Isaac Edward Ferguson
Isaac Edward "Ed" Ferguson (1888–1964) was a
Biography
Early years
Isaac Edward Ferguson, known to his friends as "Ed," was born November 23, 1888, in
After graduation Ferguson spent four years in the Western state of Wyoming, where he ran for county attorney as a Republican.[2]
Political career
Ferguson returned to Chicago in 1918[2] to take a position as a personal secretary to William Bross Lloyd, a millionaire heir to the Chicago Tribune fortune who was running for United States Senate on the ticket of the Socialist Party of America in the November 1918 election.[3] Ferguson himself joined the Socialist Party at this time.[1] Ferguson and Lloyd together felt an affinity for a revolutionary socialist political program and were instrumental in launching the Communist Propaganda League in Chicago — one of the first explicitly Bolshevik political organizations in the United States.[3]
Ferguson was early in casting his allegiance to the Left Wing Section of the Socialist Party when it emerged early in 1919 and was a delegate to the faction's National Conference of the Left Wing in New York City in June 1919.[1] That gathering elected Ferguson as National Secretary of the Left Wing, a position which he formally retained until the establishment of the Communist Party of America (CPA) early in September.[1]
Ferguson joined his co-thinker,
As a radical attorney, Ferguson did legal defense work in a number of high-profile political cases of the
The Ruthenberg-Ferguson case
Ferguson was arrested in New York City, headquarters city of the Communist Party along with CPA Executive Secretary C.E. Ruthenberg on December 1, 1919. The pair were charged with violation of a previously unused 1902 New York law prohibiting the advocacy of "Criminal Anarchism," which had been passed in the aftermath of the assassination of President William McKinley.[6] This law had made it a felony to advocate that "government should be overthrown by force or violence...or by any illegal means."[6]
Following a precedent set in a recent conviction of Irish radical James Larkin, it was alleged that through their membership on the National Council of the Left Wing, Ferguson and Ruthenberg had been responsible for the publication of an iteration of the Left Wing Manifesto, published in the official organ of the Left Wing Section, The Revolutionary Age, on July 5, 1919.[7]
The trial began in New York City on October 6, 1920, with Ferguson acting in the role of
Released on bail pending appeal, the case was eventually reversed by the New York Court of Appeals in July 1922.[1] It was the lack of proof of close ties between the two defendants and the publication of the Left Wing Manifesto that was the ultimate reason for the reversal.[8]
Legal career
Following his release from prison, Ferguson dropped out of direct political activity to concentrate on working as a lawyer full-time. Ferguson worked on the cases associated with the raided 1922 Bridgman Convention of the Communist Party and on criminal syndicalism cases in the state of Pennsylvania in 1924.[1]
Death and legacy
Ed Ferguson died in February 1964. He was 75 years old at the time of his death.
Footnotes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Solon DeLeon with Irma C. Hayssen and Grace Poole (eds.), The American Labor Who's Who. New York: Hanford Press, 1925; pg. 79.
- ^ a b c Marc Lendler, Gitlow v. New York: Every Idea an Incitement. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2012; pg. 62.
- ^ a b Draper, The Roots of American Communism, pg. 138.
- ^ Lendler, Gitlow v. New York, pg. 13.
- ^ Tim Davenport, "Delegates to the 1920 Founding Convention of the United Communist Party," Early American Marxism website, www.marxisthistory.org/
- ^ a b Lendler, Gitlow v. New York, pg. 1.
- ^ Louis C. Fraina (ed.), The Revolutionary Age, v. 2, no. 1 (July 5, 1919), pp. 6-9, 14-15. The complete run of The Revolutionary Age was published as an elephant folio book by Greenwood Reprint Corp., Westport, CT, in 1968 as part of their series "Radical Periodicals in the United States, 1890-1960." The publication was simultaneously released on microfilm by Greenwood.
- ^ Lendler, Gitlow v. New York, pg. 52.
Works
- "The Political Prisoners at Dannemora: Report of Their Attorney," The Communist (UCP), vol. 1, no. 6 (Circa August 1920), pg. 8.
- A Communist Trial: Extracts from the Testimony of C.E. Ruthenberg and Closing Address to the Jury by Isaac E. Ferguson. New York: National Defense Committee, n.d. [1920].
- U.S. Supreme Court Transcript of Record: Ruthenberg v. People of State of Michigan. (1926) Gale, 2011.
- Chicago Tribune June 28, 1906, page 9
- Chicago Tribune Sunday Tribune February 12, 1905