The Baldwin Years (1920-1950)
For the first thirty years of its existence, the ACLU grew stronger and more influential under the steady hand of co-founder Roger Nash Baldwin.
When Roger Nash Baldwin co-founded the ACLU in 1920, he did so during the most totalitarian era in U.S. history--the first Red Scare. The ACLU soon established its reputation by defending victims of the harsh Palmer Raids and taking on First Amendment cases having to do with free speech and religious liberty, though it was never able to get the dreaded Sedition Act struck down (which was ludicrously upheld by the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1919, then expired in 1921).
Baldwin's personality was typical of a 1920s civil libertarian: An ardent pacifist who opposed World War I, he was also a communist for most of his early life, writing a book in 1927 on what he saw as the young Soviet Union's considerable potential to become a shining beacon of human rights. When the emergence of Stalin and the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact made it clear that this would not happen, Baldwin denounced communism. A "Communist was not just a Communist after the Pact," Baldwin once wrote. "A Communist was an agent of the Soviet Union."
One black mark on Baldwin's record was the 1940 expulsion of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a member of the ACLU's Board of Directors who openly belonged to the American Communist Party. The American Communists had by that point favored peace and neutrality in international relations, but this did not matter to Baldwin, who felt--presumably with a convert's zeal--that no Communist could be a civil libertarian.
Flynn's removal from the ACLU board, more than a decade before the McCarthy hearings, had a chilling effect on the U.S. civil libertarian community, which still included many professing communists.
It is a testament to Baldwin's gravitas, and the respect political leaders once showed to civil libertarians, that this strict pacifist and former communist was actually invited to Japan by General Douglas MacArthur in 1947 to help foster human rights in the newly developing nation. There he founded the Japan Civil Liberties Union (JCLU), which remains active to this day.
When Roger Nash Baldwin co-founded the ACLU in 1920, he did so during the most totalitarian era in U.S. history--the first Red Scare. The ACLU soon established its reputation by defending victims of the harsh Palmer Raids and taking on First Amendment cases having to do with free speech and religious liberty, though it was never able to get the dreaded Sedition Act struck down (which was ludicrously upheld by the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1919, then expired in 1921).
Baldwin's personality was typical of a 1920s civil libertarian: An ardent pacifist who opposed World War I, he was also a communist for most of his early life, writing a book in 1927 on what he saw as the young Soviet Union's considerable potential to become a shining beacon of human rights. When the emergence of Stalin and the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact made it clear that this would not happen, Baldwin denounced communism. A "Communist was not just a Communist after the Pact," Baldwin once wrote. "A Communist was an agent of the Soviet Union."
One black mark on Baldwin's record was the 1940 expulsion of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a member of the ACLU's Board of Directors who openly belonged to the American Communist Party. The American Communists had by that point favored peace and neutrality in international relations, but this did not matter to Baldwin, who felt--presumably with a convert's zeal--that no Communist could be a civil libertarian.
Flynn's removal from the ACLU board, more than a decade before the McCarthy hearings, had a chilling effect on the U.S. civil libertarian community, which still included many professing communists.
It is a testament to Baldwin's gravitas, and the respect political leaders once showed to civil libertarians, that this strict pacifist and former communist was actually invited to Japan by General Douglas MacArthur in 1947 to help foster human rights in the newly developing nation. There he founded the Japan Civil Liberties Union (JCLU), which remains active to this day.
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