Legal Advice from Donner, Kinoy, & Perlin to IWO re McCarran Act Registration
- Description:
- Regarding the petition by the U.S. Attorney General that the I.W.O. register as a "Communist Front" organization under the provisions of the McCarran Act. Donner, Kinoy, and Perlin advise that it is not necessary to register at this point in time since an adverse decision can be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. The firm also states "It is our legal opinion after a study of the legislation that the McCarran Act is in complete violation of the Constitution." (2)
- Date:
- 1953-05-13
- Copyright:
- 4 pages. Brochure designed to explain the history and purpose of the IWO in the face of its impending dissolution as a mutual aid fraternal order by the State of New York. Urges readers to support the interracial IWO on the eve of a case before the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether an insurance organization with strong fiscal reserves should be dissolved due to its political stances and be determined a fiscal "hazard." Notes the harm caused to policyholders, to civil liberties and labor. "The atmosphere of the Cold War with its loyalty oaths,subversive lists, attacks upon the labor movement, Taft-Hartley Law, political persecutions, trials and jail for unpopular or unorthodox political opinions, the McCarran Acts, deportations, all these contribute to a political climate in which the traditional safeguards of constitutional rights are attacked and undermined and the right of free association trampled upon. The IWO is a victim of a McCarthy-like attempt to make cheap political capital out of destruction of a law-abiding people's organization...The victims would be thousands of policyholders and their families threatened with loss of their lifelong insurance benefits-the elderly, infirm, and uninsurable men and women to whom IWO membership provided a measure of security.."
- Creator:
- Donner, Frank J. Kinoy, Arthur Perlin, Marshall, 1920-1998 Donner, Frank J.
- File Name:
- 5276b17f13_01
- Identifier:
- International Workers Order (IWO) Records #5276, Box , Folder
- Repository:
- Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives, Martin P. Catherwood Library, Cornell University