Albert Wilhelm Walter (Walters)

Born 1889, Saxony, Germany. Knitter. Migrated to US 1912. Joined the Socialist Party of America in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and in 1916 elected secretary of the Party’s German Federation. 1919 transferred into the Communist Party of America; Indiana State Secretary of the Communist Party beginning November 1919. Deported January 12, 1921. Sent his wife Martha and two US-born daughters to Germany ahead of him. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54859/123; FBI file OG 8000-383588

See also: Fort Wayne Sentinel, January 5, 1920; Garrett Clipper, December 23, 1920

Henry William Watts (Willy; H. W. Watts)

Born 1883, London, England. Journalist. Migrated to Canada 1906. Appears to have been involved in socialist politics and journalism in Canada. From there, migrated to US 1914. Immediately joined the Socialist Party of America in Everett, Washington. January 1915 began writing for the Washington Socialist; February 1915 became its business manager. Continued that role for the paper’s successor, the Northwest Worker, of which he became editor in April 1916. He wrote in support of the IWW and of “collective ownership” (by workers) rather than “state socialism” (i.e. government ownership). Arrested August 1916 for protesting police repression of IWW speakers in Everett. Arrested again April 6, 1917 for libel of local military recruiters; charges dismissed. Arrested once more October 25, 1917 as an alien “anarchist”; released on bail after seven weeks. While in jail, continued as editor of the Northwest Worker and its successor, The Co-operative News. Eventually deported solely on the dubious grounds that he had been “likely to become a public charge” at the time of his entry into the US. Deported to Canada, February 27, 1918–making him the first known deportee of the Red Scare.

Settled in Vancouver, where he joined the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 213, and in 1921 he became the editor of the B.C. Labour News (1921-22), the official organ of the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council (VTLC), and now opposed the syndicalist One Big Union movement, writing that the labor movement “must not be carried away by dogma” and “lose its power of resistance to organized capital by adopting visionary, idealistic schemes which only end up in the division of the workers.” 1924 editor of the VTLC’s new newspaper The Labour Statesman, which he edited until his death in 1953. He supported the VTLC’s position opposing Asian immigration and political enfranchisement, and also took a strong anti-Communist (but social-democratic) position. 1928 resigned as Local 213’s delegate to the Canadian Labour Party due to increasing Communist influence within it. Ran unsuccessfully as candidate for British Columbia’s social-democratic Independent Labour Party in 1928, 1930, and 1932. Briefly visited the US in 1928 and 1941 on union business, but was debarred from visiting in 1936 due to his former deportation. Elected business agent of the Vancouver Building Trades Council in 1947. Died February 15, 1953.

INS file 54235/57 (file missing); FBI file OG 52458

See also: https://depts.washington.edu/labhist/laborpress/NWWorker.htm; https://depts.washington.edu/labhist/laborpress/CoopNews.htm; The Co-operative News, February 21 and February 28, 1918; Ancestry.com; Ian McDonald, “Class Conflict and Political Factionalism: A History of Local 213 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 1901-1961” (MA Thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1979); The Labour Gazette, March 15, 1953

Gregory Isaakovich Weinstein (Григорий Исаакович Вайнштейн; Grigoriy Isaakovich Vaynshteyn)

Born 1880, Vilna, Russia (present-day Vilnius, Lithuania). Jewish. Statistician; editor. In Russia, “a public school teacher in a Jewish school.” Involved in socialist movement since 1900 (in both the General Jewish Labour Bund and the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party); participated in 1905 revolution and befriended Leon Trotsky. December 1905 arrested at Brest-Litovsk and imprisoned, then in 1916 sentenced to four years in Siberia; escaped after ten days and went to France. 1907 migrated from there to Switzerland, where he graduated from the University of Geneva in 1912 with degrees in law and social science. Migrated to US 1913. Joined the Russian Federation of the Socialist Party of America in New York; 1914 became an editor of the socialist newspaper Novy Mir; employed Trotsky as a writer January-March 1917. 1919 cofounded the Communist Labor Party and became general office manager of the (unrecognized) Russian Soviet Government Bureau. Also became an editor of the CLP’s Class Struggle and its short-lived Russian-language paper Pravda. Ordered deported; “voluntarily departed” January 22, 1921. 1922 employed by the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs (which in 1923 became the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs); served as a Soviet diplomatic representative to Canada, a diplomatic agent in Leningrad, and in 1926-28 worked at the Soviet Consulate General in Istanbul, Turkey. 1930s in Moscow became head of the Second Western Department of the USSR People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs. August 1939 arrested in Stalin’s purges; executed 1940.

INS file 54810/500 (file missing) and 54810/500A (Exhibits)

See also: New York Tribune, June 22, 1919; Kenneth D. Ackerman, Trotsky in New York, 1917: A Radical on the Eve of Revolution; Todd J. Pfannestiel, Rethinking the Red Scare: The Lusk Committee and New York’s Crusade against Radicalism, 1919-1923; http://documentstalk.com/wp/weinstein-gregory-isaakovich/; http://www.knowbysight.info/VVV/03652.asp; http://theinfounderground.com/smf/index.php?topic=16678.0

Alfred Wesley (Westley)

Deported to England, June 19, 1920. No further information found.

Included on list of deported radicals in INS file 54325/36G

Albert Whitehead

Born 1867, Leicester, England. Sailor. Migrated to US 1907. 1911 joined the IWW; became a charter member of Sacramento Council of the IWW. Defendant along with 45 other IWW members in federal trail in Sacramento for violating the Espionage Act; engaged with most of the other defendants in a “silent defense” by refusing to participate in the proceedings. Accused of “arson and destruction of property” in connection with fires that had occurred near Fresno. Sentenced to a year in San Francisco County Jail; caught tuberculosis while imprisoned. Deported December 24, 1919. Upon his arrival in Liverpool, he “gave all his cash to poor children,” and apparently joined the Merseyside IWW branch.

INS file 54616/36; FBI file OG 8000-237893

See also: Stephen M. Kohn, American Political Prisoners: Prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts; Socialist Review (London), February 1, 1959