A Liberal Protest

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer will names be withheld.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

We wish to congratulate the CRIMSON on its interest in the case of Miss Edith Berkman as evidenced by its editorial yesterday morning. We believe, however, that one important aspect of the case was neglected.

The main reason for Miss Berkman's arrest was her energetic activity as a strike-leader whom the Lawrence mill-owners wished to get out of the way as soon as possible. Her affiliation with a left-wing union was the excuse, and the U. S. Department of Labor was the means.

It is the use of the Department of Labor as a strike-breaking weapon in the hands of the mill-owners that is the crux of this situation. It is against this, and the particularly flagrant use of it in this case,--the holding of Miss Berkman for seven months without ball as a punitive measure,--that the Liberal Club's protest is lodged. By Miss Berkman's activity, the National Textile Workers' Union had conducted a vigorous and thorough prosecution of the strike, which in turn created a united front of millowners, the A. F. of L., and the U. S. Department of Labor, whose common object was to break it completely. These tactics have now become a routine practice of Secretary of Labor Doak. It is against this practice, carried on under cover of the immigration laws, that the Liberal Club protests.

The Liberal Club is not so naive as to believe in the existence of a "right" to free speech and agitation when this "right" conflicts with ruling class interest. It realizes that in an industrial crisis the machinery of the State is used to suppress by any means the activity of militant working-class unions. And it is with these unions, of which Edith Berkman was a member and organizer, that we sympathize and propose to defend. E. Y. Hartshorne, Jr. '33.

For the Executive Committee, Harvard Liberal Club.