Tag Archives: Swedish

Sachar to Sánchez

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , , ,

Andrey Sachar (a.k.a. Andrej; Andrew; Henry Sugar)

Born: 1898, Minsk oblast, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Autoworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation:

Employed by the Ford Motor Company in Detroit. In 1918 he became secretary of the Russian National Home (also called the Russian People’s Home), described by authorities as “an alleged Bolshevik organization” that hosted speakers from the Union of Russian Workers and the Communist Party of America. He admitted supporting the Bolshevik government and revolution in the United States, but later claimed his testimony had been mistranslated. Arrested April 1919 after three members of Detroit’s Russian community accused him of advocating overthrow of the US government—possibly tied to a dispute within Detroit’s Russian Orthodox All Saints Church. He “voluntarily departed” September 25, 1920.

Sources: INS file 54709/557; FBI file BS 202600-353-1; Aram G. Sarkisian, “Their Daily Dread: Russian Orthodox Christians in Red Scare Detroit, 1918–1920,” Journal of American Ethnic History 41, no. 4 (2022).

Andrei Sacharchuk

Born: c. 1895, Wołyń, Russia (present-day Poland)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Communist Party in Atlantic City. Arrested November 19, 1919; later rearrested in Welch, West Virginia for distributing radical literature. Deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54861/359.

Mike Sachco

Born: c. 1897, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Steamfitters’ helper
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Member of Milwaukee’s Russian Branch No. 2 of the Communist Party. Arrested January 1920; deported to Russia March 18, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54859-158.

Nikita Safroniev (a.k.a. Necita; Safronieff; Zafronia)

Born: 1883, Grodno, Russia (present-day Belarus)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration: Immigrated to US 1914
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

His wife remaine din Russia when he emigrated. Arrested November 9, 1919 during the first Palmer Raids. A member of the Maspeth, Queens branch of the Union of Russian Workers. He testified: “I lived long enough in Russia under the Czar. I have seen enough brutality committed there, but I have never seen the brutality that was committed upon the Russian people here in my case…When I was arrested…I was travelling in the automobile, they were beating me in the sides with their handcuffs; and this continued all the way until they brought me to the Park Row Building in New York.” Deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/284; FBI file OG 379106; Constantine M. Panunzio, The Deportation Cases of 1919-1920.

Orteof Sahtabnog (a.k.a. Ortiof; Ortiob Shtabnoy)

Born: 1891, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Miner
Migration: Immigrated to US 1913
Affiliation: Union of Russian Workers

Joined hte Union of Russian Workers branch at the Jamieson No. 9 mine in Farmington, West Virginia in September 1919, and became its secretary. Arrested November 1919; he was deported on the Buford on December 21, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54709/586.

Nikofor Salabay

Born: c. 1890, Kyiv, Russia (present-day Ukraine)
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Autoworker
Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1913; then to US 1916
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

His wife and two children remained in Russia. He joined the Communist Party in Pittsburgh in September 1919. Arrested January 1920, he was deported to Russia February 1, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54860/644.

Marcelo Salinas y López (a.k.a. Marcelino Menéndez; Jorge Gallart; George Gallart; Pedro Martín; Pedro Martín Sánchez; Palomero)

Marcelo Salinas.

Born: 1889, Batabanó, Cuba
Nationality: Cuban
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Cigarworker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1911
Affiliation: Anarchist IWW

Became an anarchist around 1908 and collaborated on Havana’s anarchist newspaper ¡Tierra!.

Migrated to the U.S. in 1911 to work in the cigar industry in Tampa, Florida. Active in anarchist groups there affiliated with the Partido Liberal Mexicano, and also joined and organized for the IWW. He was briefly the roommate of Spanish anarchist Manuel Pardiñas, who in 1912 returned to Spain and assassinated Spanish Prime Minister José Canalejas; wrongly suspected of involvement in the assassination, Salinas was also accused by the Mexican government of being part of plot to kill Mexico’s President Madero. Arrested and deported to Cuba February 7, 1913. He illegally returned to the U.S. in June of that year under the name “Marcelino Menendez” and participated in an IWW maritime strike in New Orleans; he then moved to New York where he frequented the Francisco Ferrer Center and collaborated on the newspaper Cultura Obrera under the name “Jorge Gallart.” In 1914 he migrated to Spain, where he was part of an influential group of “americanos” (Spanish-speaking anarchists who had lived in the US) and collaborated on anarchist newspapers and joined and organized on behalf of the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo; he was imprisoned numerous times for these activities. Around 1918 he returned to New York where, under the name “Pedro Martín,” he was a member of the Los Corsarios Group and became editor its newspaper El Corsario. One of fourteen group members arrested in February 1919 by the Secret Service on baseless allegations of plotting to assassinate President Wilson; although all charges were dropped, he and several others were held for deportation as anarchists. Salinas claimed to have been born in Cartagena, Spain, and was deported to Spain May 4, 1919 as “Pedro Martín.”

Arrested during a propaganda tour in Andalusia (for possession false identity documents under the name Pedro Martín); he was sentenced to two months in prison in Cádiz and then deported to Cuba August 1, 1919. In Cuba he took an active part in the general strikes of 1919; for which he was arrested multiple times and sentenced to death along with several other leading anarchists, but released in 1921. While in prison he sent a letter to the Comintern to apply for the creation of a Cuban Communist Party, but soon became disillusioned with Soviet Communism. In the 1920-1940s he became nationally recognized as radical poet, novelist, and playwright. In 1944 he helped found the Asociacíon Libertaria de Cuba (ALC); in 1948 he was appointed its Secretary of Culture. Edited a succession of Cuban anarchist newspapers. In 1956-1959 he served on the secretariat of the Confederacíon de Trabajadores de Cuba. Refused to support Castro’s seizure of power. In 1967 he was allowed to enter the United States as an anti-Castro refugee. He settled in Miami, Florida, where he continued to be an active member of the Movimiento Libertario Cubano en el Exilio and write for anarchist publications. He died in 1976.

Sources: INS files 53572/12 (1913 deportation) and 54616/79 (1919 deportation [under name “Pedro Martin aka Pedro Martin Sanchez”]); Marcelo Salinas: Un ideal sublime y elevado; Kirwin R. Shaffer, Anarchists of the Caribbean: Countercultural Politics and Transnational Networks in the Age of US Expansion; Frank Fernández, Cuban Anarchism: The History of a Movement; Manuel Buenacas, El movimiento obrero español, 1886-1926; Paul Avrich, Anarchist Voices: An Oral History of Anarchism in America.

Nikolai Salov (a.k.a. Nick Saloff)

Born: 1891, Alagir, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to Canada 1914; then to US 1915
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

Joined the Communist Party of America in Seattle. Deported on January 22, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54861/31.

Nikolai Saluk (or Celiuk)

Born: 1892, Bobry, Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer; punch press operator
Migration: Immigrated to US 1910
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

A member of Detroit’s Russian Branch No. 3 of the Communist Party, he was deported February 26, 1921.

Sources: INS file 54860/24.

Roland S. Samuelson (a.k.a. Roy)

Born: 1884, Stockholm, Sweden
Nationality: Swedish
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Laborer
Migration: Immigrated to US 1912
Affiliation: IWW

Joined IWW Mixed Local No. 382 in Seattle in April 1917, and became and IWW delegate. Arrested January 1920 in Everett, Washington, for “criminal syndicalism” after the Great Northern Railway fired him for organizing his fellow workers and reported him to the police. Deported to Sweden August 13, 1920.

Sources: INS file 54861/371; FBI file OG 386735.

Ivan Samuylov (a.k.a. John; Samuyloff; Somaurloff; Samuyilof)

Born: Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

A member of the Communist Party of America in New York. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids in January 1919 and deported to Russia December 23, 1920. No further information has been located.

Sources: 54325/36G and FBI file BS 202600-33; Minneapolis Star, December 27, 1920.

Vladimir Samuylov (a.k.a. Samuyloff; Samoileff; Pavel Wolkoff)

Born: Russia
Nationality: Russian
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation: Communist Party of America

A member of the Communist Party of America in New York City. Arrested during the second Palmer Raids in January 1919; deported to Russian December 23, 1920 with his teenage son and daughter.

Sources: INS file 54325/36G; FBI file BS 202600-33; Minneapolis Star, December 27, 1920; New-York Tribune, December 19, 1920.

Ramón Sánchez

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-2.png
Members of Spanish-speaking Los Corsarios Group, including Sánchez, 1919. National Archives.

Born: 1886, Santa Cruz, Canary Islands, Spain
Nationality: Spanish
Ethnicity:
Occupation: Cigarmaker
Migration: Immigrated to US 1916
Affiliation: Anarchist

His family emigrated to Cuba in 1898, and in 1916 he migrated to Mexico and then the United States.

A member of New York’s anarchist Los Corsarios Group, and one of fourteen members arrested in February 1919 by the Secret Service on baseless allegations of plotting to assassinate President Wilson. All charges were dropped, but Sánchez and several other members were held for deportation as anarchists. Deported to Spain May 4, 1919.

Sources: INS file 54616/79.

Ramón L. Sánchez

Ramón L. Sánchez, 1921. National Archives.

Born: Spain
Nationality: Spanish
Ethnicity:
Occupation:
Migration:
Affiliation: IWW

Arrested June 21, 1921 in Sacramento on criminal syndicalism charges after distributing IWW literature. Sentenced to 1–14 years in San Quentin Penitentiary, where he contracted tuberculosis. Deported to Spain on August 1, 1924.

Sources: Sacramento Star, June 22, October 21, 1921; Daily Worker, February 29 and June 2, 1924; Stephen M. Kohn, American Political Prisoners: Prosecutions under the Espionage and Sedition Acts.

Solari to Spisak

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , , , , ,

Giuseppe Solari

Born 1884, Genoa, Italy. Laborer; carpenter. Migrated to US 1905. Joined brother Giovanni in the US, who paid for his passage and his mother’s. Worked his way up from a pick-and-shovel worker to cabinetmaker; financially supported his mother, brother, sister, brother-in-law, and thirteen nieces and nephews. A close associate of Luigi Galleani, a distributor of anarchist literature, and and the secretary and treasurer of the anarchist Gruppo Autonomo in East Boston. Described by the US government as “one of the leading anarchists in New England” and by Italian authorities as “the deus ex machina of many meetings and conferences held among the subversives” of East Boston. Arrested May 17, 1918, for agitating against the military draft; “it required two automobiles to transport to the Federal Building the immense amount of literature and correspondence that was found in the premises” of his home. Deported June 24, 1919, with Galleani and others.

Under surveillance by the Italian government, which noted that he maintained his anarchist ideas but recorded no radical activities on his part. Died 1937 in Genoa.

INS file 54241/22; CPC busta 4857

Rasmus Jacobson Solen (Robert Solen)

Born Manger, Norway in 1885. Migrated to US 1904. Lumber worker. IWW member since June 1917. December 1917 sentenced to one year and a day in McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary for alleged conspiracy “interfering with fire fighters on Government timber lands” while organizing a strike of timber workers in Clallam County, Washington in July 1917. Deported to Norway October 31, 1918 on charges of being “likely to become a public charge,” of entering the US without inspection, and of being convicted of a crime of “moral turpitude.”

INS file 54554/39

See also: Tacoma Daily Ledger, July 26, 1917; Spokesman-Review (Spokane), December 25, 1917

Peter Solocha (Penataley; Solocho)

Born 1893, Chernigov, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Autoworker. Migrated to US 1913. Joined the Union of Russian Workers branch in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in early 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported January 22, 1921.

INS file 54707/243

Fedor Solenki (Федор Соленки; Fred; Solonika)

Born 1896, Volodymyr-Volynsky, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Ukrainian. Laborer. Migrated to US circa 1912. Joined the Union of Russian Workers in New London, Connecticut circa 1917. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Claims to be illiterate, but in possession of radical literature. According to the Immigration Inspector, “even though his illiteracy or stupidity [should] be taken into consideration, I believe he is very dangerous, because his evidence shows he is easily led, as he admits attempting to secure members for the Union of Russian Workers.” Deported on the Buford.

INS file 54709/241; FBI file OG 374549

Mike Ivanovich Solovieve (Mike Solovev)

Born c.1890 Pinsk, Russia (present-day Belarus). Migrated to Canada 1913, then to US December 1919. Wife in Russia. Laborer. Anarchist. Arrest in Toledo, Ohio, January 1920 after arguing with a Russian Communist speaker at a meeting. At his immigration hearing he declared: “I am a citizen of no country now. I have no country. Well, I am a citizen of Russia because I was born there.” Deported to Russia, January 22, 1921.

INS file 54860/926

Karl W. Sonntag (aka John Fensky)

Song lyrics written by Sonntag during an IWW strike at Potlatch Lumber Company in Potlatch, Idaho, 1917
Cartoon drawn by Sonntag

Born 1886, Breslau, Germany (present-day Wrocław, Poland). Polish. Served three years in the German navy. Laborer; machinist. Migrated to US 1908 (deserted ship in Galvaston, Texas). Sonntag was a skilled metalworker who patented a “tire-testing machine” (US patent no. 1068180) in 1913. Joined the IWW in Kansas City, Missouri, 1914; found work as a lumber worker and active in IWW strikes, for which he wrote radical songs. 1917 imprisoned for three months in Idaho for “criminal syndicalism” following his participation in a lumber strike at the Potlatch Lumber Company. Arrested in Walla Walla, Washington, February 8, 1918, after reported by the “Minute Men of Seattle” for unlawfully working within a federally-mandated “prohibited zone” along the waterfront from which Germans and other “enemy aliens” were barred. (Sonntag had secured employment by using the name “John Fesky” and claiming to be Austrian.) Upon discovery of his IWW membership, he was also charged with advocating the unlawful destruction of property, but then interned at Fort Douglas in Utah as an “enemy alien.” There he spent eight months in the disciplinary barracks for singing IWW songs, on what he described as a diet of “bread and water, and finally two leaden bullets in the leg.” Released on the condition that he “voluntarily depart” to Germany, which he did on June 23, 1919.

He expected “to be busy in the so-called German revolution” upon his return, but he “found that I again got badly fooled,” and he subsequently made his way to Soviet Russia. There he found employment at the Felser & Co. factory in Nizhny Novgorod, where his workday was “sixteen hours and more.” After IWW leader William D. Haywood jumped his bail and fled to Russia in 1921, Sonntag, who had known Haywood in the United States, wrote him a letter of welcome, advising, “if this country needs anything it’s organizers and I think you’ll have a hell of a lot of work to do here…Let’s all do your best to make a paradise for workers out of this country.” No further information found.

INS file 54379/116

See also: Lewis S. Gannett, “Americans in Russia,” The Nation, August 17, 1921

Emilio Souto García (Emilio Suoto)

Born Corunna, Spain in 1882. Sailor, carpenter, laborer. An “old time militant of the Spanish labor movement” and twice arrested during strikes in Spain and secretary of the Carpenter’s Union. Wife, Estrella Morales, and five children in Spain. Immigrated to the US in 1916 (jumped ship). Anarchist and IWW member. Arrested in Philadelphia on February 16, 1919 as “one of 11 Spaniards and Mexicans suspected of being radicals and one of 5 later arrested by immigration officials…While admitting that he has friends who are anarchists and socialists, a careful survey of the evidence fails to show that he has in any way been active as a propagandist. He is certified as being afflicted with gonorrhea, a loathsome contagious disease.” He appealed to expedite his deportation, “as my family is without any help in Spain and anxiously waiting for me.” Deportation warrant issued on the basis of being “likely to become a public charge” and entering without inspection. “Reshipped foreign” to Spain September 20, 1919, on the SS Leonora.

INS files 54648/28 and 54648/29

See: New Solidarity, February 14, 1920

Charles Spangberg

Spangberg’s IWW membership card

Born 1887, Sweden. Lumber worker. Migrated to US 1905. Joined the IWW in February 1917. Arrested in Spokane, Washington, April 6, 1918. Deported November 4, 1918. January 1919 wrote to Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson inquiring why he had been deported and when he could be allowed to return to the US; there is no record of a reply being sent.

INS file 54379/235

Andrew Jacob Spisak (aka A.J. Smith)

May Day flier Spisak was posting when arrested

Born 1886, Rozgony, Austria-Hungary (present-day Rozhanovce, Slovakia). Metalworker; sign painter. Migrated to US 1904. 1912 lost his left eye and suffered a skull fracture from a workplace accident. Communist Party of America. Braddock, Pennsylvania. Arrested April 29, 1921 by members of the Edgar Thomson Steel Company’s private police force for posting radical May Day leaflets published by the United Communist Party; convicted of violating Pennsylvania’s sedition law, then turned over to immigration authorities. Released November 1922; detained again June 1923 and held on Ellis Island for seventeen months while awaiting a passport from Czechoslovakia, which was initially denied on the grounds that he had resided outside of Czechoslovakian territory for more than ten years and therefore lost his citizenship. Deported to Czechoslovakia, October 24, 1924.

INS file 54809/601; FBI file BS 202600-1897

See also: Daily Worker, November 15, 1924

Steimer to Stepanov

Red Scare Deportees, , , ,

Mollie Steimer (Молли Штеймер)

Mollie Steimer, 1919 | Mollie Steimer (1897-1980) began her … | Flickr

Born 1897, Dunaivtsi, Russia (present-day Ukraine). Jewish. Garment worker. Migrated to US 1912, with parents and four siblings. Began working immediately after arrival, at age 16. Became an anarchist after discovering the writings of Peter Kropotkin; 1917 became a member of New York’s militant Jewish anarchist Shturem Group, which in 1918 became the Frayhayt Group. Arrested, with Hyman Lachowsky, while distributing radical leaflets protesting US intervention in the Russian Civil War on August 23, 1918. While out on bail, arrested eleven more times over eight months, including during a raid on the Union of Russian Workers’ People’s House in New York during the first Palmer Raids in November 1919. Convicted, with other members of the Frayhayt Group, for violation of the Espionage Act, and sentenced to 15 years in prison; after losing landmark Supreme Court free-speech case Abrams v. United States, sentence commuted on the condition of deportation. While detained on Ellis Island awaiting deportation, led a hunger strike to protest her segregation from other detainees. According to a supervisor, “Certainly it would not be safe to put her in a room with other detained females, this by reason of her known activities in spreading the propaganda of anarchism among among women and girls. Most of those detained female aliens will probably be admitted to the United States in due course, and to permit Mollie Steimer to sow the seeds of anarchism among them while they are the wards of the Government would be highly improper.” Deported November 1, 1921.

In Russia, almost immediately involved in aid work for imprisoned anarchists; through this work she met her companion Senya Fleshin, an anarchist who had voluntarily returned from the US in 1917, and together they founded the Society to Help Anarchist Prisoners (with financial aid from comrades in the US). November 1922 both were arrested for this work and sentenced to two years internal exile in Siberia, but released after launching a hunger strike. Both arrested again July 9, 1923, for propagating anarchist ideas. Launched an eight-day hunger strike along with other political prisoners, including several other deportees from the US; Steimer and Fleshin given visas to Germany with the understanding that they would be executed if they returned to Russia, and left September 27, 1923. In Berlin, then after 1924 in Paris, the pair worked with Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, and other exiled Russian anarchists to aid radicals imprisoned in Russia. Steimer corresponded with, and was regularly visited by, anarchists from the US and elsewhere. In 1939 Steimer organized aid for refugees from the Spanish Civil War who had been placed in French internment camps; in May 1940, with the Nazi occupation of Paris, Steimer was herself sent to the internment camp in Gurs for seven weeks. After her release, she and Fleshin fled to Mexico, where they were aided by fellow deportees Jacob and Mary Abrams. Active in radical and exile circles in Mexico City, where they befriended Diego Rivera and Spanish anarchist exiles, and Fleshin ran a photography studio. Remained in constant correspondence with anarchists abroad. Steimer died of heart attack July 23, 1980 in Cuernavaca.

INS file 54517/73

See also: Senya Fléchine Papers and Emma Goldman Papers, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam; Rose Pesotta Papers, New York Public Library; International Committee for Political Prisoners, Letters from Russian Prisons; Mollie Steimer: Toda una vida de lucha; Abe Bluestein, ed., Fighters for Anarchism: Mollie Steimer and Senya Fleshin; Paul Avrich, Anarchist Portraits; Richard Polenberg, Fighting Faiths: The Abrams Case, the Supreme Court, and Free Speech

Sigfrid Stenberg (Siegfried)

Stenberg’s mugshot, 1918

Born 1892, Sweden. Painter; editor. Migrated to US 1912. Wife and daughter in Sweden. Joined the IWW and became business manager of its Swedish-language newspaper Allarm in Minneapolis. Defendant in federal IWW trial 1917-1918; convicted of violating the Espionage Act and sentenced to ten years in prison and a $30,000 fine. Sentence commuted on condition of deportation; deported January 13, 1923.

Immediately joined the syndicalist Sveriges Arbetares Centralorganisation (SAC), which he viewed as a direct continuation of his activism on behalf of IWW and “the idea that cannot be downed.” In 1928 he became a journalist for the SAC’s daily newspaper Arbetaren, which he also edited from 1930 to 1940. In addition he served as chairman of Sweden’s Executive Committee of the Newspaper and Printing Federation from 1932 to 1942, and treasurer of the anarcho-syndicalist International Working Men’s Association from 1938 until his death in 1942.

INS file 54616/52

See also: Mark Wyman, Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe, 1880-1930; https://www.sac.se/Om-SAC/Historik/Biografier/Stenberg,-Sigfrid-1892-1942

Anton Stepanov (Антон Степанов; Stepanoff; aka Alex Porfenchuk; Perfenshuck)

Born 1887, Vitebsk, Russia (present-day Belarus). Chauffer. Migrated to US 1913. A member of the Union of Russian Workers in Buffalo, New York; brother of fellow URW member and deportee Osip Stepanov. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Claimed to be another individual named Alex Porfenchuk, who was born in 1884, Vilna, Russia (present-day Vilnius, Lithuania), who migrated to the US in 1914 and had a wife and three children in Russia. However, witness testimony and documents seized during his arrest, including Anton Stepanov’s passport and a letter from Anton to Osip listing the former’s address under the name of Alex Porfenchuk, strongly indicate that this was a ruse. Deported on the Buford.

INS file 54709/308

See also: Buffalo Courier, December 19, 1919; Buffalo Enquirer, November 22 and December 20, 1919

Osip Stepanov (Осип Степанов; Ossip; Stepanoff; aka Joseph; Joe)

Born 1882, Vitebsk, Russia (present-day Belarus). Laborer. Served in the Russian Army. Migrated to US 1912. Joined the Buffalo branch of the Union of Russian Workers in August 1916; served at various times as its treasurer and on various committees. Brother of fellow URW member and deportee Anton Stepanov. Claimed to also belong to the Russian Orthodox Church, and to be illiterate (which is unlikely, given his work as treasurer and the amount of URW literature in his possession). Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford.

INS file 54709/309

Supino to Tabenko

Red Scare Deportees, , , , , ,

Giuseppantonio Supino (Giuseppe Supino; aka Joe Spino)

Born 1892, Provvidenti, Italy. Laborer. Migrated to US 1908; frequently moved between US and Canada as migrant worker. 1915 joined the IWW in North Dakota. Arrested August 2, 1919 in Seattle. Deported December 20, 1919. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54700/28

Michael Surgatanoff (Surgatunoff)

Born c.1893, Tomsk, Russia. Came to the US as a sailor c.1916. Laborer. Member of the Union of Russian Workers in New York. Common-law wife and American-born child in New York. Arrested November 1919 and released, then arrested again February 1920 and testified that he was beaten in police custody. Deported to Russia, January 22, 1921.

INS file 54861/132

Adam Susnowics

Deported to Poland, July 31, 1920. No further information found.

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

Carl Swelgin (Karl)

Born 1884, Germany. Laborer; plumber; rancher; union organizer. Migrated to US 1896. By 1908 he had become a socialist and participated in a public debate on the question of whether “Capitalists be Recompensed for Industries Taken Over By Socialism” in Marshfield, Oregon (he argued in the negative). Joined the IWW in 1911. 1913 became a naturalized US citizen. That same year, illegally “deported” from Coos Bay, Oregon along with other IWW members organizing lumber workers there. 1914 started a 160-acre ranch in Bandon, Oregon, under the Homestead Act, but forced to abandon it. 1917 sentenced to 6 months in prison and $100 fine for “vagrancy” after being arrested while hopping a train to Klamath Falls, Oregon to organize lumber workers. May 23, 1918, denaturalized by the District Court of Oregon for having fraudulently sworn allegiance to the US Constitution while a member of the IWW–the first such denaturalization of the First Red Scare. He then became the first (formerly) naturalized US citizen to be interned as an “enemy alien” during the war, at Fort Douglas, Utah. “Voluntarily departed” June 25, 1919. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54379/525

See also: The World (Coos Bay, OR), February 3, 1908 and August 7, 1917; Evening Herald (Klamath Falls, OR), July 31, 1917; Ancestry.com; Zachary W. Jones, “‘There is No Law Here’: Vigilantism, Militarism, and Metropolitanism in Coos County, Oregon, 1912-1913” (Honors Thesis, Western Oregon University, 2014), https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1016&context=honors_theses; Patrick Weil, The Sovereign Citizen: Denaturalization and the Origins of the American Republic

Yustif Svenko (Юстиф Свенко; Estife Swenko)

Born 1895, Chmielewo, Russia (present-day Poland). Laborer. Migrated to US 1913. Employed at Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio. Active member of the Akron branch of the Union of Russian Workers. Arrested September 30, 1918, but released on bail; arrested again during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/225

Alrik Swenson

IWW member. Deported (to Sweden?), October 31, 1919. No further information found.

See: One Big Union Monthly, March 1920

Bronisław Syzmaniak (Bronislas; Synzmaniak)

Born 1883, Russia. Migrated to US 1904. Molder. Member of the Communist Party of America in Milwaukee. Deported (to Poland?) February 1924.

Daily Worker, February 6, 1923; Ancestry.com

Mikhail Szerba (Михаил Щерба; Mike; Shcherba; Szcerba; Szerbo)

Born 1894, Szczerby, Russia (present-day Poland). Auto mechanic. Migrated to US 1915. Wife in Russia. Joined Branch No. 1 of the Union of Russian Workers in Baltimore in early 1919. Arrested during the first Palmer Raids, November 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/305; FBI file OG 366771

Parfem Tabenko (Парфем Табенко; aka Porify Silkuko; Proify Silnko)

Tabenko’s URW membership card

Born 1886, Russia. Miner. Migrated to US 1912. Organizer and “president” of the Union of Russian Workers branch at the Dakota Mine in Fairmont, West Virginia, formed 1919. Arrested December 1, 1919. Deported on the Buford. Subsequent activities unknown.

INS file 54709/606