The founding of the American Civil Liberties Union, 1920

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by: Pro­fes­sor Samuel Walker
School of Crim­i­nal Justice
Uni­ver­sity of Nebraska at Omaha

This is the first part in a series that was intro­duced ear­lier.

World War I ended on Novem­ber 11, 1918, but the repres­sion of civil lib­er­ties con­tin­ued unabated. The most well-known event was the so-called “Palmer Raids,” which actu­ally involved two sets of fed­eral mass arrests of alleged rad­i­cals, in Novem­ber 1919 and early Jan­u­ary 1920. The lead­ers of the NCLB began think­ing about trans­form­ing the orga­ni­za­tion into a per­ma­nent one devoted to the defense of civil lib­er­ties. The key per­son was Roger Bald­win, who was con­victed of vio­lat­ing the Selec­tive Ser­vice Act in Octo­ber 1918 and sent to prison. After his release in the sum­mer of 1919, he made a cross coun­try trip to work as an indus­trial laborer. Upon his return to New York in late 1919 he began the plan­ning for the new orga­ni­za­tion, which was estab­lished as the Amer­i­can Civil Lib­er­ties Union (ACLU) in Jan­u­ary 1920. 

Reel16/Vol.120/p.19–20

This undated and unsigned mem­o­ran­dum, Sug­ges­tions for Reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the National Civil Lib­er­ties Bureau, was prob­a­bly writ­ten by Roger Bald­win (see his ini­tials in the upper right hand cor­ner), prob­a­bly in late 1919. It rep­re­sent his thoughts on reor­ga­niz­ing the National Civil Lib­er­ties Bureau into a per­ma­nent civil lib­er­ties orga­ni­za­tion. Note that in the first para­graph the pri­mary focus is on work­ing peo­ple (“the cause we serve is labor”). No name for a per­ma­nent orga­ni­za­tion is sug­gested at this time. When the ACLU is offi­cially con­sti­tuted, it is evi­dent that dis­cus­sions about the agenda for a national orga­ni­za­tion had expanded to include a broader range of civil lib­er­ties issues.

Reel14/Vol.108/p.188

Reel14/Vol.108/p.189

Reel14/Vol.108/p.190

This undated mem­o­ran­dum by Roger Bald­win was prob­a­bly writ­ten in early Jan­u­ary 1920 and sum­ma­rizes the work of the NCLB from Octo­ber 1917 to Jan­u­ary 1920. It was undoubt­edly writ­ten as part of the dis­cus­sions to recon­sti­tute the NCLB into a per­ma­nent civil lib­er­ties organization.

Reel16/Vol.120/p.7

The deci­sion to cre­ate the Amer­i­can Civil Lib­er­ties Union is recorded in these Min­utes of the Con­fer­ence to Reor­ga­nize the National Civil Lib­er­ties Bureau, Jan­u­ary 12, 1920. Note the con­cern (Item #3) about includ­ing the names of Roger Bald­win and Eliz­a­beth Gur­ley Flynn because they had been pros­e­cuted and con­victed of fed­eral crimes dur­ing the war. The objec­tions were rejected, and their names were included. The first action by the new ACLU was to protest the pro­posed peace­time sedi­tion law being con­sid­ered by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives (Item #7). The 1918 sedi­tion law had expired with the end of the war, but the pro­posed peace­time law did not pass.

Reel16/Vol.120/p.6

These Min­utes of the Tem­po­rary Com­mit­tee, Jan­u­ary 13, 1920, the day fol­low­ing the deci­sion to cre­ate the ACLU, record the selec­tion of the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee (Agenda #1). Over the course of the next sev­eral decades, the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee directed the activ­i­ties of the ACLU through weekly meet­ings. Agenda Item #8 indi­cates con­tin­ued atten­tion to the sedi­tion bill and other bills in Congress.

 

Reel16/Vol.120/p.5

The Min­utes of the National Com­mit­tee of the Amer­i­can Civil Lib­er­ties Union, Jan­u­ary 19, 1920, rep­re­sent the first offi­cial meet­ing of the ACLU. The actual busi­ness of the ACLU was con­ducted by an Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee that met weekly (see Doc­u­ment #4). The National Com­mit­tee became more of an advi­sory group that met annu­ally. This ini­tial meet­ing was devoted to orga­ni­za­tional mat­ters such as the bud­get, rent­ing an office, arrang­ing for a clip­ping ser­vice and so on. As Item #14 indi­cates, Albert De Sil­ver was han­dling leg­isla­tive mat­ters in Congress.

Reel16/Vol.120/p.8

This Let­ter to Mem­bers of the ACLU National Com­mit­tee, Feb­ru­ary 6, 1920, is prob­a­bly the first offi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion to ACLU mem­bers, and it describes the first work of the ACLU. Item #5 divides those activ­i­ties into three main areas: legal defense; pub­lic­ity; seek­ing amnesty for polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. Item #3 describes the attempts to develop rela­tions with peo­ple in other cities to make the ACLU an “effec­tive nation-wide organization.”

Reel16/Vol.120/p.11–12

The Posi­tion of the Amer­i­can Civil Lib­er­ties Union on the Issues in the United States Today,is prob­a­bly the first detailed state­ment of the ACLU’s civil lib­er­ties agenda. The ten items include free speech, free press, the right to strike, and racial equality.

Reel 7/Vol. 69/p. 155L

Main­tain Your Rights is an early hand­bill issued by the ACLU. Through its early years, most of the ACLU’s work involved pub­lic edu­ca­tion through protests and dis­trib­ut­ing mate­ri­als to inform peo­ple about vio­la­tions of civil liberties.

Reel16/Vol.120/p.30

Through this exchange of let­ters in Feb­ru­ary 1920, Roger Bald­win recruited Felix Frank­furter, Pro­fes­sor of Law at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity, to serve on the ACLU National Com­mit­tee and to serve as an advi­sor on spe­cific issues. In the 1920s Frank­furter was the national expert on injunc­tions against labor unions and union orga­niz­ers, which became the prin­ci­pal device for deny­ing work­ing peo­ple basic First Amend­ment rights of free­dom of speech and assem­bly. (See Frankfurter’s 1930 book, with Nathan Greene, The Labor Injunc­tion.) Pres­i­dent Franklin D. Roo­sevelt appointed Frank­furter to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1939. Reel 16, Vol­ume 120 of the ACLU Records con­tains cor­re­spon­dence with many other promi­nent indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions regard­ing their coop­er­a­tion with the ACLU.

Reel16/Vol.120/p.71R

With this let­ter, James Wel­don John­son, Field Sec­re­tary of the National Asso­ci­a­tion for the Advance­ment of Col­ored Peo­ple (NAACP), enthu­si­as­ti­cally agrees to serve on the ACLU National Com­mit­tee. This reflected the ACLU’s early com­mit­ment to civil rights issues, and a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the NAACP served on either the ACLU Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee or National Com­mit­tee for decades.

 

Reel 7/Vol. 69/p. 42L

 

This hand­bill, The Truth About the Cen­tralia Mur­der Trial, Feb­ru­ary 1920, describes one of the most famous exam­ples of the gov­ern­ment attack on orga­nized labor dur­ing the war and imme­di­ate post-war years.

Reel7/Vol.69/p.45–47

The Amer­i­can Civil Lib­er­ties Union (circa 1920) is an early descrip­tion of the ACLU and its work, designed for pub­lic distribution.

Reel7/Vol 69/p.51–54

The title of this 1920 ACLU pam­phlet, The Supreme Court vs. Civil Lib­er­ties, cap­tures the civil lib­er­tar­i­ans’ view of the role of the U.S. Supreme Court at this time regard­ing civil lib­er­ties. It states that, with the excep­tion of some search and seizure deci­sions, the Court “has gone over to the side of repres­sion.” The pam­phlet quotes from the dis­sent­ing opin­ions of Jus­tices Oliver Wen­dell Holmes and Louis Bran­deis in sev­eral impor­tant cases where they sup­ported civil lib­er­ties principles.

 

Reel7/Vol.69/p.12L

Reel7/Vol.69/p.13R

The Com­mu­nist Pros­e­cu­tions and The Per­se­cu­tion of the I.W.W. These two fly­ers rep­re­sent the ACLU’s efforts to pub­li­cize the government’s attacks on the rights of com­mu­nists and the radial labor union, the Indus­trial Work­ers of the World.

Reel7/Vol.69/p.61

Reel7/Vol.69/p.62

Reel7/Vol.69/p.63

Reel7/Vol.69/p.64

From its found­ing, the ACLU gave con­sid­er­able atten­tion to racial jus­tice. In the early 1920s the prin­ci­pal issue involved Ku Klux Klan and mob vio­lence against African Amer­i­cans, includ­ing the lynch­ing of per­sons being held in jail. This arti­cle, “The Ku Klux Klan” by ACLU vol­un­teer attor­ney Albert De Sil­ver, describes the pat­tern of racial vio­lence across the country.

Reel7/Vol.69/p.44

 

This Novem­ber 1920 list of pub­li­ca­tions indi­cates the scope of the ACLU’s con­cerns in its first year.

 

 

Reel7/Vol.69/p.56L

The April 1921 let­ter from Roger Bald­win (top) urges ACLU sup­port­ers to write a “short pointed” let­ter to the pres­i­dent (War­ren G. Hard­ing had taken office in March) ask­ing for the release of per­sons impris­oned dur­ing the war for the expres­sion of opin­ion. In Decem­ber, Pres­i­dent Hard­ing did release a num­ber of these pris­on­ers. The June 1921 state­ment (bot­tom) asks peo­ple to oppose the Ster­ling Bill which would make it a crime to advo­cate the over­throw of the gov­ern­ment by force or vio­lence. The Ster­ling Bill did not pass, but in 1940 Con­gress passed the Smith Act mak­ing such speech a crime.

 

Reel7/Vol.69/p.65–67

Reel7/Vol.69/p.68–72

Reel7/Vol.69/p.73–76

Reel7/Vol.69/p.77–79

The Fight For Free Speech (Sep­tem­ber 1921) is the first annual report of the ACLU. The report describes the prin­ci­pal ACLU activ­i­ties in its first year, its ten point civil lib­er­ties agenda, a list of con­trib­u­tors, and the budget.

For more of the col­lec­tion that has been dig­i­tized you may browse the Find­ing Aid.

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  1. Pingback: Rodger Baldwin: From The Civil Liberties Bureau to the American Civil Liberties Union | Mudd Manuscript Library Blog

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