The report below happening under the New Deal presidency of Roosevelt and his progressive Secretary of Labor, then charged with immigration, Francis Perkins, who created the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Sender Garlin travels to Ellis Island where he meets, among other politicals awaiting deportation, George Stalker. Picked up after organizing an inter-racial dance in Omaha, Stalker was charged with vagrancy and, separated from his U.S.-born wife and children, placed on a prison train for New York and deportation.

‘George Stalker, Omaha Communist, Deported to Scotland’ by Sender Garlin from The Daily Worker. Vol.10 No. 134. June 5, 1933.

Omaha–city of packing houses and railroad shops. With a population of 240,000, it has nearly 60,000 unemployed. Twenty-five thousand on the relief list getting $1.69 a week for a family of five, “which means 12 cents a meal.”

THE United States Department of Labor under Frances Perkins has tricked two American-born children out of their U.S. citizenship and made them British subjects, after ordering the deportation of their father, George Stalker, of Omaha to Scotland.

Stalker, section organizer of the Communist Party in Omaha, has lived in the United States for 28 years, his wife, Sue, has been here for 20 years and their three children, Margaret, 16; Florence, 13, and George, Jr., 8, were all born in the United States.

Passport Deception

In the passports handed to Sue Stalker on the eve before their departure on “Caledonia” Saturday morning, Margaret was listed as an American citizen, but the other two children were recorded as British subjects. This was revealed when Mrs. Stalker came to the Daily Worker office Friday night.

Stalker’s wife and children had been left in Omaha to drift for themselves following his arrest on a deportation warrant. When the final papers ordering his deportation were signed, no provision was made for his wife and three children.

“After George was ordered deported,” she told me, “no provision was made for me and the children. They weren’t interested in us at all. George went up to apply for relief and said he wanted the children taken care of before he went. We had not been on the relief. He told the officials he would raise hell if I was left alone with the children.”

Mayor Raises Fund

At all the demonstrations and protests against Stalker’s deportation, his wife said, “we had talked about the breaking up of the home through deportations. The mayor of Omaha, Metcalf, couldn’t stand this because we always brought his name in.” “Finally,” Mrs. Stalker reported, “the mayor decided to raise a $500 fund to pay the passage and expenses of myself and the children. He went to the patriotic organizations and the Chamber of Commerce and asked for contributions on the ground that he was getting rid of ‘them, Reds, the Stalkers.’

At Ellis Island

The day before the departure of the family, I visited Ellis Island and talked with George Stalker.

To get to the Island–under military rule since Edward Corsi became Commissioner of Immigration–you take the ferry at Battery Park. A uniformed guard was stationed at the ferry. I succeeded in passing inspection. The ferry boat was filled with relatives of deportees, for it was visiting day.

It is a short trip from the Battery. As the boat docks many of the passengers break out into a trot, for the visit is limited to less than a half hour, and they want to be first in line to get into the “reception room” on the second floor.

***

THE unwashed “reception room” looks like a Y.M.C.A. swimming pool with the water drawn out. The visitors sit on the hard, small benches as they wait for their husbands, fathers, brothers…Accompanied by uniformed guards and plainclothes inspectors, the deportees begin to swarm into the room. The women weep as they embrace them and then, clasping each other’s hands, they sit down on the benches. The talk is swift and eager, for in a few moments the guards will announce that they must leave.

I had come to see George Stalker, Communist.

A small, grey-haired man comes through the door and I recognize him from the description once given me by Mother Bloor who regularly visited the family on her frequent organizing trips among the farmers of Nebraska and Iowa. “They’re wonderful comrades,” the 70-year-old veteran labor agitator had told me.

Stalker is 46 years old and “has done practically everything.” He worked in the tire factories of Akron, Ohio, in the packing houses and coal yards of Sioux City, Iowa, for 10 years, and had a job in a steel mill in Pittsburgh. His first job way back in 1905 was in the Westinghouse Electric in that city. “From there I went to Ohio, and then to Sioux City. About a year and a half ago I came to Omaha,” he said.

A Prison Train

There were 250 workers on the deportation train which brought him to Ellis Island from Omaha, Stalker told me. Eight of them were Communists, in addition to himself. One was being sent to Scotland, one to Jugoslavia and one to Germany. The deportation train was rigged up like a jail, he reported. Bars covered the window, which in turn were covered with thick mesh. The men were held virtual prisoners, he said, and they were forbidden to go from one car to another.

There are at least 40 “politicals” at Ellis Island at the present time, Stalker said. Manuel Fernandez, one of the original Tampa prisoners, has been there awaiting deportation for the past six months after serving ten months in Florida jails. The excuse usually given by the officials for such detention is that there are passport difficulties. But, according to federal regulations which are conveniently ignored, no alien should be brought to Ellis Island until his passport and visas have been secured. Although the Florida Supreme Court has just reversed the Tampa frame-up verdict, the Dept. of Labor has shown no inclination to free Fernandez. The reversal of the higher court, incidentally, was made after four of the workers had served their terms, two had been driven insane and five deported.

***

A young Negro woman, with an infant in her arms, sat on a bench nearby, talking tearfully with her husband, John Williams.

Williams, 30 years old, and employed until his arrest as a cook, is awaiting deportation to the West Indies. He has been in the U.S. since 1924.

“How did you happen to be arrested?” I asked him.

“I was in a Scottsboro demonstration up in Harlem in April, and the cops picked me up.”

Williams was confident that he wouldn’t be deported after all because his case was “being investigated by the officials.” But his wife, eyes filled with tears, wasn’t so sure…

***

THE World-Herald of Omaha had their New York correspondent come down to Ellis Island to see him, Stalker told me.

“He wanted me to tell him how I felt about going, and tried to get me to denounce the people of the United States, and to say that I intended to incite the people of Scotland against the people of this country. I told him that our fight is against the capitalists of the United States and of the British Empire as well, and that I would try to build up the solidarity between the working people of Scotland and the working people of the United States.

“And, I told the guy, put in working people, and not just people, because it makes a hell of a lot of difference.”

***

I recognize some of the marine workers, 16 of whom were recently arrested and held for deportation following their refusal to be ejected from the Jane Street Y.M.C.A. One of them, a German seaman, is slated for deportation to Hamburg, in fascist Germany.

He is a blonde-haired giant, fiery in speech. “We had a strike here the other day–did you fellows hear about it on the outside? They tried to hand us some hamburger that stunk and we threw the damn stuff right back at them. We rapped on the tables with our tin cups and raised holy hell. We sent a protest signed by 157 of us to Washington, too and yesterday and today the eats have gotten a little better.”

An Ell’s Island “Dick”

I begin to take notes, and a plain-clothes guard ambles over to where we are. I nudge the German sailor and slip my notes into my pocket. But the gumshoe artist has apparently overheard part of the conversation, for he says, trying hard to smile, “Ellis Island is a real vacation for these guys–loafing and grub and all. Fact is, one of ’em kicked today, said he was getting too fat.” I, of course said, “They’re looking swell.”

“Yeah, but that ain’t what they’ll tell you,” he said belligerently, looking at the German seaman from Hamburg.

STALKER’S deportation grew out of after he had organized an inter-racial dance in March of last year. A few days after the affair, he was picked up on a charge of vagrancy, and later was held for deportation.

“They arrested him at the dance and tried to ‘vag’ him first,” his wife, Sue, had told me earlier. “George went down to bail out a Negro comrade who was arrested at the dance. When we got down there, Judge Nedle said, “You’re the bird that I’ve been looking for for a month. Is your wife in the courtroom? He knew I was and he called me over. He said ‘I am going to ‘vag’ both of you.” After the hearing, he let us out on $50 bond and in the meantime, while George and I were in the courtroom, they kidnapped my four children.

“They are only three now. One died six months ago of an appendicitis operation. It was really starvation. She didn’t have enough strength to pull through.

“We couldn’t afford to put a stone over her grave, but we just got a letter from the Omaha comrades which made us all happy. They write that they have put red stone markers with a hammer and sickle and red geraniums on the grave.

Jailed for Contempt

“Three days after they kidnapped the children, we got five carloads of comrades and went out to the orphanage and demanded the children. After this demonstration the children were given ice-cream. Next morning they were turned loose. The Omaha papers had carried headlines saying, REDS COME TO BOMB ORPHANAGE.”

Stalker was dragged into court on a “vagrancy” charge. Addressing Judge Nedle, a local judicial yegg, he had told him that “capitalism was collapsing, but that he was too stupid to see it.” Infuriated, the judge forgot about the vagrancy charge and sentenced Stalker to 30 days in jail on a charge of “contempt of court,” and Stalker served the full term.

Nedle gave the Negro worker arrested with Stalker 30 days on the “vagrancy” charge, but freed him after he had served 20 days.

“The judge, who was running for re-election, used this as a campaign issue,” Mrs. Stalker told me. “But he was defeated anyway. He would go to the Negroes of Omaha and say, ‘You see how good I am to the Negroes! I let this fellow out of jail. But for Christ’s sake, stay away from Stalker.”

NOT content with refusing to put the Stalker family on the relief list while they were starving with Stalker in jail, the Omaha “welfare” got in touch with the charity organizations of Karrimuir, Scotland, in an effort to intimidate Stalker’s aged parents.

“The authorities in Karrimuir,” Mrs. Stalker said, “sent up the chief of police of the town to intimidate George’s parents into making a statement that his son being a Communist, he didn’t want him to return home. Incidentally George’s brother, James, is head of the Independent Labor Party of Scotland, and George wrote him, saying, ‘You’d better have the I.L.P. inside the Communist Party before I come over.”

Stirring Farwell.

Proudly, the Stalkers told of the demonstration at the station when they left Omaha. “Of course, I don’t like leaving this way, for we were active in the movement and were making progress among the workers and farmers of Nebraska. From a personal viewpoint too, I hate to leave my mother, whom I haven’t seen for 14 years, and whom I’ll probably never see again. She lives in Western Pennsylvania. I have four sisters and two brothers. One brother is working in the steel mills and the other has a job in the lubricator works in Detroit. The husband of one of my sisters is also a steel worker and the other sister’s husband is a railroad worker,” Mrs. Stalker said.

It was in Pittsburgh that Stalker and his wife met about 18 years ago. “We always had ideas in common,” she said proudly.

“What am I going to do when I get to Scotland? I am going to get right into activities. We are Communists, and when we get over there, we will carry on. There is capitalism in Scotland just the same as here!”

IN leaving the main building of Ellis Island, I lost my way and strayed into a hallway used only by the higher officials. Hanging down from the molding of the wall, about 10 to 12 feet from the floor was a small sign. Although it was covered with the dust of 23 years, I managed to de- cipher the text:

“ORDER CONCERNING TREATMENT OF IMMIGRANTS

“Immigrants shall be treated with civility and kindness by everyone in Ellis Island. Neither harsh language nor rough handling will be tolerated. The Commissioner desires that any instance of disobedience of this order be brought to his attention.–May, 1910.”

Deportees at Ellis Island Greet ‘Daily’

One day following the visit of a Daily Worker representative to Ellis Island, the “Dally” received the following letter from a group of deportees arrested by Frances Perkins’ Department of Labor:

Ellis Island. New York

Dear Comrades,

We, the revolutionary workers at Ellis Island facing deportation, greet the Daily Worker and the I.L.D. We find that mass deportations have begun again. There are about 40 workers here being deported for their political activity to Germany. Italy, Greece, Jugo-Slavia and other countries.

Roosevelt’s fascist policy Is clearly shown by the renewed attacks upon the foreign-born workers throughout the United States. This explodes the false theory that Miss Perking would be more liberal than her predecessor, Doak.

We call upon all workers to fight against this wave of deportations, as this la no doubt part of the preparations for the coming Imperialist war.

We pledge ourselves to continue our revolutionary activity in the countries to which we are being deported.

With revolutionary greetings,

(Signed) Paul Mueller
Manuel Fernandez
Covert Schouten
James Marti
Concetto Ferrara
John Mavlomhajtz
George Stalker
John Bell
Francisco Perez
Bruno Catalani
G. Pera.

The Saturday Supplement, later changed to a Sunday Supplement, of the Daily Worker was a place for longer articles with debate, international focus, literature, and documents presented. 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/1933/v010-n134-NY-jun-05-1933-DW-LOC.pdf