“Mr. Green” and “Mr. Stone” lasted no more than twenty-four hours. Within a day of their arrival in New Orleans, Bureau of Investigation agents picked up the scent of Abrams and Lipman and uncovered their scheme to hide in a steamer bound for Mexico. The agents tailed them from the morning of November 16 to the evening of December 1 when, hiding in the forward hold of the SS Mexico, they were arrested, taken to the city’s parish prison, and held without bail.
December was a frantic time for Harry Weinberger. With the Justice Department moving in on alien radicals, defense attorneys like Weinberger were juggling appointments with prosecutors, judges, immigration officials, defense fund contributors, politically connected advocates, clients in jail, clients on the lam, clients at Ellis Island, and relatives of clients in prison. For example, during the same days that Abrams and Lipman were jumping bail and hiding out in New Orleans, Weinberger was placating one of the big contributors to Abrams’s $10,000 bail bond. The man, Frederick Blossom, of New Jersey, had borrowed $6,000 with the understanding that the defense fund committee would pay the interest on the loan up to $30 a month. Five months later, he was now owed $150 in interest, yet had not received a cent from the committee. On December 2, he wrote: “I hope you will be able to get a quick response from the committee as the firm I borrowed from is pushing me to pay up this accumulation.”
The Abrams case seemed at times all-consuming. Weinberger never complained about Abrams and Lipman trying to escape, although if they had succeeded, the $20,000 in bail bonds—held by the government as a guarantee against their escape—would have been forfeited. Once Abrams and Lipman were apprehended, there was still the matter of the bail. Although it would not be automatically forfeited, it would be yet another issue before the courts. The prosecutor would ask for forfeiture and a judge would make the final decision. In addition to that, Weinberger was tangled up in government red tape for three weeks in an effort to get Lipman and Abrams back to New York. Among other complications, A. Mitchell Palmer insisted that Weinberger not only pay their train fare from New Orleans but also the round-trip tickets for their guards—a tab of $550.
Since the Supreme Court had handed down its decision in the Abrams case, Weinberger was busier than ever. Because the decision upheld the 1918 convictions, deportation was no longer a possibility until the Abrams defendants, now convicts, had served their prison sentences—that is, unless the government granted them amnesty. And so he launched a lively crusade to obtain amnesty for each of the four Russian clients. Ironically, to start such a campaign now was easier for Weinberger than it had been before the Supreme Court decision because of Holmes and his dissenting opinion. For a Supreme Court justice to have written that the Abrams case defendants had as much right to distribute their leaflets as the Founding Fathers had to issue the Constitution was a boost to Weinberger’s cause and won him many new recruits eager to find a way to release these young convicts from the severity of two decades in prison. Among such compatriots were Professor Zechariah Chafee, Jr., at Harvard Law School, and several of Chafee’s Harvard colleagues.
Chafee, along with eleven other lawyers and law professors who called themselves the National Popular Government League, would use the case in the coming months as a rapier to rip apart the government’s assaults on civil liberties. They would even publish their Report upon the Illegal Practices of the United States Department of Justice. And because of this and other actions, Chafee would earn his own private file in Hoover’s collection, bearing the heading “Attorney for Radical Organizations.”
Chafee was one of the first to sign Weinberger’s petitions for amnesty for each of his four clients. The very first to sign was Roscoe Pound, the dean of Harvard Law School. Other signatories were: Felix Frankfurter, the Harvard Law professor who would one day be a Supreme Court justice; Edward B. Adams, Harvard’s law librarian; and Francis B. Sayre, the son-in-law of Woodrow Wilson, and a law professor at Harvard.
The petition for Abrams read as follows:
We, the undersigned, respectfully endorse for Executive Clemency of Jacob Abrams. Our approval is based upon the following grounds:
First: We believe that the expression of opinion on the Russian question by Jacob Abrams, was the honest expression of a Russian citizen on Russian intervention.
Second: That there was no intent to help Germany in the war.
Third: That there was no intent to hurt or hinder the United States in the prosecution of the war.
Fourth: That Jacob Abrams, being willing to be deported to Soviet Russia, the United States could in no way be injured by an amnesty at this time.
A similar recommendation was made by the signers for Lachowsky and Lipman, and they were willing to recommend amnesty for Mollie Steimer but she refused to sign an application. Steimer disapproved of the amnesty campaign because she felt that it was “extremely selfish”—as she said in a letter to Weinberger—to ask for amnesty for herself and her three friends when there were many other political prisoners in the United States who were not getting amnesty and who didn’t have so many supporters. “The more I read the petition, the more opposed I am to it,” she wrote, in the same letter.
Her greatest concerns at the moment were the conditions at the workhouse, which had provoked a riot recently; her family, from whom she had heard nothing for two weeks; and news of the world, which was prohibited in the workhouse. On December 6, she wrote a disquieting letter to Weinberger laden with urgency and stress. On the morning after the riot, she and four others had been “taken to the cooler,” an isolated dark cell where prisoners were served only bread and water. The others were released two days later but she was forced to remain for nearly another day. Now her cell was locked all the time and, she told Weinberger, “no prisoner is subject to such severe punishment as I am. I am watched every step and for every turn, there is a penalty. If a girl could come over near my gate she is threatened with increasing her time! Please Weinberger find out how my mother is and send word to me immediately. I am anxious to know when we are to go to the federal prison…. I am intirely cutt off from the outside world.”
At the time of her letter, Abrams and Lipman were in the New Orleans prison, which Lipman described as “filthy” in a letter to Weinberger. Hyman Lachowsky had been released from custody after the November 7 raid and was preparing to surrender within the thirty allotted days after the Supreme Court decision was filed. And so it was that Lachowsky submitted his letter of surrender on December 16. The writing was stunning and the content memorable to all who were working for justice in the Abrams case—the Harvard law professors, the many contributors to the defense funds, the two dissenting justices. Its message was timeless, as many of its readers knew.
The United States Supreme Court has sent its Mandate to this Court affirming my conviction, and although out on bail, I herewith surrender myself to commence the service of 20 years in the U.S. Penitentiary at Atlanta, Ga., for expressing an opinion in a leaflet against American military intervention in Russia.
If Dreyfus at Devil’s Island was a shining disgrace before all the world, to France; if Robert Emmett’s death on behalf of Irish freedom has been one of the blots on English history; so my imprisonment for the next twenty years will be a shining disgrace to America. When my country, Soviet Russia, takes her equal place among the Nations of the world, recognized by all the Nations of the world, Russia will demand my freedom.
As an alien and as an Anarchist, I am willing to be deported to Soviet Russia, and have so stated at Immigration hearings, but if America wants to support me in jail for 20 years; if America wants that blot on her history, I am willing to be that sacrifice in the hope that by it, the true liberty-loving heart of America will awaken from its deadly sleep caused by the Espionage Law under which I was convicted.
Hyman Lachowsky
After Lachowsky surrendered, he was incarcerated at the Tombs in New York. Two days later, on the 18th, Weinberger’s $550 arrived in New Orleans, allowing Lipman and Abrams to begin their train trip back to New York. Although Lipman knew that he was simply moving from one jail to another, he was eager to return to New York, having learned that his wife, fellow anarchist Ethel Bernstein, was among a large group of Russian immigrants scheduled for deportation sometime very soon. Weinberger too hoped that Lipman and Bernstein could be reunited if only for a few minutes before the departure of what would be known as the first “Soviet Ark.” He felt strongly enough about it to write to Attorney General Palmer on their behalf. “[Bernstein] is 21 years of age and is almost crazy with the idea of having to leave America without seeing Lipman who is being brought from New Orleans to New York,” Weinberger wrote in his letter dated December 18. “If the story of Evangeline ever moved you in your school days; if the separation of lovers, one to Soviet Russia, and one to the United States Penitentiary, can move you, I believe you ought immediately to order Samuel Lipman deported with Ethel Bernstein. Will you wire me collect, your decision in the matter, and oblige.”
By the 18th, an ancient, titanic army transport had quietly docked at a pier in South Brooklyn. Built in Ireland in 1890, the SS Buford had served in the Spanish-American War and in the Great War. During 1919, despite its age, it was one of those ships moving back and forth across the Atlantic—making four round-trips—between the United States and France to bring home thousands of American soldiers. Now, in one of its last missions, and certainly its most unusual, it would be the ship assigned to America’s first mass deportation of political dissidents. By the 20th, New York, as the Times noted, had “more dangerous Reds, awaiting deportation or in custody pending legal proceedings than ever have been assembled here.” BI director Flynn told the press that these deportees were “the brains of the ultra-radical movement.” Adding to the intrigue and sensation were statements officials gave to the New York Herald calling the upcoming deportation “the beginning of an extremely rigorous policy against radicals. Another shipload is going out, perhaps this week, and a drive to cut down the Department of Justice’s list of 60,000 radicals in the nation already has been started.”
The exact day and time of departure was still a secret, though it appeared to be sometime around the 20th. Whenever the Buford set sail, it would be carrying 249 aliens, of whom 184 were members of the Union of Russian Workers, fifty-one were anarchists, and fourteen others were violators of immigration laws of some sort but not anarchists. Some of the Union of Russian Workers members still did not understand what they had done to deserve deportation. The Russian People’s House, headquarters to the Russian union, was their social club, a mutual aid society. They belonged for no other reason than to connect with other Russian immigrants and, as many had testified, they were unaware of the wording in the union’s charter, such as its commitment to “a Socialistic revolution by force.” Joseph Polulech, for example, who had been in America for seven years, was taking a math class at the People’s House on the night of the November 7 raid. He was arrested without a warrant, detained without counsel for six weeks, and, despite his pastor’s testimony about his good character, immigration officials deemed him a threat because his name was on the Union of Russian Workers’ membership list.
The best known of the Buford’s passengers were the now notorious anarchists Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman. There were three women: Goldman, Ethel Bernstein, and Dora Lipkin, another anarchist. Also on board were two hundred soldiers, each carrying a rifle and two pistols. Their job was to prevent a mutiny and guard the “Reds,” who would be confined to their staterooms at all times except for meals. The destination was as much a secret as their time of departure. A sealed envelope awaited the captain, not to be opened until the ship had left New York. In it were instructions to sail to Hango, Finland, first, and then take trains into Soviet Russia.
The ship left at 4:15 on the morning of the 21st. Because of the extreme secrecy, few people gathered on the New York dock that very cold December morning. There were army officers, some members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Immigration and Naturalization Committee, and three of the producers of the show: Flynn, Caminetti, and Hoover.
For Hoover, it was a glorious day. He was the one who had arranged the loan of the Buford from the army. He was taking the credit for the deportations of the only famous passengers, Goldman and Berkman. And he was the unofficial host of the send-off “party.” Just in case those who had gathered at the pier didn’t know it, he pointed out Goldman, calling her the “Red Queen of Anarchy,” as she walked up the plank to the ship’s deck. Even better for Hoover, this event would be the first step toward his own fame, for it would be Hoover’s first-ever mention in major U.S. newspapers. The day before the ship’s departure, the Justice Department released to the Washington Post Hoover’s brief in the deportation hearing against Emma Goldman. The Post, which gave Hoover the title of “special assistant to Attorney General Palmer,” ran the story on the front page on December 21. And on the day of the departure, a New York Tribune reporter asked Hoover for his own account of the “Buford story.” The paper gave him plenty of space. Among the many things Hoover wanted to tell America, he said, was that “The Department of Justice is not through yet, by any means. Other ‘Soviet Arks’ will sail for Europe, just as often as it is necessary to rid the country of dangerous radicals.” Hoover would also be given a good deal of space in the Congressional Record regarding the Buford deportation. A congressman from Colorado who had shared the pier with Hoover that morning described him for the Record as “that slender bundle of high-charged electric wire.”
And there he stood two hours before dawn, on the stark, cold South Brooklyn pier—the stage for his opening performance. But so secretive was the Buford’s departure that despite the bright spotlight of the full moon and the powerful lines of the leading man reiterated later in the press, there was no audience. No relatives or friends attended. Few shared the stage with Hoover, who may not have even noticed how alone he was as the old transport sluggishly pushed away from the dock, separating the husbands and fathers, brothers and sons, daughters and lovers from their homes and families. Perhaps a man who mates with power forgets the pain and joy of such bonds.
Lipman was unable to see Bernstein before her deportation. Palmer never conceded to Weinberger’s plea. Lipman and Abrams arrived in New York on the 22nd. Devastated, Lipman immediately cabled the following message to Bernstein c/o “Captain U.S. Transport Buford, Atlantic Ocean.”
I am going to the United States Penitentiary at Atlanta for twenty years for my opinions on Russian intervention, and you are being deported to Russia for yours. Though time and distance separate us, my love goes out to you over the waves. The humanity and heart of the world may yet demand that we be reunited by my deportation to Soviet Russia, where you are going. Love to all the comrades on board from myself, Abrams and Lachowsky.
Reply care Harry Weinberger, prepaid.
Samuel Lipman.
Weinberger paid for the cable and would have paid for a dozen more, so moved was he by the fact that Lipman and Bernstein might never see each other again. “They never had an opportunity to say good-by,” Weinberger wrote to Chafee, as if in disbelief, adding that he felt that the cable Lipman had sent would go down in history as “a great heart message.” For a man like Weinberger, who typically never gave up a cause, it was a helpless feeling to have been unable to arrange the reunion. Except for the amnesty campaign, there was nothing at the moment that Weinberger could do for Lipman, Lachowsky, or Abrams, who would spend Christmas at the Tombs and then, on the very next day, be moved to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta.
Although undoubtedly drained by the past few weeks of legal work and emotional duress, Weinberger now turned his attention to the woman in Cell 98 at the workhouse on Blackwell’s Island. In the rush of things, Weinberger had not been able to respond to Mollie Steimer’s letter of December 6 until now. But as he told her, he certainly had not forgotten her. With the Lipman drama so fresh in his mind, he assured Steimer that she would have the opportunity to embrace her mother, Rose, and her brothers and sisters before she had to leave New York for the federal prison in Missouri—a move that would not happen until she had served what would be a miserable six-month sentence at the workhouse. He told her about the other defendants and the plans to move them to Atlanta; about the Buford and the small Corona typewriters that some families gave to the deportees; and about a fountain pen that Rose had left in Weinberger’s office for Mollie. He would bring the pen to her soon, he said, knowing that he would soon visit the workhouse on Mollie’s behalf to ease the tensions between Mollie and Blackwell’s superintendent.
During the last weeks of the year, Weinberger moved ahead with his campaign for the amnesty of all four of the Abrams case clients, despite Mollie’s disapproval of asking for amnesty while other political prisoners did not get the same attention that she and Abrams, Lachowsky, and Lipman did. Weinberger again wrote to Ray Stannard Baker, urging him yet again to persuade President Wilson to pardon them. He enclosed copies of Lachowsky’s powerful surrender statement as well as his own recent letter to Palmer pleading for the deportion of Lipman along with his wife on the Buford. He also went to court on the issue of Lipman’s and Abrams’s bail bonds; the judge ruled in his favor, allowing all of the generous men and women—including Frederick Blossom—who had funded the young men’s bail bonds to get back their money by the end of the year. And he began yet another crusade: raising money for the immigrant women and children left without husbands and fathers when the Buford steamed out of New York harbor. On Christmas Eve, he received one of the first checks toward the cause: $500 from Ludwig C. A. K. Martens, the self-styled “ambassador” from Soviet Russia. “Stark poverty and sorrow has visited these families by the uncalled for hysteria of immigration officials and the Department of Justice,” Weinberger told the New York Times.
On Christmas morning, several hundred members of the League for Amnesty for Political Prisoners, including Weinberger, gathered on West 11th Street in New York’s Greenwich Village to walk up Fifth Avenue during the hour when most congregations were emerging from church. To advertise their cause, some participants wore the gray clothing of convicts and jangled manacles as they walked. Despite the sloppy, ankle-deep slush on the streets of Manhattan from days of intermittent snow, their plan was to walk all the way to St. Patrick’s Cathedral at 50th and Fifth, stopping at the doorways of churches along the way to sing carols while waving placards that conveyed messages such as “Ten Political Prisoners Have Died for Their Opinions” and “Eighteen Bishops Helped Free English Conscientious Objectors.” Other signs called attention to the unconstitutionality of the Espionage Act and urged Christians to lobby their legislators for the freedom of those imprisoned for violating that law. But the procession abruptly ended when somewhere between 22nd and 23rd Streets policemen arrived to stop it. The group, which called its protest a “walk,” had not obtained a permit for a full-fledged demonstration and thus its members were in violation of the city laws. The wearing of prison “costumes,” police said, was another violation. The police grabbed the signs, tore them up, and then commenced to arrest several of the marchers. Because so many police had been sent out on special assignments to guard the homes of the wealthy from possible Red attacks that day and members of the city’s Bomb Squad were assigned to watch buildings where radical meetings might convene, law enforcement in New York was stretched that Christmas Day and many citizens volunteered to assist the police. As the Washington Post wrote, the holidays in New York that year were “a reminder that even the spirit of Christmas has no influence on stopping the spirit of anarchy.”