Tag Archives: Lithuanian

Faces of the First Red Scare

As part of the ongoing research for my book on the global history of immigrant radicals who were deported during America’s First Red Scare, I have posted brief profiles of 764 (and counting) individual deportees I have identified. This list is a work in progress, and some entries will be updated as I obtain additional sources.

Who is included:

This list includes radicals and suspected radicals who were deported between 1918 (following America’s entrance into the First World War) and 1925, when the last of the foreign-born radicals arrested between 1917 and 1920 were expelled, some after serving prison sentences. It includes both those who were deported by government order and those who were ordered deported but “voluntarily departed” at their own expense with the government’s consent (both categories were included together in US government deportation statistics). It does not include those who fled the country to avoid arrest or deportation. It includes both individuals deported for belonging to legally-defined “anarchistic classes,” and others who were suspected of radicalism but deported on other grounds (most commonly for entering the country without inspection or being retroactively deemed “likely to become a public charge” at the time of their entry).

This is not a complete list. In the fiscal years (June-July) 1918-1926, the United States deported 979 aliens as “anarchists,” and an unknown number of additional radical immigrants under other statutes. The largest single group of deportees, composed of 242 alleged radicals (as well as seven unrelated deportees) departed on the USAT Buford on December 21, 1919. However, it appears that no complete list of Red Scare deportees was produced by either the Bureau of Immigration or the Bureau of Investigation. I have instead had to rely on partial lists and mentions of individual cases included in these organizations’ files, congressional testimony, radical publications, newspaper reports, and other sources.

How to use this site:

Profiles have been posted in small batches. They are organized in alphabetical order by last name, followed by alternate spellings and pseudonyms in parentheses. (The Cyrillic spellings of Russian names are generally my best guess; American sources from the era were wildly inconsistent in their spellings of such names. The same is true of the transliteration of Chinese names in the Roman alphabet.) You can also browse the Index of Names.

Birth years are often approximate, usually having been calculated from an individual’s age at the time of their examination by immigration authorities, and some may therefore be off by a year.

You can search by individuals’ nationalities (country of birth and, in some cases, ethnicity [i.e. Jewish, Lithuanian, etc.]) by using the tags above.

Occupations describe the individuals’ employment in the US, not necessarily the work they engaged in before arrival or after their deportation.

Political affiliations represented include the syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the anarcho-syndicalist Union of Russian Workers of the United States and Canada (URW); the anarchist Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM); anarchists unaffiliated with larger organizations; the Communist Party of America (CP); the Communist Labor Party (CLP); the Socialist Party of America (SP); the Socialist Labor Party (SLP); and unaffiliated socialists. You can search by political affiliation by using the tags above.

You may also use the “Search” box at the top of the page to look for individual names, locations, etc.

The main sources used for compiling these profiles are case files from the Records of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), Record Group 85, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC; the Old German Files (OG) and Bureau Section Files (BS) of the Records of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Record Group 65, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD (as digitized at fold3.com); and (for Italians) the Casellario Politico Centrale (CPC), Archivio Centrale dello Stato, Rome, Italy.

A special thanks to Molly Thacker, who photographed dozens of INS files for me; Malcolm Archibald, who has translated a number of Russian-language sources; D.J. Alperovitz, who has provided photographs of several IWW members; and the dozens of other archivists, translators, activists, and colleagues who have helped me locate, acquire, and read material from across the globe while undertaking this research.

Finally, if you have additional information about any of the deportees, or spot an error, please contact me!

Balick to Baritz

Vasiliy Balik (Василий Балик, Wasily Balick or Bilicki)

Born 1896, Kiev, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Laborer; migrated to US 1913. Employee of Remington Arms Union Metallic Cartridge Company, Bridgeport, CT. Joined of Union of Russian Workers August 1919; arrested September 1919, Hartford, CT. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/389

Ugo Balzano

Born 1882, Castel di Sangro, Aquila, Italy. Typographer; migrated to US 1903; employed by mainstream Italian-American Cleveland newspaper, La Voce del Popolo Italiano. Anarchist; member Circolo Studi Sociali di Cleveland; distributor of Cronaca Sovversiva; publisher of anarchist paper L’Appello (1916-1917). Deported 1919. Arrested immediately upon return to Italy for avoiding the draft. Died Castel di Sangro, 1926.

INS file 54616/348; CPC busta 298

See also: http://bibliotecaborghi.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Cicolani-La-presenza-anarchica.pdf

Walter Banaczyk

Born 1901, Russia (likely in present-day Poland). Auto worker. Migrated to US with parents 1909; employee at Fischer Body. December 1919 joined Branch 37, Polish Section of the Communist Party of America. Arrested Detroit January 1920. Claimed Polish citizenship, but “voluntarily departed” to Russia 1920. Subsequent activities unknown.

FBI files OG 382042 and BS 202600-768-1

Peter P. Banaitis

Born 1899, Lithuania. Miner, laborer, toolmaker. Migrated to US 1911. Member International Union of Tool, Die, and Mold Makers; member Branch 37, Lithuanian Section of the Communist Party of America. Arrested January 1920, Chicago. Deported 1920. Subsequent activities unknown.

FBI file OG 382041

Daniel Bardaio

Born Russia, year unknown. Member Communist Party of America. Deported February, 1921. No further information.

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

Moses Baritz

Moses Baritz, center

Born 1884, Manchester, England. Musician, journalist. Member Socialist Party of Great Britain; renowned (and feared) agitator and debater, able to quote Marx extemporaneously. He “made more than one journey to America,” and in Canada in 1911 helped found the tiny, “impossibilist” Socialist Party of North America. Migrated to US 1915 to avoid conscription; joined Socialist Party of America, then in 1916 in Detroit cofounded the small and more radical breakaway “Socialist Party of the United States” (which later became the Socialist Educational Society, the Workers’ Socialist Party, and finally the World Socialist Party of the United States). Arrested for anti-war speeches Seattle, 1918. “Voluntary departure” September 1918 to Australia, where debated IWW members, then expelled. Went to New Zealand, from which he was the first person expelled under the Undesirable Immigrants Exclusion Act. From there went to South Africa, then returned to England 1920, where resumed SPGB membership and became music critic for the Manchester Guardian; in 1924 also became “Britain’s first radio disc jockey.” Died 1938.

See: http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2014/09/death-of-moses-baritz.html; https://www.solidarityforeverbook.com/book/solidarityforever.pdf; Ian Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks: The Early Years of the Communist Party of Canada (2004); Karla Doris Rab, Role-Modeling Socialist Behavior: The Life and Letters of Isaac Rab (2010)

Barkovsky to Bendik

Samuel (or Semyon) Barkovsky (Сэмюэл or Семён Барковский, Samuel or Samion Barkowsky)

S. Barkovsky’s IWW membership card

Born 1893, Chernihiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Machinist. Migrated to US 1913. Member of the Socialist Party of America, the IWW, and the Ansonia, CT branch of the Union of Russian Workers. Chairman of “Luch,” a URW organization disguised as a mutual aid society, delegate to 1919 URW convention. Arrested in Ansonia June 1919 for “breach of the peace” for agitation in connection with URW-organized strike. Arrested Hartford, CT, November 1919; a trove of anarchist literature found in his home. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/405; FBI file OG 8000-364023

Stanislaw Bartesiewics (aka Stanley Barton, aka Joe Rink, aka Joe Rynkiewich)

Born 1888, Lithuania. Laborer. Killed a woman in Russia (circumstances unclear) and fled to US in 1899; extradited back to Russia that year where convicted and served three years and seven months in prison. Migrated to US again 1915. Member Lithuanian Branch of the Communist Party of America. His own wife, as well as his brother (George) and sister-in-law, all gave sworn depositions against him to the Bureau of Investigation. Arrested Detroit, January 1920. Deported 1921.

FBI file OG 382016

Ivan Baskevich (Иван Баскевич; John; Basskevich)

Deported to Russia February 26, 1921. No further information found.

Included on list of deported radicals in INS file 55110/4

Aleksandr Ivanovich Batura (Александр Иванович Батура)

Born Russia, year unknown. Anarchist; IWW member. Deported 1924. In Russia, “openly declared that it is only Commissars and not workers that live well here,” and sentenced to Solovetsky prison camp, then internal exile. Wrote to comrades in US circa 1927: “The main thing is that I have no work and it is so hard to get anything. I have been actually starving here, moreover, I am sick.” Received aid from anarchists abroad 1929-1931.

See: Senya Fleshin Papers, International Institute for Social History; G. P. Maximoff, The Guillotine at Work: Twenty Years of Terror in Russia (Data and Documents) (1940)

Morris Becker

Born 1885, Kiev, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Migrated to US 1906. Married, wife in US. Anarchist; supporter of Alexander Berkman’s The Blast; member of No-Conscription League. One of the first two people arrested under the Selective Service Act of 1917; sentenced to a year and eight months in Atlanta federal penitentiary for interference in the draft, and repeatedly disciplined for “misconduct.” Admitted he was an anarchist and “a man without a country,” “but I am an advocate of peace and not of force.” Deported on the Buford. After a long period of unemployment secured a factory job in Petrograd, but when he complained of “the unbearably putrid air in the shop where he was working, the unnecessary filth and dirt,” he was told he was “a pampered bourgeois” who “pine[d] for the comforts of capitalist America.” No further information.

INS file 54235/32

See also: Emma Goldman, Living My Life

Max Belesky or Belessky

Deported to Russia. No further information found.

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

Emelyan Belesta (Емельян Белеста, aka Michael Belesta, Andrew Belesta, Andriev Belesta)

Born Russia, 1886. Wife in Russia. Laborer. Migrated to Canada 1912, then US (without inspection) 1916. Joined the Union of Russian Workers in Pittsburgh around 1918; took “more or less of a prominent part in meetings of Russian radicals in the district.” Arrested 1919 in possession of “a considerable amount of extremely radical literature.” On bail, arrested again for writing and distributing handbill calling for a general strike of American workers “to enforce the lifting of the blockade against Russia.” Deported on the Buford. Died of typhus in Ufa.

INS file 54616/134

See also: INS file 54616/89; New-York Tribune, October 4, 1919

Bezil Belousov (Бэзил Белоусов, Basil Belusoff, aka Basil Bibusoff)

Born 1881, Russia. Wife and three children in Russia. Joined Union of Russian Workers in 1919. Arrested Fairmont, West Virginia, November 1919. Claimed to have been drunk when joined URW. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/593

William Bendik (Бендик, Bendick)

Flier in Bendik’s possession when arrested

Born 1894, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus). Laborer. Migrated to US 1912. Claimed to have joined Russian Branch No. 2 of Socialist Party of America, Cleveland, January 1919, but in possession of Socialist Labor Party literature when arrested June 1919. Membership in neither qualified as grounds for deportation. Instead, deportation based on the alleged fact that, after he participated in 1919 May Day demonstration broken up by police, he reportedly stated, “We only gave them a demonstration of what we will do July 4th; we will be prepared and have ammunition and everything, and we will show them what we will do.” Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54616/235; FBI file OG 372982

Katzes to Kircher

Arthur Katzes (Katses; Kestes; Ketzus; Katz)

Born 1897, Podolia, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Printer. Had been a student in Russia and apprenticing as a pressman; worked as a sailor to pay for passage to US in 1914 (entered without inspection). Worked as printer in US. Joined Union of Russian Workers circa 1917; member of the editorial board of URW newspaper Khleb i Volia. Arrested March 1919 in New York. Released on bail; collaborated on producing the illegal Anarchist Soviet Bulletin; arrested with Ethel Bernstein in September 1919 for distributing copies of that paper. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54616/115

See also: Richard Polenberg, Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, the Supreme Court, and Free Speech

Stanley Kavalianskas

Secretary of Branch No. 43 of the Lithuanian Federation the Communist Party of America. Detroit. Arrested during second Palmer Raids, January 1920. “Voluntary departure” October 20, 1920. No further information found.

FBI file BS 202600-155-1

Joseph (“Joe”) Kennedy

Born 1885, Belfast, Ireland. Miner. Migrated to US 1905. Joined IWW 1917; became secretary of Metal Mine Workers’ Industrial Union No. 800 in Butte, Montana. Arrested multiple times for IWW activity. Worked with IWW organizer Frank Little before Little was lynched in Butte in 1917. Also “active…in the cause of Irish independence.” Arrested February 1919, in aftermath of miners’ strike. Deported June 1919. Joined Merseyside IWW branch in Liverpool. 1924 reportedly intended to return to US illegally. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54616/74

See also: Butte Daily Bulletin, June 13, 1919; Socialist Review (London), February 1, 1959

Ilya Kerczuk (Ellis Kerchuk)

Deported to Russia February 1, 1921. No further information found.

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

Boris Keretchuk

Born 1894, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus). Laborer. Migrated to US 1916. Joined the Union of Russian Workers branch in Newark. Arrested during first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/358

Nuval Kerget (Нувал Кергет)

Member of the Union of Russian Workers in Seattle. Deported February 1, 1921. No further information found.

FBI file OG 389514

Nabul Kerget

Lumber worker. Deported to Russia, February 26, 1921. No further information found.

Included on list of deported radicals in INS file 55110/4

Ivan Kesevich

Deported to Yugoslavia, September 1, 1920. No further information found.

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

Olan Killen

IWW member. Deported October 31, 1919. No further information found.

Included on list of deported IWW members in One Big Union Monthly, March 1920

William Kircher

Born 1892, Hesse, Germany. Laborer. Migrated to US 1906. Joined IWW 1917. Arrested May 1918 in Seattle; interned as “enemy alien” at Fort Douglas, Utah. “Voluntary departure” 1919. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54408/512; FBI file OG 193587

Momotuk to Murza

Trofin Momotuk (Трофин Момотук; Mormochuk; Theodore Maumat)

Born 1886, Russia. Steelworker. Migrated to US 1913. Wife in Russia. Joined the Union of Russian Workers in Youngstown, Ohio. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/187

Giuseppe Montagni

Born 1890, Riva di Trento (present-day Riva di Garda), Austro-Hungarian Empire (present-day Italy). Electrician. Migrated to US 1911. Lived in Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Joined the Communist Party of America. Deported June 19, 1920. Apparently did not join Italian Communist Party. Late 1922 illegally emigrated to Hungary (reportedly hoping to reach Russia); caught in Budapest without proper papers and sent to internment camp at Zalaegerszeg for ten months, then expelled back to Italy, June 1924. Moved around Italy looking for steady work for several years, then settled in his hometown as a farmer. Maintained his radical beliefs and Italian government surveillance until 1941.

FBI file OG 204622; CPC busta 3359

Tugardo Montanari (Montenari)

Born 1886, Orciano di Pesaro, Italy. Metalworker. Migrated to US 1903. Iron molder and member of the International Molders Union. Not radical before arrival; became anarchist and distributed Luigi Galleani’s Cronaca Sovversiva around New England by motorcycle. 1913 arrested in Worchester, Massachusetts for “lewd and lascivious cohabitation” with his companion, fellow anarchist Lucia Mancini, and sentenced to six months. Arrested May 17, 1918, in Mansfield, Massachusetts. Deported June 24, 1919. Mancini and their daughter remained in US. 1923 Montanari emigrated to France, where continued to be active in anarchist and antifascist circles. 1977 still living in France and contributing funds to Italian anarchist publication Volontà.

INS file 54379/374; CPC busta 3366

See also: Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America; Volontà, January-February 1977

Ivan Morgolenkow (aka John Novak)

Born 1891, Russia. Longshoreman. Migrated to US 1911. Union of Russian Workers Baltimore. Arrested December 3, 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/622

Grigori Moroz (Григорий Мороз; Gregory; aka Mike Moroz)

Born 1893, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus). Laborer. 1913 migrated to Canada; 1916 migrated to US. April 1919 joined Branch No. 1 of the Union of Russian Workers in Baltimore. Worked for the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Plant; October 1919 a “special officer” of the company reported him to the Department of Justice for wearing a “suspicious black button” bearing the name of the URW newspaper Khleb i Volia. Arrested November 1919. Deported February 1, 1921. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/108

Roman Mosichuk (Роман Мосичук; Mosichok; Mosicshok; Mosithuk)

Born 1890, Volyn, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Blacksmith’s helper. Migrated to US 1913. Joined the Union of Russian Workers in Newark, New Jersey in 1915; became secretary of the URW’s school in Trenton, New Jersey, where he also distributed URW literature. Arrested in during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/220

Pavel Mozuris (Paul; Mozures)

Born 1885, Suwałki, Russia (present-day Poland). Lithuanian. Laborer. Migrated to US 1907. Joined the Communist Party of America in New York in 1919. January 20, 1920 turned himself in to the Department of Justice as a CP member, because he had been blacklisted by employers and wished to return to Russia. After more than six months of detention on Ellis Island, on the night of July 12, 1920 he escaped by leaping from a third-floor window into the water below. Later that year located and arrested in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Deported February 26, 1921. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54861/22; FBI file OG 381458

Joseph Mule

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

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

Camillo Muñoz (Munos)

Born 1880, Nochistlán, Mexico. Laborer. Migrated to US 1915. Member of anarchist group “Los Errantes” (affiliated with the Partido Liberal Mexicano) in Morenci, Arizona. Arrested September 19, 1919, in Tucson. Wife and three (Mexican-born) children came to Tucson from Morenci “for the purpose of accompanying” him if deported. Deported December 3, 1919. Wife in Arizona. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/70

José Maria Murias

Born 1889, Rosario de Santa Fe, Argentina. Spanish father and Italian mother. Sailor; miner. Migrated to US 1914. Joined the IWW in 1914 in San Francisco and became a delegate and organizer in Arizona. Arrested in Globe, Arizona, September, 1918. Argentina refused to issue passport, claiming he was a Spanish citizen; Spain refused, claiming he was an Argentine citizen. Allowed to “reship as a foreign seaman” to Costa Rica, July 11, 1919. 1920 it was reported that “following his deportation…this alien has made several trips to New York as a seaman, and that he expects to return to the United States some time during the coming summer.” Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54648/32

Vasily Murza (Василий Мурза; Wasily)

Steelworker. Deported to Russia, February 26, 1921. No further information found.

Included on list of deported radicals in INS file 55110/4

Zharko to ______

Nikifor Zharko (Никифор Жарко; Zarko)

Born 1894, Grodno region, Russia. Laborer. Migrated to US 1913. May 1918 joined Branch No. 1 of the Union of Russian Workers in Baltimore. Arrested November 26, 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/484

Lukian Viktolorovich Zibula (Лукиан Виктолорович Зибула; Luka; Victolorovish; Sebull; Tsibuliev)

Born 1892, Volhynia, Russia. Weaver. Migrated to US 1912. Joined the Socialist Party of America in Philadelphia; subsequently joined the Philadelphia branch of the Union of Russian Workers. Arrested December 30, 1919. Deported to Russia, February 1, 1921. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54809/900

Bertha Zimmerman (Берта Цимерман; née Masdawid or Masdawit)

Born 1885, Riga, Russia (present-day Latvia). Latvian. Housewife; garment worker. Migrated to US 1907. Married fellow deportee David Zimmerman in Boston that same year. Joined the National Lettish Organization of the Socialist Party of America. 1908 son Erick born. Circa 1908 moved to Chicago, where involved in the IWW. Circa 1918 moved to Baltimore. September 1919 joined the Lettish Federation of the Communist Party of America; member of the party’s Baltimore Central Committee and distributor of its publication The Communist. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids, January 2, 1920. Deported February 1, 1921. Subsequent activities unknown.

FBI file OG 391151

See also: Vernon L. Pedersen, The Communist Party in Maryland, 1919-57

David Davidovich Zimmerman (Давид Давидович Цимерман)

Born 1875, Riga, Russia (present-day Latvia). Latvian. Carpenter. Circa 1904 joined the Latvian Social Democratic Workers’ Party. Migrated to US 1906. Joined the National Lettish Organization of the Socialist Party of America. Married fellow deportee Bertha Zimmerman in Boston 1907. 1908 son Erick born. Circa 1908 moved to Chicago, where involved in the IWW. Circa 1918 moved to Baltimore. September 1919 joined the Lettish Federation of the Communist Party of America; member of the party’s Baltimore Central Committee and distributor of its publication The Communist. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids, January 2, 1920. Deported February 1, 1921. Joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union that same year. Lived in Leningrad. Arrested June 1938 for espionage during Stalin’s purges. Executed October 10, 1938.

FBI file OG 46773

See also: Vernon L. Pedersen, The Communist Party in Maryland, 1919-57; https://ru.openlist.wiki/%D0%A6%D0%B8%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%B0%D0%BD_%D0%94%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4_%D0%94%D0%B0%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87_(1875)

Victor Zubkiadich (Виктор Зубкиадич; Jubkiavich)

Born 1885, Vilna, Russia (present-day Vilnius, Lithuania). Laborer. Migrated to US 1911. Circa 1917 joined Russian Branch No. 3 of the Socialist Party of America; 1919 transferred into the Communist Party of America in Detroit. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids, January 6, 1920, at the House of the Masses. Deported to Russia 1920. Subsequent activities unknown.

FBI file OG 8000-391223

Nestor Zubko (Нестор Зубко; aka Walter)

Zubko’s Socialist Party membership card

Born 1895, Russia. Laborer. Migrated to US 1913. 1918 joined the Russian Branch of the Socialist Party of America in Bridgeport, Connecticut; 1919 joined the Bridgeport branch of the Union of Russian Workers. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 12, 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/400

Simeon Zuk (Симеон Цук; Sam; Zuek; Suek)

Born 1885, Grodno region, Russia (present-day Belarus). Laborer. Migrated to US 1913 (via Canada). Wife and children in Russia. Joined the Socialist Party of America in Detroit; 1919 transferred into Branch No. 1 of the Communist Party of America. Arrested February 1920. “Voluntarily departed” October 30, 1920. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54859/799

Jonas Zakauski (Zukauskas)

Deported to Russia, February 26, 1921. No further information found.

Included on list of deported radicals in INS file 55110/4

Talki Zukauski (Zukauskas)

Housewife. Deported to Russia, February 26, 1921. No further information found.

Included on list of deported radicals in INS file 55110/4

Salvatore Zumpano

Born 1888, San Nicola dell’Alto, Calabria, Italy. Laborer; teacher; bookseller. Graduated from an industrial school in Cosenza and trained as an electrician. Migrated to US 1914. Settled in Old Forge, Pennsylvania, where worked as a laborer and Italian language teacher. 1914 joined IWW and became organizer for it among local miners. 1916 moved to Youngstown, Ohio, and active in defense campaign for Carlo Tresca during the Mesabi Iron Range Strike; quit the IWW along with Tresca following internal controversy over Tresca’s actions during the strike. Returned to Old Forge and opened a small bookstore in “a shack,” selling both radical and non-radical literature. Arrested June 4, 1917 for anti-conscription activities, and “about one hundred and fifty pounds of anarchistic literature,” as well as an envelope containing a portion of executed IWW member Joe Hill’s ashes, were confiscated by police, who also allegedly stole more than $20 from his store. Sentenced to a year in Lackawanna County Jail for failing to register for the draft. He explained his actions: “I cherish and believe in international brotherhood of the workers–of mankind.” Subsequently indicted under the Espionage Act in the federal IWW trial in Chicago and moved to Cook County Jail, but the indictment against him was dropped after six months because he was no longer a member of the IWW at the time of America’s entrance into it. Released from jail August 15, 1918; immediately arrested by immigration authorities and held for deportation. Deported July 3, 1919. No political activity noted by Italian authorities, who in 1937 removed him from the Italian government’s list of “subversives” after reporting that he “no longer professes subversive ideas” and instead “takes an active part in all patriotic and [Fascist] Party ceremonies.”

INS file 54235/39; FBI file OG 21993; CPC busta 5611

See also: Harrisburg Telegraph (Harrisburg PA), June 9, 1917; Harry Weinberger Papers, Yale University

Anton ______

Deported to Lithuania, October 22, 1920. No further information found.

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