Born in Poland, textile worker Edith Berkman emigrated to Cleveland in 1921 where she soon became involved in the labor and Communist movements. She did not become a citizen. Organizing textile workers and writing for the Daily Worker, comrade Berkman was active in many strikes, becoming a field organizer for the National Textile Workers Union. In 1931, Berkman was arrested during a strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. There she was held for seven months as the federal government tried to deport her to Pilsudski’s Poland, and potential death. A mass campaign helped to win her release. Berkman’s daughter was the radical filmmaker Roz Payne.

‘Why I Am On Hunger Strike’ by Edith Berkman from Labor Defender. Vol. June, 1932.

(Since this article was written, thousands of workers urged Edith Berkman to abandon the hunger-strike which might have resulted fatally. She finally agreed–after 12 days–on the basis of preserving her strength in order to continue the fight when the working-class gains her release. Intensify the fight to free her and to halt the deportation terror!)

May 10, 1932. Massachusetts Memorial Hospital, Boston, Mass.

Today I enter the third day of my hunger strike.

I ask that this statement be printed in the press so that the working-people of Massachusetts and the U.S.A. may be correctly informed as to my condition and the reason for my hunger strike, so that they will bring their influence to bear upon the immigration authorities who are il legally holding me and also upon the U.S. Circuit Court whose decision in my case is being delayed; that my unconditional release be immediately effected. (ED.-The U.S. Circuit Court has since decided against Edith Berkman. The I.L.D. will fight the case to the Supreme Court.)

I was arrested in Lawrence, Mass., on February, 1931, because of my leadership of the textile strike against inhuman speed-up.

I was released on $5000 bail. In October, 1931 at the outbreak of the second Lawrence textile strike of which I was again an active participant, this bail was revoked on the ground that “bail is a privilege” and my continued activity in the labor movement was an “abuse of this privilege.” For no other reason than that, I was confined at the Immigration Station in Boston and held for deportation to Fascist Poland. It was there I contracted tuberculosis and was transferred to the Massachusetts Memorial Hospital where I am at this time.

Since October 9, I have been kept in the immigration station without bail. We appealed against this decision to a higher court but bail was denied. Bail was denied me because I was an organizer of the National Textile Workers Union, because our union has proved that it sincerely leads the workers in the struggle for better conditions. As Mr. Chase, the inspector sent by Doak himself to Lawrence, said when he took me to Boston, “Edith, if you were organizer of the United Textile Workers Union, you would be the best known girl in the country now. You would be much better liked than Anna Weinstock. She was a union organizer, too, but because she knew how to act, now she is a conciliator for the government itself.” I was arrested because the American Federation of Labor leaders sell strikes, and I was an organizer of the National Textile Workers Union, refused to be bought off.

For that crime I am to be deported. But there are technical grounds upon which the government cannot deport me, even though they wish to deport foreign-born workers they wish to deport foreign-born workers for taking part in the struggle for better conditions.

I left Poland in 1920, at the age of 18. I arrived in this country in January, 1921. After I left Poland, a treaty was signed between Poland and Russia, according to which any person who left Poland and did not apply for citizenship either to Russia or Poland was not given a passport to return. The Department of Labor, with Mr. Doak as secretary, had to release from the East Boston Immigration Station, Sivasky in 1930, and Shik in March, 1931, both Polish workers, because of this treaty. What holds good for these two should hold good for me, but the labor department is continuing to keep me in prison without bail.

I am being held illegally. The Polish law of 1921 demands that Polish emigrants who did not re-state their adherence to the Polish Government up to 1921 are excluded from all citizenship rights and are, therefore, non-deportable. I am in this non-deportable class.

Both Mrs. Tillinghast, Commissioner of Immigration in Massachusetts and Secretary of Labor Doak know this. Knowing this, they still refuse to release me. This illegal detention must be ended. Today a representative delegation is appearing before Secretary of Labor Doak in Washington, D.C. demanding that I be immediately released.

This morning a delegation went to see Mrs. Tillinghast and were refused admittance.

I have gone on my hunger strike knowing that it may still further undermine my health. I have taken this extreme measure to bring the urgency of my case before the people of the United States.

The principle involved in this case is the right of workers, native and foreign born to participate in organizing militant unions to fight for the betterment of their living conditions. Demand that this right be affirmed by the U.S. Circuit Court and my release be effected.

(signed) EDITH BERKMAN.

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/1932/v08n06-jun-1932-LD.pdf