Clarence Darrow, Jane Addams Attend Gala “Blacklist” Dinner in Chicago
The famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow and Jane Addams, one of the founders of modern social work, attended a gala “Blacklist” dinner in Chicago, it was reported on this day. The dinner was to protest a list of names of “dangerous radicals” maintained by a local super-patriot.
About 200 people attended the dinner. H.A. Jung, head of the American Vigilance and Intelligence Federation had compiled a list of liberals, pacifists, and other social critics whom he regarded as “dangerous,” and used it to deny speaking engagements to anyone on the list. The head of the Chicago branch of the ACLU was among many who characterized Jung’s list as a “roll of honor.”
Blacklisting became a major weapon in the assault on freedom of speech and association in the Cold War. See, for example, the Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations (December 4, 1947, the Hollywood blacklist (December 3, 1947), and the Red Channels report on alleged communists or communist supporters in radio, television and the theater (June 22, 1950).
Learn more about civil liberties in the 1920s and 1930s: Paul L. Murphy, The Meaning of Freedom of Speech: First Amendment Freedoms from Wilson to FDR (1972)
Learn more about Clarence Darrow: John Aloysius Farrell, Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned (2011).
Read about the life and work of Jane Addams: Elshtain, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy: A Life (2002)
Read about the 1947 Attorney General’s List, and the blacklisting it produced: Robert Justin Goldstein, American Blacklist: The Attorney General’s List of Subversive Organizations (2008)