Page 31 - Report on the National Lawyers Guild, legal bulwark of the Communist Party

THE NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD 25
2. Bridges Case
(Explanatory Note.—Harry Bridges, an alien member of the Communist Party, USA, has been the subject of deportation proceedings for a number of years. He has recently been convicted of perjury for denying his party member- ship in such proceedings.)
NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD
H. R. 9766 ordering the deportation of Harry Bridges after he has been found not guilty of any conduct which would justify his deportation under laws applicable to all aliens would be a dangerous precedent for an objection- able practice * * * The National Lawyers Guild disapproves H. R. 9766 as a contravention of the historical American opposition to anything in the nature of a Bill of Attainder expressly prohibited by the Federal Constitution (National Lawyers Guild 'Quarterly, voL 3, No. 2, Julv 1949, p. 119).
By letter dated June 28, 1940, to the Senate Committee on Immigration and Naturalization the Guild opposed H. R. 9766, "a bill directing the Attorney General to deport Harry Renton Bridges forthwith to Australia." Described it as an "un-American proposal."
And so, after years of persecution
and a man hunt of such proportions as
this country has never witnessed, with labor movement * * * to thwart months of coaching and preparation by the development thereof by prosecuting the FBI, the Department of Justice of its leaders." (Washington Evening Star, this great Nation could produce nothing February 25, 1941).
more against Harry Bridges than the,
at best, questionable words of two
witnesses * * * (NewMasses,June
9, 1942, p. 12).
According to the New York Times, March 19, 1945, the Guild sent a legal memorandum and petition to the Presi- dent urging cancellation of deportation
proceedings against Bridges. Stated: "If Harry Bridges, a well-loved leader of a strong American trade-union were permitted to suffer the punishment of exile from a land in which he had lived for almost 25 years * * * would not fair-minded men everywhere tend to suspect the good faith of our commit- ments and the sincerity of our program
foralastingpeace"? (NewYorkTimes, March 19, 1945).
COMMUNIST PARTY, U. S. A.
Bridges, as it is well known by in- formed people, is not a Communist nor is it against the law to be a Communist. But if the shipowners can get away with the kind of frame-up they are perpe- trating against Bridges, what trade- union or liberal leader is safe? For it is progressive unionism and the New Deal which the shipowners are trying to destroy in this frame-up farce against Bridges (Daily Worker, July 28, 1939, p. 6).
The victory which has been won by the unions and the people in the Harry Bridges case * * * is a bitter dis- appointment to the reactionaries {Daily Worker, January 2, 1940, p. 6).
Guild cited the action against Bridges
as an attempt by "opponents of the