The American Civil Liberties Union is closely affiliated with the communist movement in the United States, and fully 90% of its efforts are on behalf of Communists who have come into conflict with the law. It claims to stand for free speech, free press, and free assembly; but it is quite apparent that the main function of the ACLU is to attempt to protect the communists in their advocacy of force and violence to overthrow the Government
Anarchist Roger Baldwin founded the ACLU in 1919, after his release from prison where he served a sentence for draft evasion, at a party attended by Socialist Party notable Norman Thomas, future Communist Party chairman Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and Soviet agent Agnes Smedley. In 1920, Rev. Harry Ward, the Red Dean of the Union Theological Seminary was Chairman, Baldwin was director, and Communist publisher Louis Budenz, who would later go on to testify against Communism, director of publicity. Other Communist and radical founders included William Z. Foster, author of "Toward Soviet America", Harold J. Laski, Morris Hilquit, A.J.Muste, Scott Nearing, Eugene V. Debs, and John Dewey. The 1930's membership would include such radicals and change agents as Vito Marcantonio, Haywood Broun, Corliss Lamont, and Bishop G. Bromley Oxnan. The 1940's roll would include George S. Counts, Norman Cousins, Melvyn Douglas, Robert M. Hutchins, and Freda Kirchwey. Most prominent American luminaries of the left were, and are, members of the ACLU.
