The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Communism (Part 3)

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Communism (Part 3)
By Tommy Franks

As the founder, Roger Baldwin was the ACLU’s dominant personality. In the early days, Baldwin admitted that it was a one man show. Baldwin was heavily influenced by his radical grandfather and anti-capitalist aunt. His grandfather, William H. Baldwin, had anti-Christian views that often got him into trouble with traditionalists. His aunt, Ruth S. Baldwin, was a member of the Socialist party, and threw herself passionately into various socialistic causes. Baldwin soon learned the ways of radicalism and extremism.

Baldwin's initial efforts with the group…which would eventually become the ACLU…involved draft resistance during World War I. The group was called the Bureau of Conscientious Objectors. It was established in May, 1917. This organization was set up in order to help draft dodgers learn strategies of resistance and to provide them with legal and financial support.One of the first pieces of literature that Baldwin wrote for the new Bureau was declared "unmailable" by the Post Office because of its radical and subversive views. Hence, the organization's activities quickly gained immediate disapproval from American citizens. The FBI raided several of its offices. Shortly after that, Roger Baldwin was himself drafted. Practicing what he preached, he refused to serve. In court he professed his commitment to anarchism (lawlessness) and his allegiance to socialistic reform. For his refusal, Roger was sentenced to one year in prison. Read on…After his release, he married a woman named Madeline Doty. Wasn’t there another Madeline in our nation’s history somewhere? Their wedding was secular-progressive. It was devoid of a ring or any religious symbols. The marriage was to be "open" where each would be responsible for his own expenses. Madeline was to keep her own name. Roger declared: "I am steadfastly opposed to any woman taking my name. It's all I've got to identify me and I am not about to give it away to a woman."With such a grand and pretentious start, it was only two months before Baldwin left his bride and took a drastic turn in life. He decided to experience life as a common laborer. Having convinced himself that he was the new “savior” of the proletariat (working class), he decided it would be good for him to work among them. His intentions were overcome by the experience of hard work. He did not like work. Work was not part of his lazy lifestyle. Therefore, after three months he returned home…having decided it was a lot easier to be the friend of the workingman than to actually be a workingman. When he returned, he again took control of the Civil Liberties Bureau and renamed it the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).Baldwin was an admirer of Communism and Russia. In his book “Liberty Under the Soviets”, he praised the Soviet Union for their stance on “anti-religion”. During the early years of the organization, the ACLU Board and National Committee members were eighty percent Communist…and ninety percent of the cases the organization defended involved Communists.Such is the history of the prestigious organization known today as the ACLU. In recent years they have burst into the moral arena and sought to legalize the distribution of all pornography, remove all ethical standards for radio and television, do away with all rating codes for movies, deregulate bath houses, nude bars, and massage parlors, provide homosexuals with a privileged "minority" status, legalize prostitution, and advocate open sexual solicitation in public places. (Part 4 will follow)