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This is Norman Leonard. Labor lawyer often for the ILWU. Talking to Laura Miller, student intern. About his collection at the labor archives at San Francisco State University. Mainly they're discussing the Smith Act cases and cases involving harboring Smith Act. A people The interview takes place on

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March 12, 1987 at the Labor Archives. I've been handed the trial lawyers. Can we tape some of this? Oh, because. Any help? It might be. OK. We were talking, then to just pick it up on the tape, we were talking about, uh, Of the California The

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communist cases and I was just saying I was one of the Uh, trial lawyers. In that case, there were, 5, I think, trial lawyers. There was a fellow named Wiri, W I R I N, who was Uh, civil liberties lawyer from Southern California represented the American

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Civil Liberties Union for many years. There was a guy named Margolis, Ben Margolis, who was a trade union lawyer in Los Angeles. As a matter of fact, he'd been a Uh Trade union lawyer in San Francisco and been a partner of mine for a while and

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then he moved down to Los Angeles where he practiced. Uh There was a lawyer named Shulman who was an AFL lawyer. We, we, we tried to get trade union people in to broaden out the base of it, and there was a young black lawyer. Uh, named

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Leo Branton. And this was the trial team and there was a, there were a group of lawyers in the background that, you know, backed us up and supported us and helped with the research and so on. Um In that case too. The defendants were convicted. The

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conviction was affirmed in the Court of Appeals. We took an appeal and it was affirmed there. We got to the Supreme Court, however, Times have changed a little bit, I think. But in addition, He Well Hard to say I shouldn't say an eviction, and I shouldn't

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necessarily say time has changed. The fact of the matter is that the convictions were reversed in that case. And they were reversed essentially on two grounds. As to some of the defendants, The Supreme Court Examined the record and said there simply wasn't enough evidence. To uh

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Connect them up with any unlawful conspiracy. Because To cite some of the examples that they gave of these defendants. Case of one of them, a fellow named Al Richmond. The only evidence. that the government had against him. Was that he was the editor of the newspaper.

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And the Supreme Court was concerned, as they had not been a few years earlier in the Dennis case. Now they were concerned. With the constitutional protection. Of free speech. And if the only evidence was Editing the newspaper, they were, they had difficulty. They were worried about

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the press, so they reversed, so they reversed. Richmond's conviction and there were one or two others. Of that same general nature. Yup. The fun The details in the court opinion and possibly here in the files as to the other defendants. While there was some evidence. That

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could have connected them up. Connected them to being members of the party. Was that, was that what they were trying to prove? Well, Well, first let me tell you the base on which they reversed and then we, we, we would not necessarily doing this in chronological

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order. You have to pull it together. They found that the judge, that Judge Mathis, Had made errors, legal errors. and is charged to the jury OK. One of the questions in the case had to do With when The Communist Party was organized. It gets to be

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fairly technical, but it was an important question, and I'll explain why in just a minute. And In the post. World War 2 years and in the few 4 or 5 years before these prosecutions took place. The Communist Party had gone through a kind of evolution within

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the Communist Party and it changed itself to a political association, then it changed itself back to a Communist Party. Whatever the internal. Political maneuverings in this organization, the party where they occurred there. And it was kind of critical. Because of the dates involved, whether or not

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a statute of limitations, the time for bringing the prosecution had elapsed, and that in a certain sense depended on Which of these events you took as being the critical, crucial event for the organization of the party? And the court held With respect to the other defendants.

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Those who didn't have this type of First Amendment. The issue that Richmond had. With respect to those other defendants that Judge Mathis had not properly instructed the jury on on questions of that kind. And consequently they reversed their convictions. Actually, now to understand this, I guess

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we have to get back. You, you told me at the very beginning we started talking that you, you knew what the Smith Act was and maybe, maybe this is unnecessary. It, but just as background for what we just said, the statute made it a crime. To

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belong to an organization, not naming the Communist Party by name, belong to an organization. that taught or advocated The overthrow of the government by force and violence unlawful to belong to such an organization right now wasn't there, weren't there some cases where the question was whether

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or not members, whether or not the Communist Party was such an organization, and there are other cases that it was just trying to prove that they were members. OK, in the Smith Act cases, the government had to prove two things. It had to prove That the

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person was a member of the organization. Generally speaking, there was no question about that. Everybody admitted it. They all admitted they were members of the Communist Party, period. No. The other thing they had to prove, the government had to prove was that the Communist Party was

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an organization. That taught and advocated the overthrow of the government by force and violence. That was the critical issue in these cases because the defendant said no, it's not that kind of an organization. It doesn't do that. You've got to prove it. And well, how did

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the government go about proving it or attempt to prove it? It Its case was we used to express it in terms of uh. Uh, not an arithmetic formula. The guy we put on the blackboard and the government did too. Matter of fact. ML equals FV. Marxism-Leninism,

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which was admittedly taught by the Communist Party, they admitted that Marxism-Leninism equals force and violence, and that equals FB. And of course it was the defense's position that that's not true, that is not a valid equation. And the government's position was that it was. And the

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way the government proposed to prove that it was. was by reading. Excellence From the works of Marx and the works of Lenin and the works of Stalin and And the trial Essentially consistent. Of Excerpts from books and then the defendant's explanation, those are taken out of

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context. You don't understand them. If you, if you understood them in total context that. And essentially the defendant's position on this whole question. was Very briefly It was not true. That's socialism, and they, they conceded that they were advocates of socialism were proposing to establish a

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socialist system. It was not true that the only way socialism could be introduced was through force. That the only time according to their theory. The only time that force might be necessary. Was if a reactionary. Government attempted, To outdo The will of the people in a

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democratic election. And they constantly pointed to Spain and they said, look at the people in Spain democratically. Without any force. Elected a progressive. socialist or his quasi socialist government and it was the reactionaries who Used force to attempt to overthrow it and under those circumstances, the

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people were justified in resisting by force, but apart from that, Uh, it's, it's our position. That a transition to socialism can take place without force. And therefore the equation ml equals fv. Incorrect, it's false. Now this was argued in each of the cases. This was the

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position in the Dennis case. It was the position in the Schneiderman in the Yates case and Now let's go back to something called the Schnotomy case which preceded both of these cases and which was not a Smith. But which involved Substantially the same. Question and it

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came up in this fashion. That was in New York, right? Was that in New York? No, it came out of California. Schneiderman was a naturalized citizen. He had not been born in this country. He came to this country when he was quite young, but he, he

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was, he was an editor, and when he was quite young. In his late teens or early twenties, he became naturalized. He chose to become a citizen and he, he went through the process and became naturalized. The naturalization statute. Which was in effect at that time, had

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language substantially similar to the Smith Act. Said a person could not be naturalized. If he belonged to an organization. Which Carter advocated powerfully against that. For many years, the government didn't bother Schneiderman. But then When he, uh, Became active and articulate and a leader of the

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Communist Party in California, they started. A proceeding To revocus naturalization. And they did this on the theory that he had obtained his naturalization. Falsely Because, He was a member or had been a member, was a member. Uh The proscribed organization that was an organization which taught

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the overthrow of the government. And Schneiderman's position at that time was Number one, I admit I'm a member and have always been, was a member of the Communist Party at the time I was naturalized. No, no disputing that fact. But The Communist Party is not such

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an organization as you characterize it, so that issue was precisely the same issue. That case went to the, As far as these files are concerned, let me say this. Schneiderman was, Represented In the earlier stages of the case. By a lawyer in San Francisco named George

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Anderson. At the time Anderson was handling this case for Schneiderman. He was not a member of our firm. I know that later on he Later on he became a partner in the firm that you probably know, it's called Gladstein Anderson, etc. but um. During the course

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of the early Days of the Schneiderman trial, George was not a member of the firm. So, I'm not sure how much, although we got a lot of George's files. I'm not so sure how much of this, uh, Schneiderman case you're going to find there, but I

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think you'll find some. Hm. So far I haven't come across it. I'm not sure, but that may explain, but you see, when George joined our firm, he brought a lot of his files with him. Of course we're not talking 40 years ago and a lot of

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things happen to files as we know, but in any event, I just want to give you that explanation, um. The case was lost in the lower courts. The lower courts agreed with the government, and they ordered Schneidman denaturalized. was taken to the Supreme Court. A And

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it became a The case at that point of kind of national significance because it really was kind of testing legitimacy within the framework of this narrow little case. It was testing the legitimacy of the Communist Party and here the Supreme Court was going to review that

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question, so. A lot of people on the, not just local people, but a lot of people on the national front were interested in it. And an immigration lawyer in New York. Whose name was Carole King. Very fine immigration lawyer, a person who We worked with the,

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in the Bridges case, we used her later on in the Bridges case, worked with her because of her knowledge of immigration and naturalization. Carole King Was able to persuade of all people Wendell Wilkie. Wendell Wilkie, who had been the Republican candidate in 1940, was it? Yeah.

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40 40 40 against Franklin D. Roosevelt. Wilkie was I didn't know him, but Carol character whom I did know, Carol characterized him as a man with an infinite capacity for learning. I always thought that was a wonderful phrase, and she convinced. Wilkie That communist or no

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communist, this case of Schneiderman's involved. And very important. Constitutional issue. And as a kind of a. Pro bono singing. Because of the kind of guy he was, I guess, and because of the fact that we were right in the middle of the war with this and

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closely allied to the Soviet Union. I'm sure that had a lot to do with it. He agreed to argue the case in the Supreme Court, and he did. And there's a cute little anecdote about that. Uh, the argument, I don't remember the date of the argument,

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but it was sometime in late 1942, about the period of time, very close in time. To when the Russian armies were chewing up the Nazis at Stalingrad on the eastern front. Every day in the newspapers, very, I wasn't there, but the story to have at night,

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I guess there's no reason to disbelieve it. Was that when Wilkie got up in the Supreme Court when the case was closed to argue with, the first thing he said was. May it please the court, my client was born in a little village 20 miles from

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Stalingrad. Set the tone for the whole thing. In any case, The Supreme Court By a divided vote. Didn't ruled in Schneiderman's favor. It didn't quite say. that the Communist Party is not A proscribed organization such as is described by the statute didn't say that. Couldn't, they

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could never have gotten a majority to say that, but what they, Frank Murphy, who was a very liberal progressive justice on the Supreme Court at that time, wrote the opinion. And what he said was that we are not satisfied that the government has proved That this

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is true of the Communist Party and It is An equally tenable hypothesis from the evidence. That maybe the Communist Party is not that kind of an organization. The question is in doubt. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. The question is in doubt and therefore resolve the

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question in favor of Schneiderman. And he might have been a little stronger than that. You have to, uh, it's been a long time. I have to look at the opinion. The question was resolved in favor of Schneiderman, as I said, they, they didn't, Supreme Court wasn't

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about to give the Communist Party a blessing, but kind of gave him a left-handed compliment. OK, well. Uh, when the California case came up. Mhm. Schneiderman was one of the defendants. He had something to talk about. He could say to the judge and wanted to say

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to the jury, hey, look, The Supreme Court's given me a clean bill of health on this very issue. Mhm. So one of the ways in which that was done. Was that while all of the other 15 defendants in the California case. And each lawyer, each of

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the 4 or 5 lawyers in the case that I mentioned earlier, had had Three or 4 defendants as their principal responsibility. Schneiderman was his own counsel. OK, that, that was actually one question I had was how were things divided. Schneiderman appeared himself without counsel. He appeared

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as his own attorney, and he did it for two reasons. One is, is the one I just gave you. Um-hum. He wanted to be able, to the extent that he could, he wanted to be able to rub it in every minute. Um-hum. But, uh, look, this

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issue, as far as I'm concerned, has gone up to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has said, and he would have that opinion, Mr. Justice Murphy's, and he'd quote all the good language from it all the time. Um-hum. And secondly, At that point, and in many

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other cases too, but certainly at that point, the communist people. Wow. Particularly in California, they respected and worked closely with the lawyers. There was a difference between the relationship between the clients and the lawyers in the court in New York and in California. We learned a

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lot from the New York experiences. None of our people went to jail. Uh, and we got our convictions reversed, but that's another stuff, but they wanted to have a spokesman for the party to set forth the party's position. Not just through the mouths of the lawyers.

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This had happened in New York. Dennis had been his own counsel too. Uh, but Schneiderman had a double reason. He had that reason, a political reason that the party wanted to have its own spokesman to set forth its position. Did they have disagreements with you about

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how the case was to be argued? Well, not in, not in California so much. And, and New York, I can only give you secondhand. We know. We know that, uh, I believe that there was much, much more client. Direction Of courtroom tactics and strategy. They, They

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I, I wanna be fair because I, you know, I really wasn't there. I've read the record cold and that's a different story from being on the scene. But it would, it appeared to me that, that clients, We're telling the lawyers when and how and what to

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object and kind of egging them on and uh. And they got a response from the judge so that You got it. Uh, A confrontational situation constantly. Maybe like the Chicago Seven trial 30 years later, same kind of. Uh We were determined in Los Angeles to avoid

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that, not at the, not to the extent of sacrificing the defense of the clients, but we didn't think it was necessary to. Uh Uh, to be irritable in that kind of a way. agreed with us. Um-hum. And what we would do, though, as far as the

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direction is concerned, It was our standard practice. Every day. Conclusion, of course. Have a meeting The lawyers and the clients. Review what had taken place. Review the testimony the witnesses have given. Have a general discussion as to how to approach it. The next day, what time

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to take where you could go into attack it. But yeah Having done that and having gotten very good guidance from the clients, I mean Schneiderman was a brilliant man. And so were the others, Richmond, Yates, tremendous people. Having gotten this kind of outline and guidance from

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them, They then left us alone. Um-hum. And we, we would do what we could. That's not to say that the fact I wouldn't criticize sometimes. Hey, you didn't do it quite this, yeah, that, that was fine. It was legitimate. It was a, it was a kind

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of a two-way. Kind of a two way street going back and forth. Uh In any event, That was the outcome of, of, uh, Of those cases is for the reasons I mentioned much earlier in our discussion. The Supreme Court reversed the convictions. And the government never

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tried them again. There was 1/3. Submit that case that you'll should find evidences I have, I have one question which were the um the clients that you were my clients were 3 people. Loretta Stack. Um-hum. That was the lady that I mentioned earlier. Right. Who was

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involved in the bail fight. I was very, Much involved in that bail struggle. Um-hum. A fellow named Walter, No, no, no, no. Ernie. She's someone I forget name. Ernest Fox. Um-hum. And the reason Ernie was one of my clients was that he was a warehouseman from

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San Francisco and I had represented him. ILW and still did, so thought it was appropriate for me to represent him. And the third fellow, It was a fellow named Frank Carlson, C. A R L S O N, who was a, uh, You've been a leader in

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the, in the youth movement, the communist youth movement in, In Los Angeles. I think, uh, Loretta was also from northern California, so that was probably why I had her, and Frank probably just because he needed a lawyer and I only had two, you know, in a

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certain sense. Yeah. Was arbitrary, but they were the three people for whom I, uh OK. Was principally responsible. OK, and was Richard Gladstein, No, no, no, no, Richard was not in the, in the Los Angeles case. Uh, no, I was the only one from our firm

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who was. The other lawyers in the Los Angeles case are the ones I mentioned earlier, Margolis, Shulman and Waring and Brandon. OK, but I've seen a good deal of correspondence also with um. Dear, with um. Benjamin Dreyfus. Dreyfus. Yes, indeed. I told you that, uh, and

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I mentioned the 54 or 5 lawyers who were in the actual trial and I said in passing that there was a backup team. Right. Research team. Barney Dreyfus. was one of the leaders in that research team. He was in Los Angeles. He was a great San

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Francisco lawyer. Uh He came down to Los Angeles and he worked very closely with us, uh, and did a tremendous amount of the administrative work, also the legal research. Um-hum. There were other people who worked with him, 7 were still around Doris Walker. Who's a lawyer

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in the, no, I guess she's in San Francisco now. She used to be in the East Bay. Um-hum. Doris, uh, was part of the research team. A lawyer named, uh, Laurent France, F R A N T Z. Uh, who's down the peninsula here somewhere now, who,

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who was a legal scholar and a, a law librarian and things of that kind. He worked with us and a fine constitutional lawyer from Southern California named, uh, Samuel Rosenwein, R O S E N W E I N. The correspondence that you saw with Dreyfus in

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the files. Had to do with a lot of the setting up and the, Background and the support. He was, he was a very strong support and resource person. Um-hum. So, whenever you see anything from Barney and that, that has to do with that. OK. He was,

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I didn't mean to, uh, to suggest that we five guys carried the ball. We carried the ball in court, but we could never have done it without the. Well, I Help and the assistance. Um-hum. And the support of the other people. There was one other Smith

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Act case that we were directly involved in. There were a number throughout the country, but that was the one in Hawaii, Jack Hall. Well, yeah, you're right, Fujimoto Hall. Uh, there were, there were defendants along with a number of others, Reinicke. Can't remember all the names.

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Fujimoto was uh. He was like the Schneiderman I guess of Hawaii. He was the leading California, uh leading Hawaiian communist. Jack Hall Was the leader of the ILW in the islands. Uh, and then, And again, same kind of inductor. Uh Membership in an organization that teaches

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and advocates. In And Gladstone went back. That went to Hawaii to represent Hall. Principally because Hall was an important official of the union. The union wanted Richard, and Richard, of course, at that time was general counsel. Uh, for the unions. Here we begin to, we get

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a difference for the first time. Hall denied. That he was a member of the party. Fujimoto, for example, admitted that. So in the Hawaiian case you had two. Problems that needed to be tested out, at least as far as home was concerned. One was this theoretical

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one that we've already been discussing. Was the Communist Party this kind of an organization that fell, and the second question as far as was he a member? He said he wasn't. And That was the usual, and it gets into another whole different story, like the Bridges

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case, he's one of those usual run of witnesses we characterize them as two pigeons, witnesses who said yes, they were at this meeting and they were at that meeting and Hall was at this meeting, Hall was at that meeting. And that these were Communist Party meetings.

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And Hall either denied that he was at the meeting. If he could stand, sometimes he was able to prove it, as Bridges was in a number of situations. He wasn't anywhere near the place. He, he could prove he was somewhere else. But, He also asserted with

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respect to many of those meetings that they weren't Communist Party meetings, they were trade union meetings. They were discussing trade union problems. You, you, you, you, you painted it as a communist meeting to us it was a trade union meeting, so. The, um, That was a

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long trial. I can't remember now how long it lasted. Richard was in Hawaii for months. I know that. And, uh, once again, you had convictions. But In the lower courts of all the people, including all. But when the case got to the court of appeals, Our

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Yates case. had been decided by the Supreme Court. As I said, they threw out. The convictions of a number of people directly and they reversed convictions of the other people. And with that precedent, when it got to the Court of Appeals, the Court of Appeals reversed.