The death of the aged activist who used her wealth to support the revolutionary movement, including to bail out Communist leaders arrested in Bridgeman, Michigan.

‘Loyal Detroit Fighter—Friend of Workers Dies’ by Cyril Lambkin from the Daily Worker. Vol. 2 No. 96. July 10, 1924.

Frances Ellaire Dead After Accident

DETROIT, Mich., July 9. The Detroit movement mourns the loss of Comrade Frances Ellaire, who died last week from injuries sustained in an automobile accident.

A descendant of the original French settlers of Detroit, she inherited both their rugged constitution and their pioneering spirit. From the day, about a half century ago, when she scandalized the staid citizens of old Detroit by riding into town on horseback to listen to the first woman suffrage speech by Susan B. Anthony, to the day of her death, she participated in every forward movement.

Always For Oppressed.

The movements for the liberation of the oppressed particularly found a friend and supporter in Comrade Frances Ellaire. The Russian peasants and workers until they liberated themselves from the double yoke of Czarism and landlordism, the Hindoos suffering from the greed of British Imperialism, the Negroes in the United States, all received energetic moral as well as financial aid. But above all she was a close sympathizer and supporter of the revolutionary working class movement organizing for the complete overthrow of the capitalist system of oppression and exploitation.

Gave Generous Bonds.

Despite her 69 years, Comrade Frances Ellaire participated in all of the auxiliary work of our Party, which is so important to the movement. She worked tirelessly in the F.S.R., in the defense, in the general educational work carried on thru the workers’ Educational Association. In the campaign for raising bail for the Bridgeman defendants she gave herself $20,000.00 property bonds. But she was not satisfied with this alone. Only a few weeks before her death she expressed her intention to become a full fledged member of the Party.

The growing revolutionary movement of Detroit will forever cherish the memory of Comrade Frances Ellaire, who always was a tireless and devoted co-worker, never halted by obstacles nor discouraged by defeats.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1924/v02a-n095-jul-10-1924-DW-LOC.pdf