affected the individuals and organizations involved, which interaction reveals the most about the government and its targets, and which lessons are the most important? To answer these questions, the key themes of both government-dissident relations must be examined back-to-back. In most cases, federal prosecutors went to great lengths to charge their targets with technical legal violations over claims of “sedition.” When this consideration was suspended in the Great Sedition Trial, the result was condemned as a public relations and civil liberties disaster of historic and epic proportions. Herein lies an important lesson regarding freedom of speech, though similar lessons arise from an analysis of communist persecution. Once again, technical charges almost always eclipsed sedition charges. Concerning the effect of crackdowns, the federal government succeeded in partially incapacitating communist leader Earl Browder, crippling the C.P.U.’s 1940 political campaigns, and damaging its influence over organized labor. Efforts to strike pro- Axis elements contributed to the indictment of several talking heads and dismantlement of any remaining influential Nazi organizations. Nevertheless, the sentences meted out to Axis supporters often amounted to nothing more than fines and short prison terms, with some cases dropped due to free speech concerns. The efficiency of the government’s investigations was also flawed. An editorial in Kansas City’s Plaindealer, an African American newspaper, charged that “Nazi spies [and] Japanese agents . . . have escaped Mr. Dies and his committee . . . Only the anti-fascist forces who fought these enemies fiercest have been assaulted by [the chairman].”111 111 “Best Editorial of theWeek: No Appeasement,” Plaindealer (Kansas City), February 19, 1943, accessed October 5, 2014, America’s Historical Newspapers.
  • 24. 24 Indeed, convicted communist leaders frequently received maximum prison terms, and federal prosecutors explicitly cited the mere fact of their party membership as grounds for suspicion and indictment. These facts suggest that communist prosecution was more “significant” than pro-Axis persecution, though history’s final verdict must consider the problem of Japanese internment. Those who argue that government crackdowns hurt domestic Axis supporters more than communists may cite the imprisonment of 120,000 Japanese Americans as an unprecedented suspension of constitutional rights in support of neutralizing an “enemy.” This line of reasoning, however, distorts the true motivations driving internment. Prejudice towards Japanese immigrants predated the turn of the 20th century, and government intelligence determined that Japanese Americans posed virtually no threat to national security prior to Pearl Harbor.112 The primary government agitators for internment were those who misread a congressional commission’s report on Pearl Harbor—claiming that the Japanese consulate in Hawaii was responsible for passing intelligence on to the Japanese mainland when the report mentioned no such thing.113 Interestingly, Americans of Italian or German descent did not suffer a similar mass internment. If a genuine effort were underway to isolate Axis “supporters” in the United States, as opposed to a racially motivated114”military necessity” based on rumors and speculation, one would expect all heritages related to the Axis powers to be contained. Most damning of all, virtually all detainees felt no sympathy for the Japanese government!115 Hence, the internment issue carries little weight in a debate over the federal government’s relation to genuine fascism. 112 Wendy Ng, Japanese American Internment During World War II: A History and Reference Guide (Westport, CT:Greenwood Press, 2002), 8, 14. 113 Ibid., 16. 114 Ibid., 14. 115 Ibid., 52.
  • 25. 25 A final word must be said regarding the persistence of principle in the face of government persecution. Overwhelmingly, Axis supporters maintained their allegiances in the face of unfavorable political circumstances. Declarations of war, prison sentences, fines, sedition charges, or organizational collapses failed to change the minds of George Viereck and his associates. On the other hand, the Communist Party underwent radical conversions and deconversions in “official” thought due to changing governmental aims. Most have been detailed in previous sections, though Browder’s stance towards Tehran deserves a “significant” consideration. That the Communist Party temporarily endorsed capitalism, the arch-nemesis of Marxist thought, as the path to world order—after the sacrifice and struggle of holding the communist ideological line during the late 30s through early 40s—is a “significant” piece of history in any respect. At face value, this change of heart epitomizes the lengths to which the C.P.U. went to preserve itself in wartime America. In a philosophical sense, it suggests that even one’s most devoutly held beliefs are subject to suspension for the sake of “order.” This analysis provides perhaps the most striking example of a non-intuitive conclusion—that American communists faced deeper challenges than supporters of the Axis from 1939-1945. In conclusion, the federal government’s World War II-era relations with American communists superseded its persecution of Axis supporters in overall ”dynamism,” “complexity” and “significance.” Far from providing a straight narrative detailing conviction after conviction, a changing political environment dictated the extent to which communists resisted the federal government or cooperated with the federal government. Rather than demonstrating static ideological faith, the Communist Party adapted to the needs of the present moment. Unlike their hesitancy to prosecute “seditious” Axis supporters, government officials labeled Communist Party allegiance as a red flag for severe punishment. When amassed, these arguments support the
  • 26. 26 strange notion that enemies abroad were not always prioritized in the same way as enemies at home. Time and again, historians have ignored the struggles of “Communazi” minority in favor of the struggles of a patriotic American majority. Nevertheless, in light of the significance of World War II to world history and global politics, the significance of the Axis and communism in 20th century affairs, and the eternal dilemmas constituting human rights, this conclusion mandates an audience outside the fringes of academia.
  • 27. 27 BIBLIOGRAPHY * * * * Primary Sources Court Cases George Sylvester Viereck, Petitioner, v. the United States of America., 321 U.S. 794 (1944). PETITION. File Date: February 12, 1944. 22 pp. U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs, 1832-1978. Gale, Cengage Learning. Temple University Libraries. 12 October 2014. http://galenet.galegroup.com.libproxy.temple.edu/servlet/SCRB?uid=0&srchtp=a&ste=1 4&rcn=DW3902559969. Government Documents Roosevelt, Franklin D. Executive Order 9066 – Authorizing the Secretary of War to Prescribe Military Areas. February 19, 1942. General Records of the United States Government, Record Group 11. National Archives. Newspapers and Newsletters Temple University Urban Archives Philadelphia Evening Bulletin Collection Greenbie, Sydney. “Ryder-Williams Trial Unwinds Japanese Intrigue,” Christian Science Monitor, June 3, 1942.
  • 28. 28 “Court Dismisses Mass Sedition: Judge Calls it ‘Travesty on Justice,’” The Cornell Daily Sun, November 23, 1946. Accessed 12/4/14. http://cdsun.library.cornell.edu/cgi- bin/cornell?a=d&d=CDS19461123.2.18. Daily Worker, November 14, 1941, January 8, 1942. New Leader, September 2, 1939. “Comintern Officer Praises U.S. Party: Cites Work With Progressives Here as 20th Year of Organization is Marked,” New York Times, March 5, 1939. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2010) with Index (1851-1993). “Browder Admits False Passports: Before Dies Group,” New York Times, September 6, 1939. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2010) with Index (1851- 1993) “Trombetta is Indicted: Accused of Failing to Register as Italian Agent,” New York Times, May 25, 1943, accessed December 2, 2014, Proquest Historical Newspapers. “Best Editorial of the Week: No Appeasement,” Plaindealer (Kansas City), March 5, 1943. Accessed October 12, 2014. America’s Historical Newspapers. “Church Leaders Write FDR On Dies’ Action,” Plaindealer (Kansas City), February 19, 1943. Accessed October 5, 2014. America’s Historical Newspapers. “106 Register as Foreign Agents Here,” Washington Post, October 11, 1938. Magazines Communist, XVII. October 1939. 899-904. Communist, XX. October 1941. 894-95. Time Life Inc. “Voices of Defeat: Dissident Groups Sow Lies and Hate Within the US.” Life Magazine. April 13, 1942. 86. Books Browder, Earl. Fighting for Peace. New York: International Publishers, 1939. Browder, Earl. The People Against the Warmakers. New York: Workers Library, 1940. Dies, Martin. The Trojan Horse in America. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1940.
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