“The SWP presents a working-class alternative to the Democrats, Republicans, and all other capitalist parties,” Ressler said. “We are campaigning not only to explain to tens of thousands what my party stands and fights for, but also to oppose the demand by the state of Pennsylvania that candidates for public office sign a loyalty oath.”

The oath, based on a McCarthy-era law passed in 1951, has recently been re-incorporated into the papers that candidates must sign when filing nominating petitions to get on the ballot. Candidates must swear, “I am not a subversive person as defined in the ‘Pennsylvania Loyalty Act.’”

According to this law, a “subversive” is “any person who commits… advocates, abets, advises or teaches, by any means… the overthrow, destruction or alteration of the constitutional form of government of the United States or of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania… by force or violence, or who is knowingly a member of a subversive organization.”

Such laws have their origins in steps to clamp down on militant workers and the entire labor movement. The first of these programs started in the late 1930s at the direction of President Roosevelt, as Washington prepared to enter World War II. A commission on loyalty and security was established and the attorney general investigated groups to determine if they were fascist, communist, or otherwise “subversive.”

In March 1947, President Harry Truman promulgated Executive Order 9835, which established the Employee Loyalty Program for civilian employees in the government’s executive branch. A section of that order prohibited government employment of members of “subversive” groups. That provision led to what became known as the “Attorney General’s list” of proscribed organizations. Beginning in September 1948, the SWP was included on this list, along with the Communist Party and other groups. The list remained in use until 1974, when it was abolished.

In late spring and summer of 1947 Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act with huge bipartisan votes. Among other antilabor provisions, this legislation required union officers to sign an affidavit swearing they were not members of the Communist Party and did not support any organization advocating overthrow of the government by force or any other “unconstitutional” means. The main leaders of the two union federations at the time—the AFL and CIO—buckled under pressure to abide by these and other anti-union provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act.

Ressler pointed out to those he met campaigning on the streets of East Liberty that the Pennsylvania loyalty oath is not a throwback to the past. “The ruling class is trying to reverse most of the concessions on democratic rights it made to the labor movement in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of the Black struggle and the movement against the Vietnam War because it is getting ready to fight working people resisting the bosses’ assaults on our wages, benefits, and job conditions,” he said. “Workers need these rights to defend our interests, just as the ruling billionaires need to take them away to defend their interests. That’s why we are launching a public fight against the loyalty oath and may initiate a legal challenge to it as well.”

Ressler is replacing Brian Taylor, who the SWP had previously announced as its mayoral candidate. “This was necessary to meet all the requirements to get on the ballot, which will make it easier to fight the loyalty oath,” said Taylor, who is now campaign director here. Supporters of the socialist campaign will be petitioning the last two weeks of June to collect 2,000 signatures—double the city requirement—to place Ressler on the ballot, Taylor said.

While campaigning June 4, Ressler shook hands with shoppers on Penn Avenue and spoke with participants in a nearby peace vigil. “There was a lot of interest when we pointed out, using the Militant, how garment workers in Florida were exposing the profiteering of the bosses who sold faulty body armor to the U.S. military,” Ressler said.

Many people responded positively when Ressler explained that the SWP campaign supports workers’ struggles to organize unions and mobilize union power to resist the bosses’ assaults. “We also expose the drive by Washington and its allies to prevent the nations oppressed by imperialism from developing nuclear power and other sources of energy they need to expand electrification—a requirement for economic and social advances,” he said.

“And we are getting a hearing when we say we need to build a revolutionary movement that will lead a fight by working people and their allies to take power out of the hands of the billionaire ruling class, establish a workers and farmers government, and join the worldwide struggle for socialism,” Ressler noted.
 
 
Related articles:
Socialists in Seattle fight for election rights
Back challenge to loyalty oath  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home