Three Portuguese-born anarchists, Antonio Da Costa, Antonio Ahrs Pereira, and Diamontino Teixeira, are deported back to the dictatorship for their role in organizing strikes in Fall River, Massachusetts.

‘Three Deportees’ from Labor Defender. Vol. 2 No. 1. January, 1927.

Boston, Mass. To the International Labor Defense. Dear Comrades:

Within next few days we will leave the shores of this “land of the Free”. We are being deported because we have “sinned” against the master class by exposing the exploitation and the slavery to which the poor Portuguese worker is subjected in the cotton mills of Fall River, Mass., and in other industries all over New England. Our “crime” is considered particularly “horrible” because we dared to expose the dirty work of the catholic church among the poor Portuguese workers and therefore the Portuguese catholic priest condemned us and jointly with other agents of the master class, he undertook our persecution and finally secured our deportation. The “holy agent” of the catholic church, the “guardian of the weak and the persecuted,” has nothing to say about the sufferings of our poor wives and babies, whom we are forced to leave here without bread, clothing and shelter…So, this is “Christianity.”

We will be deported on November 21. Before leaving this country and our starving families, we wish to extend our fraternal greetings to you, comrades, of the International Labor Defense and thru you to all poor and persecuted fellow workers. We express our deepest and most sincere gratitude to the International Labor Defense for the splendid work this wonderful organization has done in taking upon itself without conditions whatever and conducting our defense for nearly seven months. The expenses have been enormous and the work was hard. But you did not a stop and you have done all and everything humanly possible in our behalf. For this you deserve the lasting gratitude from us and from all workers. Your organization is the only true friend for all Portuguese workers and fully deserves the name of The Shield of the Working Class. We call upon all workers to join and support the great defense organization—the International Labor Defense.

With best wishes and kind regards, we remain,

Fraternally yours,

Antonio Da Costa, Antonio Ahrs Pereira. Diamontino Teixeira

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/1927/v02n01-jan-1927-LD.pdf