Thomas Graves
Born: c. 1895, Haverigg, England
Nationality: British
Ethnicity: English
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: IWW
Worked as a miner in Arizona. In July 1917 he was among the striking miners forcibly expelled from Bisbee, Arizona, and abandoned in the New Mexico desert during the “Bisbee Deportation.” In January 1918 he joined the IWW’s Metal Mine Workers Branch 65, Local No. 800, and soon became an organizer. Arrested in May 1918 on a charge of vagrancy, and again later that year in Globe, Arizona, for allegedly violating the Espionage Act, and again in Globe in April 1919. In a confiscated letter, Graves wrote to a friend, “I have been trying to figure our this democracy for a long time but the only answer that I can come to is if you don’t do as I tell you, you must go to the can, therefore I don’t want any more of it, and the sooner they send me back to the lands of the Kings the better.” Deported to England on June 21, 1919.
After deportation, resumed work as a miner in England and married. In 1930 he was recruited work in a copper mine in colonial Rhodesia (present-day Zambia), where he acquired a reputation as a union militant and became a founding member and shop steward of a whites-only Northern Rhodesia Mine Workers’ Union. He returned to England in 1939 after being dismissed from his job, and died in 1966.
Sources: INS file 54616/87; Duncan Money, White Mineworkers on Zambia’s Copperbelt, 1926–1974: In a Class of Their Own.
Pavel Grib (a.k.a. Paul Grib; Greb)
Born: 1887, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Belarusian
Occupation: Machinist; laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: IWW; Union of Russian Workers
His wife and two children remained in Russia when he emigrated. In 1919 he joined both the Industrial Workers of the World and the Union of Russian Workers in Seattle, where he became the URW branch’s financial secretary. Arrested on February 7, 1920, at a lumber camp near Ashford, Washington, and deported to Russia on February 1, 1921.
Sources: INS file 54860/444; FBI file OG 372555.
Seodor Grigoreko (or Grigorenko)
Born: 1895, Kiev, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Ukrainian
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Communist Party of America
Joined Russian Branch No. 3 of the Socialist Party of America in Detroit in 1919, which later transferred en masse into the Communist Party of America. Arrested in Detroit during the second Palmer Raids in January 1920 and deported on January 22, 1921.
Sources: INS file 54860/65; FBI file OG 385764.
Nikolai Grishko (a.k.a. Nicholas Hrishco)
Born: 1898, Minsk, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Belarusian
Occupation: Steel worker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Communist Party of America
In 1918 he joined Russian Branch No. 1 of the Socialist Party of America in Baltimore, which later became part of the Communist Party of America. Served as the branch’s recording secretary. Arrested in January 1920 and deported to Russia on February 1, 1921.
Sources: INS file 54809/655; FBI files OG 8000-383428 and 377436.
Alfred Groener
Born: 1898, Germany
Nationality: German
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: IWW?
Arrested in Portland, Oregon, in January 1918 while in possession of two IWW pamphlets, though no evidence established that he was actually a member of the organization. Nevertheless, he was interned as an “alien enemy” during World War I and was released on the condition of his voluntary departure on June 29, 1919.
Sources: INS file 54379/80.
Adolph Gross (or Grosse)
Born: 1860, Mainz, Germany
Nationality: German
Ethnicity: Jewish
Occupation: Farmer; teamster; news vendor
Migration: Immigrated to US 1882
Affiliation: Anarchist
Immigrated to the United States in 1882, at the age of twenty-two. An anarchist, he and his wife and seven children lived at the anarchist Home Colony in Washington State from 1903 onward. Around 1918 he opened a newsstand in Tacoma, Washington. In late 1919 he was arrested and sentenced to twenty-eight months at McNeil Island federal prison under the Espionage Act for selling seditious literature, despite the fact that World War I had already ended. In December 1921 he was deported to Germany at age sixty-one, making him the oldest known deportee of the Red Scare (he had two grandchildren at the time). He was not permitted to contact his family prior to deportation and was denied the opportunity to take money or personal belongings with him.
Settled in Hamburg, and in 1922 his daughter reported “it is killing him to live in idleness over there and he says unless he has a few hundred dollars he cannot do anything.” Reportedly died sometime before 1930.
Sources: INS file 54861/406; FBI file OG 8000-381731; Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Papers, Wisconsin Historical Society; The Nation, October 19, 1921.
Janos Grunzweig (a.k.a. John Grunzweig)
Born: 1900, Schöndorf, Austria-Hungary (present-day Frumușeni, Romania)
Nationality: Disputed (formerly Austro-Hungarian)
Ethnicity: German
Occupation: Cabinetmaker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1910
Affiliations: Communist Party of America
Emigrated to the United States in 1910 with his parents and siblings to rejoin his father, settling in Tonawanda, New York. Trained as a cabinetmaker and later joined the Communist Party of America, prompting his father to expel him from the family home. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids in January 1920 and deported on May 8, 1920.
Upon arrival in Athens, Greece, he was arrested and jailed for two weeks. Romanian authorities refused him entry because his birthplace was not part of Romania at the time of his birth, and Hungary likewise denied that he was a citizen. After his release, Grunzweig worked odd jobs in Greece for three months before stowing away on a ship bound for Canada.
He disembarked, traveled to Tonawanda, and was arrested again in May 1921. In March 1922 he was released on bail when the government proved unable to deport him. Dubbed “A Man Without a Country” by the American press, he eventually regularized his status and by 1940 had become a naturalized U.S. citizen. Died in Buffalo, New York, in 1984.
Sources: INS file 54811/755; FBI files OG 388225 and BS 202600-1932; Buffalo Times, December 13, 1922; Ancestry.com.
Ivan Gushchia (a.k.a. John Guschia)
Born: Russia, year unknown
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Migration to US year unknown
Affiliation: Unknown
His name is included on a list of radicals deported to Soviet Russia on February 26, 1921.
Sources: INS file 55110/4.
Martin Gunderson
Born: c. 1890, Norway
Nationality: Norwegian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US 1907
Affiliation: IWW
Became a member of the Industrial Workers of the World in Aberdeen, South Dakota. In November 1918 he was indicted alongside fellow IWW member Stanley Brown on federal charges for allegedly mailing phosphorous intended for arson. At trial, Gunderson admitted to having burned down the barn of the Aberdeen chief of police. Convicted and sentenced to two and a half years’ imprisonment at Leavenworth. Deported to Norway on September 4, 1919.
Sources: Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls), November 15, 1917, September 10, 1918, and August 5, 1919; New Solidarity, September 20, 1919.
Ivan Gushchia (a.k.a. John Gushchia; Gushia; Gushchany)
Born: 1897, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers
Joined the Bridgeport, Connecticut branch of the Union of Russian Workers in September 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919 and deported to Russia aboard the Buford on December 21, 1919.
Sources: INS file 54709/380.
William Gusko (or Jusko)
Born: 1894, Grodno region, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity: Belarusian
Occupation: Punch press operator
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Communist Party of America
His wife remained in Russia when he emigrated. Worked as a punch press operator in Detroit and joined the Communist Party of America in December 1919. Arrested in January 1920 and deported to Russia on February 26, 1921.
Sources: INS file 54859/968.
