Antifa, 1938.

‘Union Guards Storm Silver Shirt Meetings–Fascists Thrashed in Youngstown and Chicago’ from Socialist Appeal. Vol. 2 No. 52. December 3, 1938. 

How shall we deal with the union-busting, anti-semitic fascist bands when they come into the open, here, in the United States?

That question is being asked with increasing anxiety and increasing frequency throughout the labor movement. The answer was forthcoming this week from Youngstown and Chicago.

With “Offense is the Best Defense” their motto, a company of union defense guards from Youngstown, Ohio stormed a meeting of Silver Shirts in Sharon–15 miles away–put a speedy end to the gathering and routed the fascist hoodlums.

The Silver Shirt meeting was scheduled for the Moose Hall with Roy Zachary, National Commander as the speaker. At 8 p.m., Moose lodge officers, previously uninformed as to the auspices of the meeting, cancelled the permit for the hall when they discovered who the sponsors were.

Union Guards Arrive

The meeting was transferred to the Carpenters Union Hall at the suggestion of a fascist who had wormed his way into the local. But just as the meeting opened, 10 carloads of union guards arrived from Youngstown, dashed up the stairs and stormed the meeting.

As the doors and windows were being battered down, several squads of cops rushed in to protect the Silver Shirts. The union guards circled the building and prepared to storm it from the rear. At this point, two officials of the Carpenters Union arrived and ordered the Silver Shirts out of the building.

Quaking, the Silver Shirts quickly stole out of the building and were escorted to their cars by the cops as the union pickets hurled their hatred at the local Hitlerites.

Cancel Newcastle Meeting

“Union members in this area,” writes one of the union guards to the Northwest Organizer, Minneapolis teamsters’ paper; “are determined that the Silver Shirts shall hold no meetings. The effectiveness of our quick action in the Sharon case is shown by the fact that the Silver Shirts called off a scheduled meeting in Newcastle, Pa., the following night. Definite steps are being taken to organize union defense squads after the pattern of the Minneapolis unions for the protection of the union movement against any attacks from the employers’ stooge vigilante organization, the Silver Shirts. Our motto is “Offense is the best defense!”

Chicago Fascists Drubbed

Meanwhile from Chicago comes the dispatch that a meeting of Silver Shirts addressed by the same rattlesnake, Roy Zachary, was smashed by a group of 100 ani-nazis, sending Zachary and some of his cohorts to the hospital for head treatment.

The Silver Shirts came through with whole hides only because several squads of police arrived and came to their defense. Several anti-fascists were held by the police after being “identified” by the Silver Shirts. None of the Silver Shirts were arrested.

The news item does not make clear the nature of this anti-fascist organization except to quote the police that about 1,000 young men had organized as “vigilantes” (!) to oppose the Silver Shirts and the German Bund in the Chicago area.

A Necessary Warning

The Chicago action did a service for the labor movement in its struggle against fascism, as did the alert measures of the Youngstown union guards. But it is important to warn that the Chicago organization, unless intimately connected with the trade unions run the risk of being exploited by open shop employers to break strikes and smash workers’ political meetings. Such connections are vital for the integrity of anti-fascist action.

Chicago and Youngstown point the way. Only in this way can the fascist virus be extirpated. Labor can rely only on itself in this necessary work. The courts and the cops and the law give protection to the fascists and give them breeding places in which to spawn. While Norman Thomas wrings his hands “deploring” such direct action, as he did over the Town-Hall-of-the Air last Sunday night, the workers are beginning to build their defense guards. Full speed ahead!

There have been a number of periodicals named Socialist Appeal in our history, this Socialist Appeal was edited in New York City by the “Left Wing Branches of the Socialist Party”. After the Workers Party (International Left Opposition) entered the Socialist Party in 1936, the Trotskyists did not have an independent publication. However, Albert Goldman began publishing a monthly Socialist Appeal in Chicago in February 1935 before the bulk of Trotskyist entered the SP. When there, they began publishing Socialist Appeal in August 1937 as the weekly paper of the “Left Wing Branches of the Socialist Party” but in reality edited by Cannon and other leaders. Goldman’s Chicago Socialist Appeal would fold into the New York paper and this Socialist Appeal would replace New Militant as the main voice of Fourth Internationalist in the US. After the expulsion of the Trotskyists from the the Socialist Party, Socialist Appeal became the weekly organ of the newly constituted Socialist Workers Party in early 1938. Edited by James Cannon and Max Shachtman, Felix Morrow, and Albert Goldman. In 1941 Socialist Appeal became The Militant again.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/socialist-appeal-1938/v2n52-dec-03-1938-SA.pdf