‘Antonio Fierro–First Victim of Organized American Fascism!’ by Louis Colman from Labor Defender. Vol. 9 No. 8. August, 1933.

Organized fascism, murderer of thousands of workers in Germany and Italy, rising in America has struck down its first victim–Anthony Fierro, 22-year-old anti-fascist student.

Brazenly protecting the fascist bands, organized by Art Smith of Philadelphia as the Khaki Shirts, the police of Long Island City, New York, turning loose the actual murderer, who wore the uniform of the organization, is seeking to legally murder Athos Terzani, also an anti-fascist, by framing him on charges of killing his comrades.

Almost simultaneously with the intensification of the Nazi terror in Germany against the workers, with application of the death penalty for all resistance to fascist domination, and at the same time that General Balbo, Mussolini’s military envoy to the United States, was accorded the highest honors by the American government, and had turned over to him the entire bourgeois press of the country, Art Smith’s Khaki Shirts of Philadelphia murdered Fierro–in New York. Quick action by the New York district of the I.L.D. has forced the release of Michael Palumbo, arrested with Terzani and framed on a charge of “felonious assault” after he had been held ten days while police sought to perfect their frame-up.

A united front committee is being set up in New York to save Terzani.

Terzani, Palumbo and Fierro, were among a number of anti-fascist workers who attended a meeting called by the Philadelphia Khaki Shirts to present their program to the workers of New York, at Long Island City.

“We have no connection with Mussolini,” one of the fascist speakers said.

Someone booed at the name. The Khaki Shirts advanced to the attack on the worker who dared boo the leader they disclaimed. Workers defended themselves. Khaki Shirts drew pistols. There was a shot, and Fierro lay dying.

At Art Smith’s direction, the police released all the Khaki Shirts. Terzani and Palumbo, anti-fascists, were held. In their custody police had a man identified by witnesses as the one who fired the shot. He was a Khaki Shirt.

Art Smith has boasted that a big proportion of the police of Philadelphia are members of his organization. It stands definitely for fascism in America, its members have marched armed in Philadelphia. In New York, the Philadelphia national officers arrived with batons in their San Brown belts, and all carried short whips.

In Philadelphia, the Smith Khaki Shirts have held armed demonstrations against the workers, and have attacked and tried to break up workers’ meetings.

The struggle against fascism in Germany and Italy must be linked with the struggle against fascism at home, and the murder and frame-up system, the lynch and legal-lynch system of oppression that joins hands with Art Smith’s fascist bands.

Labor Defender was published monthly from 1926 until 1937 by the International Labor Defense (ILD), a Workers Party of America, and later Communist Party-led, non-partisan defense organization founded by James Cannon and William Haywood while in Moscow, 1925 to support prisoners of the class war, victims of racism and imperialism, and the struggle against fascism. It included, poetry, letters from prisoners, and was heavily illustrated with photos, images, and cartoons. Labor Defender was the central organ of the Scottsboro and Sacco and Vanzetti defense campaigns. Editors included T. J. O’ Flaherty, Max Shactman, Karl Reeve, J. Louis Engdahl, William L. Patterson, Sasha Small, and Sender Garlin.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n08-aug-1933-lab-def.pdf