Leftist Libel

Probably no group of writers or politicians has less respect for each other than the Katzenjammer Kids of the radical movement. Their polemical outbursts are juicy with accusations and counteraccusations. Almost invariably they get home safely, for good radicals, adhering to an unwritten code, usually scorn the capitalist courts. Past master at this sort of street-fighting is New York's Daily Worker, central organ of the Communist Party, U. S. A. Its most galling volleys are reserved for its rival gang, Leon Trotsky and his followers. So bitter has this battle become that unwritten codes have been forgotten: the other gang finally called a cop. The Daily Worker is now being sued for a total of $745,000 in damages for libel.

Biggest suit was started last February by William S. Brown, as president of the General Drivers, Helpers and Inside Workers Union Local 544 in Minneapolis, and individually, also by Farrell Dobbs, a member of the union, and the fabulous Dunne brothers, Grant, Miles and Vincent, who led the spectacular truck drivers' strike in Minneapolis in 1934. The plaintiffs are demanding $470,000 for articles in the Daily Worker linking them with the criminal underworld.

Fortnight ago, Mrs. Edith Liggett, widow of Walter W. Liggett, Minneapolis editor who was shot and killed in December 1935, won a $25,000 verdict after an undefended libel suit against the Daily Worker, which had accused the murdered editor, no Trotskyite, of using his paper for blackmail. Last week, the New York Supreme Court granted the Daily Worker permission to enter a belated defense.

Most ominous libel suit of all was one filed last week against the Daily Worker, its editor, Clarence A. Hathaway, and Earl Browder, general secretary of the Communist Party, by Max Eastman, author (Enjoyment of Laughter) and lecturer, whose skillful translations of Trotsky's works have done much to keep Trotsky's ideas current in the English-speaking world. Author Eastman charged that the Daily Worker had finally gone too far, sued for $250,000 in damages. Plaintiff Eastman: "I am suing . . . because I consider it my civic duty. . . . Every man who believes in ... democratic civilization as against tyranny and barbarism ought to> fight the American Communist Party with every honorable weapon in his grasp. . . ." Defendant Browder, appealing to the unwritten code, accused Plaintiff Eastman of carping at the Soviets; "When we call public attention to this, he turns to the courts to try to silence us. We have never asked the courts to silence Eastman's slander against us. . . ."

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