Talk:Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Fair use images

I asked about the fair use images used in this article and received the following reply: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_criteria&diff=473250033&oldid=473246772 from User talk:Geometry guy who is pretty much an authority. I think you should adjust your use of Fair use images accordingly. MathewTownsend (talk) 01:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I addressed the issues in the linked page:

- Removed image from InfoBox

- Removed image of Budenz

- Added detail to Fair use rationale for the picture of attorneys ( and corrected 6 to 5)

--Noleander (talk) 01:43, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Although I appreciate the compliment, I would discourage argument by authority: consider instead the quality of each edit, and the information provided. I made a couple of tweaks to the fair use rationales to indicate what I consider good rationales should look like. I have read a lot about fair use, and Wikipedia's approach (which goes beyond legal requirements), but I regard myself merely as competent in the area of images, not an expert, let alone an authority. Geometry guy 23:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

archive article talk

The page is set to automatically archive. To delete recent talk page discussion removes relevant concerns of other editors. Therefore, I've reinstated the very recent discussion on the article title which remains pertinent.

Per directions (see top of talk page), Mizabot will create an archive when it archives. It has not archived yet, as 90 days have not passed. Therefore, there isn't an archive yet. When material is removed with no archive, it is deleted. Talk page discussion should not be deleted. Just let Mizabot do its job! The time frame of 90 days before archiving is standard for the talk pages of articles.

Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 15:27, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

No material was deleted. It is in Talk:Foley Square trial/Archive 1. The bot was not automatically archiving: I just enabled the bot about 10 minutes ago. I did create an archive manually, which is permitted by WP policies, because I dont want the 2nd GA nomination discussion to get confused with the first GAN discussion within the Talk page. --Noleander (talk) 15:30, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I added a collapse instruction to the GAN #1 above, so that should help avoid confusion during #2. I hope that addresses your concerns. --Noleander (talk) 15:40, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. Recent concerns should be readily available, not "hidden". The bod archives every 90 days. Please just let the processes work automatically as they are set up. Hiding concerns voiced a few days ago is not right. The article title is still a concern and hiding that fact is not collaborative. MathewTownsend (talk) 15:58, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

It is unnecessary to hide recent reviews and concerns about the article

It is unnecessary to hide GA1, as a bot takes care of that, and hiding the GA1 in a box will only confuse things. Please just let the processes work. I know, having reviewed over 50 articles, that the other GA reviews should be easily accessible

Recent concerns should not be archived. Ninety days is the normal time limit, or even longer. New editors will come to the page and need to be able to read recent concerns of other editors. You archive material less then a week old that contain relevant, concerns. These should remain so that others can consider them.

Further, there is no archive link. I looked for one. You added one in your comment above but there's not one at the top of the article. Please let Mizabot do it's job according to normal procedure so proper archives will be created.

It is never ok to remove recent concerns (in this case five days old). And it is especially not ok when the article is undergoing review and other readers need to see recent concerns about the article. I think the concerns about the article title need to be addressed by others. Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 15:52, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

No problem, as long as it doesn't lead to confusion. --Noleander (talk) 16:09, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

It won't, as hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of articles have had multiple GA reviews, and it hasn't let to confusion previously. Screwing with the processes leads to confusion. The article history bot takes care of all. As much as possible should be visible and easily accessible. MathewTownsend (talk) 16:14, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Title of this article

Is this an agreed upon title for this trial in the references and other sources? In the one I looked in it was called the Foley Square Communist Trial. Other sources seem to use other names, like various Supreme Court case names, for the trial(s). In fact, it seems like there were several trials. Foley Square trial is referenced as the "main" article for many different articles on trials on wikipedia (going by "what links here". Could someone straighten me out? Thanks, MathewTownsend (talk) 18:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

That's a good question, thanks for taking an interest. I thought long and hard about the title. In fact, this is the second title for the article: I originally named it 1949 trial of Communist Party leaders. It should not be confused with Dennis v. United States, which is the subsequent SCOTUS appeal (and has its own article already). The sources do not have a single, standard shorthand name for the trial. I used Google, and found that "Foley Square trial" (or variations thereof) was the most commonly used name, by reliable sources, so I went with that. The only other name I could find was Smith Act trial, but that could be very confusing, because there are two trials called that: a 1941 trial, and the 1949 trial. This article is about the latter. I don't think there is yet an article on the 1941 Smith Act trial. --Noleander (talk) 19:07, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I had the same initial concern, but after Googling I concluded the article name is correct. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 23:48, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Unless Dennis was a consolidation of several appeals (and even possibly then), this should probably be merged with Dennis v. United States (there's so little content in that article that, at this point, it would be more like merging that article into this one). The de facto consensus (and this may even be written down somewhere) on Wikipedia is that article names for court cases should be the name of case, as docketed by the highest court to render a decision on the merits. I suppose in the unusual case there may be a need for daughter articles for lower court opinions or trials, but again, this is most readily imagined in the special case of consolidated actions. As for "Foley Square trial," there are probably been an uncountable number of trials in Foley Square, which is the site of both federal and state courthouses. Savidan 22:40, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

In general, mergers might be a good path, but sometimes the lower-court trial, and the attendant details, are so widely documented, that they merit their own article. The Dennis article is a SCOTUS case article, with the SCOTUS InfoBox, etc. That article, like hundreds of other SCOTUS articles, focuses on that one case. This article is on the 10-month long trial that was a publicity circus which made the cover of Time magazine and Life magazine, etc. The Scopes trial might be a good analogy. --Noleander (talk) 01:17, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The reason Scopes trial is not the best analogy is that Dennis is actually quite well-known as a Supreme Court decision (whereas the appellate decision in Scopes is not of much importance). Further, "Scopes trial" is a well-known and unambiguous moniker. Personally, I've heard of Dennis and I've heard of many trials in Foley Square; I had never heard this referred to as the Foley Square trial, and have some doubts that this is far and away the most important trial to ever occur in that location. So far, I think that both the trial and Supreme Court case can be covered in one article of reasonable length, and that doing so in a single article would be most useful to the reader. Savidan 08:51, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

If the 11 appeals were not consolidated, perhaps this article does not need to be merged. I would suggest clarifying the degree to which the appeals proceeded, whether separately or together. Savidan 09:20, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

The point about there being more than one trial at Foley Square is a good one. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 00:13, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree, as Savidan has pointed out. Some clarification is needed as to why this article is so named, and not others. MathewTownsend (talk) 01:39, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Trial of U.S. Communist leaders (1949)? Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 01:51, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

See "Google hit stats" section below in this Talk page. --Noleander (talk) 02:20, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I hadn't seen that. Seems to support my suggestion. Foley title may be too generic. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 02:25, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

If some reliable sources are using a specific, proper name for a topic, that is generally preferable to a descriptive name invented by WP editors. The primary source, Belknap, calls it the "Foley Square trial", as do many other sources. If you want, maybe you could prepare a 3x5 table listing the 3 candidate titles and measure each against the five criteria listed in WP:TITLE. --Noleander (talk) 02:37, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Foley Square trial/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: MathewTownsend (talk · contribs) 19:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

OK, I'll give this a try.

Opening comments

• U.S. - US is preferred

The WP:MOS says either is okay. See also MOS:ABBR. --Noleander (talk) 01:50, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• When there is more than one citation at the end of a sentence, they should be sequential, i.e. [1][2][3] and not [2][1][3] etc.

The editor has no control over the numbers: they are automatically generated.User Ettrig fixed this problem. Let me know if more needs to be done. --Noleander (talk) 12:35, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• The See also section is too long and needs to be integrated into the article. There are so many "Aftermath" events (or concurrent maybe), like the Hollywood Blacklist, House Un-American Activities Committee etc. How did you decide what to include?

See Also sections are discouraged when the article reaches FA status but they are acceptable for GA status. Do you have a specific one that you think should be added to this article for GA status? --Noleander (talk) 01:50, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Also, maybe the other article title was better (more descriptive).

The problem with the other title was that no sources used that name; yet quite a few sources use "Foley Square trial". It verges a bit on WP:OR to use the longer "1940 communist leader trial" name. --Noleander (talk) 01:50, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

MathewTownsend (talk) 19:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Additional comments

• I don't know whether you want to do this, but to integrate some of the "See also" links into the article, perhaps you could add more "Background" the First Red Scare and other indications of the history leading up to this point in time. (Just recently Dalton Trumbo was given screenwriter's credit for Roman Holiday, showing the long term effects of all of this.) This trial didn't come out of the blue and only recently are remedial actions being taken.

The FA criteria require an article to be "comprehensive" and suggest that any "See also" topic should be mentioned in the body. GA criteria, on the other hand, do not require that. Is there a particular "see also" topic that you think is essential (to be added to the body) to meet GA standards? --Noleander (talk) 01:57, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• "The trial ended up being the longest federal trial in history" - need to give time frame, as it might not be forever.

Fixed .. sentence now clarifies that it was the longest trial that had happened up until 1949. --Noleander (talk) 01:55, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

MathewTownsend (talk) 22:39, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

• If you are requesting a PR now, I think I will close the GAN. Too many changes are likely to result to make my effort worth it. MathewTownsend (talk) 00:28, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and suspend the PR request ... I only initiated it because it looked like it was going to be a long time until the GA got started. But, since you've been so kind to start the GA, it would be great if we finished it. Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 01:27, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Also, all the fair-use image issues raised on the Talk page have been addressed. --Noleander (talk) 02:00, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Lede

• I wonder about their use of a "labor defense" when actually it was an issue of free speech - First Amendment - the most important point IMO. ("labor defense" seems like a wacky defense to me.)

I added the "First amendment" connection into the 1st sentence of the lead, and also added "Freedom of speech" in other places. Regarding 1st amdmt vs labor defense: the sources mention first amendment only a little bit, and they make a big deal of the "labor defense" - probably because it is so provocative. The sources put "labor defense" in quotes, so it clearly was a term invented/publicized by the defense attorneys during the trial. So I think the article represents the sources' viewpoints. --Noleander (talk) 19:54, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• I don't know if you should use Cold War political jargon in the lede.

Changed "fervor gripping the nation" -> "then prevalent in the nation." Let me know if there is more jargon that can be made more encyclopedic. --Noleander (talk) 19:56, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• I think that it should be clear that Dennis v. United States was a free speech case and that two justices dissented (while one did not participate) and that it was ultimately overturned as a free speech issue

Good idea. The 6-2 vote is already in the article, but I added wording about free speech. The overturning wording is also improved. --Noleander (talk) 20:00, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Now that I am reading the rest of the article, I don't think the lede is representative. It gives one side of a complex issue.

Done. Are you thinking about the threats posed by communism? or the fact that the defense attorneys were obnoxious? Probably the latter. To fix that, I added "During the trial, the defense routinely antagonized the judge and prosecution, ..." to the lead. --Noleander (talk) 20:02, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

More comments

• Don't know how much you want to get into the legal history but apparently it was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and from there to the Supreme Court.

That is a good question. The article currently states "The trial resulted in a dozen appeals to the federal Court of Appeals, and five appeals to the Supreme Court.". What I did was pick the single most famous one of those 17 appeals, Dennis, and discussed it. I think at this point in the article's life, that is sufficient. Maybe next year it can grow and include more of the appeals? --Noleander (talk) 20:06, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• When it finished, the trial was the longest federal trial in history to date - to 1949? "to date" could mean to 2012.

Improved wording to "Although later trials surpassed it, in 1949 it was the longest federal trial in history." --Noleander (talk) 20:06, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• It's hard not to think that many of the arguments in the trial (Communists were less than 1% of the population, use of paid undercover agents, etc.) apply today to efforts against "terrorists".

Yes, that is a good point. I didn't see any of the sources discussing that, so it is not in the article. --Noleander (talk) 20:08, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Smith Act

• ". The US communist party membership in 1950 was around 32,000, or less than one tenth of one percent of the US population (it's membership peaked at around 75,000 during World War II, when the US was allied with the USSR)." - don't think the size of the Communist Party is worth saying much about. - it's really not the issue. It makes it sound like this is a valid argument, when it's not - it's a free speech issue.

The sources emphasize that point: I think what they are trying to say is that the Dept of Justice overreacted to the actual threat. Some sources say that the FBI/DoJ deliberately exaggerated the threat in order to get more funding. In other words, the sources are not talking about the constitutionality of the CP, instead they are addressing the motivation of the FBI/DoJ. --Noleander (talk) 20:08, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• "The Communist Party was never a serious threat to the US government." - this is out of place here. If you want to make retrospective statements, then put them in a section that looks at the long term effects. It is POV where it is, unless you can find some citations that show at the time that was known to be a fact.

Good point ... definitely POV. Following WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV I changed it to "According to historian Victor Navasky, the Communist Party was never a serious threat ..". --Noleander (talk) 20:11, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Pre-trial antagonsim

• "The defense challenged the jury selection process," - I believe this is the first mention of the jury and in the lede the impression is given that it was all the judge's decision.

That is a great question. The sources say that, at the end of the trial, the judge made a legal decision "that the Communist Party did pose a clear danger to the government" and he told the jury they were not able to decide that: he did. But the Jury did decide whether the defendants (a) endorsed the CP philosophies; and (b) conspired together. Let me know if you want that kind of detail added somewhere. The lead says "The judge was openly biased against the defendants, and the jury found all 11 defendants guilty." which is a good synopsis. Can you suggest an improvement? --Noleander (talk) 20:15, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

See also

• Should not link to articles already linked in article or to disambiguation pages, (per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout} so I removed a couple.

Thanks for doing that ... I forgot to double check those. --Noleander (talk) 20:15, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Organization

• I believe some reorganization would be helpful.

• Background

• Smith act
• Undercover informants
• Indictments

• But then under "Trial" is

• Pre-trial antagonism (shouldn't that be in section above?

• Then all of these are under "Trial":

• Prosecution
• Defense
• Developments outside the courtroom
• Convictions and sentencing
• Out on bail
• Appeal to Supreme Court
• Prison time

• Aftermath

• Rise of McCarthyism
• Trials of second-tier officials - is this a common term and why is it a equal heading to "Rise of McCarthyism" and not under it?
• Impact on Communist Party
• Decline of McCarthyism

• "Second tier"

Yes, all the sources use the words "second tier" or "second string" to describe the cases that followed in 1951-1955. I think that term "second tier" must have been widely used during the 1950s, because all the sources use it. In the article, the phrase is in quotes, so the reader should grasp that: "These post-1950 defendants were called "second string" or "second tier" defendants..." --Noleander (talk) 20:34, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Organization

Per above: I moved the Pre-Trial section up above the Trial section. --Noleander (talk) 20:20, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Shouldn't Yates v. United States be mentioned higher up, more directly related to the legal followup?

Hmmm. I'm not sure where it could go. It is mentioned already in the lead, and in the InfoBox. But Yates was not until 1957, and the article is laid-out chronologically, so it is in the correct section now. If you can identify a specific place to also mention it, let me know and I can work it in. --Noleander (talk) 20:36, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• I don't think Brown v. Board of Education is directly related to the issues in this article. After all, the Hollywood blacklist was at its height in 1956, two years after the Brown case. This case was not a civil liberties issue. It has nothing to do with desegregation.

You are correct. I reworded that to remove Brown and generalized what the source was saying. --Noleander (talk) 20:20, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• I feel that the organization hinders the focus on the article subject, diffuses it. The essential point is that this is a free speech issue that was clouded and undermined by the hysteria of the times. The bad behavior of the defense just played into the whole hysteria. This article, IMO, should clarify rather than muddy the issue. And not confuse it with civil liberties or desegregation, or other irrelevant issues.

Done. You are right. I think all those concerns have been addressed: Brown was removed; 1s amend is now mentioned in lead; "freedom of speech" is emphasize more. The article tries to capture the evolution of the "fighting words" exception to the 1st amendment, by describing Black's dissent in detail, and by elaborating on the "clear and present" test that Yates came up with (or restored). If you look at First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Speech_critical_of_the_government I think there is a good discussion of the 1st am issues you are talking about. Let me know if you think some of that material should be copied into this article, or just linked-to from this article. --Noleander (talk) 20:51, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

No. That is original research. You should be using sources that discuss the legal issues in a dispassionate way. Not piecing them together from other articles. Are any of your sources legal scholars? MathewTownsend (talk) 01:34, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I think all the sources are historians. I'm not aware of any legal scholars that have written on the trial, but I can look. Do you have any reason to believe that the sources used thus far are not reliable? Or have POV issues? --Noleander (talk) 01:38, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

• I don't know whether this was the reality, but the way this case is presented in this article, I can see why they lost. Surely they must have presented a better case than what is described here. It makes the defense sound wacky.

Yeah, the defense acted outrageously. The sources speculate that the defense was trying to provoke the judge into declaring a mistrial. The defense did write some memoirs, and they say they deliberately chose the "labor defense" to try to sway public opinion in their favor. --Noleander (talk) 20:21, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

• Where was the American Civil Liberties Union?

Good question. I've added some material about that from the Walker source: "The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was dominated by anti-communist leaders during the 1940's, and did not provide much support to persons indicted under the Smith Act. However, the ACLU did provide minor support to the Foley Square defendants by filing an amicus brief endorsing a motion for dismissal." --Noleander (talk) 20:31, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

MathewTownsend (talk) 19:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. I'm busy in RL right now, but I"ll take care of them later today. --Noleander (talk) 17:04, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

"labor defense"

• I guess what bothers me about the defense as presented is that it uses Communist Party jargon. - its like they weren't even trying to make a case but rather to propagandize.

• "The defense attorneys used a "labor defense" strategy, which attacked the trial as a capitalist venture that could never provide a fair outcome to proletarian defendants." - surely it was obvious that tack would never work. Did they even bring up the First Amendment? Someone must have, since it was an issue when the case went to the Supreme Court in Dennis v. United States. Just curious, as I know it's not your doing! But it's like they weren't serious about trying to get the men off. MathewTownsend (talk) 20:58, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The sources say that the defense first considered a simple, sober 1st amendment defense; but they concluded that - given the political climate - they did not stand a chance with that approach. Therefore, they chose a more outrageous approach, hoping to (1) propagandize for the CP; (2) maybe get a mistrial; and (3) turn public opinion in their favor. The defense attorneys were all left-leaning, and did not mind employing CP tactics, apparently. --Noleander (talk) 21:05, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Reply

• I think the following sentence is a red herring and ought to be removed, or minimized:
• "The US communist party membership in 1950 was around 32,000, or less than one tenth of one percent of the US population (it's membership peaked at around 75,000 during World War II, when the US was allied with the USSR)" - I think this is taken out of context. I looked it up on page 26 of the referenced book, and the author is speaking generally, and not relating it to the "threat" it posed but rather (as I read it) just the lack of success of the Communist Party for a variety of reasons.[1] Would it have made a difference if it were much larger or much smaller? "Terrorists" are surely much, much smaller a percentage, yet a much greater perceived threat.

The prior page in that source (page 25) describes how the small membership meant the CP was not in a position to inflict any damage to the US, so in that context, the page 26 material makes more sense. I'll see if I can clarify the article. --Noleander (talk) 01:09, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

But size has nothing to do with threat. e.g. "terrorists" today. Is that a neutral source?

The author of that source is Victor Saul Navasky. He appears to lean a little to the left, so that should certainly be taken into account. I'll look and see if other sources cover the size/threat issue and get a more balanced view of the matter. --Noleander (talk) 01:45, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

• Maybe a reference that relates the size of the membership to perceived threat. But for one thing, it wasn't the numbers as much as that several high profile persons were thought to be Communists. And some in the entertainment world admitted they were. e.g. Elia Kazan who was persecuted for "naming names".
• I'm looking through the rest of the article. I appreciate your cooperativeness! MathewTownsend (talk) 21:30, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Additional comments

• "The judge was biased against the defendants" - seems like a very broad statement, and to quote one jury member can be biased. This is not written in a NPOV manner.

You are correct. I'll try to find balancing sources, and/or attribute that POV (several sources say that "judge was biased"; on the other hand, other sources suggest he was a reasonable person). --Noleander (talk) 01:09, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

• Are your sources for this article neutral? Are they mostly sources that are looking at the trial from a political view point? I notice that someone recommended this article be merged with Dennis v. United States. Perhaps the correct tack would be to write this as a political happening and not write it as covering a particular trial from a legal point of view.

That is a good question. I don't think I've yet seen a source that takes the "other side" ... but I'll look again. In any case, the article certainly needs to be very neutral and not just repeat POV sources. --Noleander (talk) 01:09, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

• This article says "Junius Scales, who in the postwar anti-Communist fervor was the only American sent to prison for being a member of the Communist Party"[2]

That is technically correct: Scales was the only person convected under the "membership" clause of the smith act. All the other defendants were convicted under the conspiracy clause of the Smith Act. --Noleander (talk) 01:09, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

• "One technique the prosecution used to impugne defense witnesses was to ask them to identify other Party members" - how is this a technique to "impugne" the defense witnesses? - Isn't it a common technique used to this day? It's just asking people to name others who they think or know are involved. How is it devious?

It made the witnesses plead the fifth, which made them look like they had something to hide. Then the judge would threaten them with contempt in front of the jury. I think in the modern era, there is a rule that attorneys are not permitted to ask questions that they know the witness will plead the 5th on. --Noleander (talk) 01:09, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that's true. People plead the Fifth all the time. Where do you get the idea that people can't be asked questions? Nothing "makes" a witness plead the Fifth. The Fifth is an option they have if they choose not to answer questions. Please provide some sources for that statement.

MathewTownsend (talk) 01:21, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

The sources say that the prosecutors in the Foley Square trial deliberately used a strategy of asking the witnesses to "name names" so that the witnesses would be forced to plead the 5th, and made to look guilty. The article just repeats what the sources say. I'll check the sources and make sure the article reflects the sources accurately. --Noleander (talk) 01:24, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

That is POV. Show me a legal source that says witnesses can't be asked questions because they might be "made" to plead the Fifth. In other words, police techniques are against the law. And they clearly have not been found to be against the law, or in violation of any constitutional rights. The Fifth is a privileged provided by the Constitution that not all countries have. I think you are using sources that have a political agenda, and not legal sources who will look at the trial from a legal perspective. That's why I recommend that you not write it up as a trial. MathewTownsend (talk) 01:49, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Well, if you are convinced that the sources are POV, we should probably just close the GA reviews as "fail" for now, and go from there. I'll see if I can find sources that present alternative viewpoints. --Noleander (talk) 01:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Reply

• One of your sources (I think the same one you were using for size of the Communist Party), said the Party dwindled because the American public just wasn't interested and was put off by the Party's jargon and general way of going about things. So the defense uses the Party's jargon to gain public sympathy? It doesn't make sense.
• Maybe peer review will have a different view of this matter. I dropped a note on the Legal Project to take a look. I think if you wrote it up as a cultural/political event you would have more leeway as to the view you could take. But as a legal article, it doesn't work IMO. That doesn't mean it isn't an interesting article and shouldn't exist in some form—just not as a legal description of a trial. So please don't give up on it! Best wishes, MathewTownsend (talk) 02:22, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time for all the input you gave. I'll gather some more sources and see if I can introduce more balance. I think the sources definitely treat this trial as a cultural event not so much a legal event (that is why the available sources on the trial are apparently all historians, not legal scholars). So maybe I'll tilt the article away from the legal aspect, if possible. --Noleander (talk) 02:26, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional feedback. I'll address the issues soon. I've put a couple of comments in now; more later. --Noleander (talk) 01:09, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Comment

• It looks much improved! Let me read it through again. Can you do something with that link to the Fifth Amendment? I've fiddled with it but I don't know how to fix it:

• See also: First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution § Speech_critical_of_the_government

MathewTownsend (talk) 22:27, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I've improved that see also link so it now looks like this:

See also: First amendment issues related to speech critical of government

Let me know if it could be better. --Noleander (talk) 22:59, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I'll be away from the computer for a few days, so if you have any remaining issues, I can get to those when I get back. --Noleander (talk) 23:28, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

GA review-see WP:WIAGA for criteria (and here for what they are not)

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose: clear and concise, correct spelling and grammar:

   B. Complies with MoS for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

   • Title is questionable, as pointed out on the talk page, the "Foley Square trial" could refer to any of hundreds of trials held in the Foley Square Courthouse by District and Circuit Courts.

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Provides references to all sources:

   B. Provides in-line citations from reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

   • "According to Victor Navasky, the Communist Party was never a serious threat to the US government" - this may be true but it is taken out of context - the source does not relate the percentages of Communist Party members to actual threat to the country and there is no reliable source that relates this. (re: threat of "terrorists" today is not related to percentage of "terrorists" in the US population). Source is a journalist, not a historian or political scientist. In the source I could check, this was not supported. It certainly was not a main feature of the trial.
   • "According to Victor Navasky, one technique the prosecution used to impugne defense witnesses was to ask them to identify other Party members. Most witnesses refused to identify other members and were threatened by the judge with contempt of court." - too much emphasis on what this journalist thinks. Asking witnesses to identify others is a technique used by police departments, grand juries etc. today and is not considered a "impugne defense witnesses" by a majority of legal scholars or criminal justice experts.
   • Presents contradictory information: "FBI leader J. Edgar Hoover personally attacked lawyers that objected to informants or who counseled their clients to rely on the Fifth Amendment." - why would Hoover do this if using the Fifth was a technique to impugne?
   • "The second tier defendants also had a difficult time finding lawyers to represent them: all of the lawyers in the first case had been convicted for contempt of court." - many attorneys are convicted of contempt of court and it doesn't prevent them from representing other clients or even the client they were representing at the time.

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Main aspects are addressed:

   B. Remains focused:

   Does not remain focused on trial but wanders into speculation on whether the percentage of Communists in the US population was a "threat",

   Unclear what is meant by references to the Fifth Amendment being used to "impugne defense witnesses".

   Unclear what "Aftermath" section is trying to cover, as McCarthyism went on for a while after 1956.

4. Does it follow the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

   Question the reliability of some of the sources as they appear to conflict with factual information or are inaccurate.

   I question if some of the source information is used selectively.

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

• Suggest Peer review as the way to go. Potentially a good article but needs more eyes on it, IMO. Best wishes, MathewTownsend (talk) 23:56, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Comments

"the judge determined as a matter of law (the jury was not allowed to consider the question) that the Communist Party did pose a clear danger to the government" - true enough, but misleading. The judge did determine as a matter of law that he statute was constitutional, and under the existing Supreme Court cases that question was relevant to the First Amendment inquiry. That is not the same as the judge instructing the jury that they must assume that the Communist Party poses a clear danger. It would have been quite unusual indeed to give the question of the constitutionality of the statute to the jury. Savidan 09:09, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out that mistake. I found a better source (Belknap) and reworded it to: "On October 14, 1949, after the defense rested their case, the judge instructed the jury that they were not to decide whether or not the Party's policies presented a clear and present danger, but instead they should focus on the individual defendants and determine if the defendants had advocated Communist policy as a "rule or principle of action" with the intention of inciting overthrow by violence "as speedily as circumstances would permit"." Let me know if you think it could be improved further. --Noleander (talk) 15:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

"Prior to the decision, speech could only be outlawed if there was a "clear and present" danger of violence; but the Court's decision weakened that test to "grave and probable"" - this is not quite accurate either. The clear and present danger test, as we currently understand it, was not really established until Brandenburg v. Ohio. Holmes had used those words in Schenck v. United States, and there were various Holmes and Brandeis dissents, but that's about it. The doctrine was evolving, but only very slowly. Savidan 09:15, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for expressing concern about the accuracy ... I want the article to be balanced and accurate. The Belknap source (a law professor at Cal Western) is pretty clear that "clear and present danger" was the primary/default/baseline test when the Foley Square trial went before Learned Hand for appeal. The article Clear and present danger says "Following Schenck v. United States, "clear and present danger" became both a public metaphor for First Amendment speech[2][3] and a standard test in cases before the Court ...". I've found three other sources that say similar things. If you can supply a source that says otherwise, I'll be happy to amend the text. --Noleander (talk)

The wikipedia article you reference (remember wikipedia is not a reliable source!) says "Significantly unlike Abrams, the cases of Schenck, Frohwerk, and Debs had all produced unanimous decisions. Justice Brandeis soon began citing the "clear and present danger" test in his concurrences, but the new standard was not accepted by the full court until its official adoption in Brandenburg v. Ohio fifty years later." MathewTownsend (talk) 15:36, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I hear you, but the sources I have in front of me say otherwise. I'll incorporate another source if you can provide the text and page number. --Noleander (talk) 15:41, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

As long as your sources are legal scholars and not journalists. The problem with the article was the reliance on books by journalists and not constitutional scholars for legal interpretations. MathewTownsend (talk) 16:03, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

What do you think of the sources currently used? --Noleander (talk) 16:08, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

It is possible L. Hand thought it was the proper test (after all, his out-of-court influence had much to do with the rise of the test). Do a google scholar law articles search for "clear and present" danger or turn to that chapter of any First Amendment case book. While I have not seen exactly what Prof. Belknap says, what you are describing is far from the mainstream view. Savidan 15:21, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, all three sources (written by legal scholars) I looked at said that "clear and present danger" was a test that was recognized/applied/used/considered/invoked before Hands decision, and that Hand's decision (in this one case) changed/altered/deviated the test by introducing/using/employing "gravity" and "probability". I have absolutely zero opinion on the matter: I'm a simple scribe trying to capture what the sources say. It sounds like you have some sources on this topic: can you provide some text (and page number) from a source that gives another viewpoint? If you can do that, I'll be happy to incorporate it into the article. Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 16:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Savidan: Could you take a look at the current text in this article, to see if your concerns have been addressed. One issue was the jury instructions ("matter of law" etc); the other was Hand's decision vis-a-vis "clear and present". I've triple-checked the scholarly legal sources, and I believe the current text in this article accurately reflects them. If you have a source(s) that present alternative viewpoints could you please provide a quote and page number, so I can augment the existing text in the article? Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 02:30, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Google hit stats on names for trial

Regarding the title of the article, some Google hit stats are:

• "Foley Square trial" - 145 on Web (133 in Books)
• "Smith act trial" Dennis 1949 - 146 on Web ( 43 Books)
• trial 1949 communist leaders party dennis - 493 Web ( 364 books)
• "Smith act trial of 1949" - 10 on Web ( 7 in Books)

The above stats are actual sites (not the initial guess visible on the first Google results page). The title "Smith Act trial" by itself is too ambiguous, because there are 4 or 5 trials called that (including a 1941 trial and a 1943 trial) so the title "Smith Act trial of 1949" is probably the best way to disambiguate that. The WP:Lead guideline does permit "descriptive phrase" titles, such as 1949 trial of Communist leaders. So, the best three candidate titles are probably:

1. Foley Square trial
2. Smith Act trial of 1949
3. 1949 trial of Communist leaders (or some variation thereof)

The descriptive phrase, although it is permitted by WP:TITLE is a last resort: since the sources do use the other, more specific names, those specific names should be preferred, unless there is a compelling reason to avoid them. The major source is probably Belknap, and he calls it the "Foley square trial". I don't see too many sources that call it "the Smith Act trial" ... that phrase seems to be more used for the collective sense of "Smith act trials". In light of all that, it seems that Foley Square trial is slightly better than the others, but not by much. --Noleander (talk) 02:14, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Foley Square trial/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sp33dyphil (talk · contribs) 09:46, 22 February 2012 (UTC), igordebraga ≠ 01:29, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

The only issue I would potentially raise is the focus of the article. The content is all relevant and well sourced, but in reading it, some of the macro issues become potentially distracting. However, the article is not too long overall and none of the content is problematic in my opinion. Good job Noleander and MathewTownsend. —Zujine|talk 16:57, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Zujine: thanks for the feedback. Could you be a bit more specific? I'd like to improve the article, to address your concerns, but I'm not too sure what "the macro issues" refers to. Thanks! --Noleander (talk) 17:55, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

---

Second opinion

• I'd like to have somebody perform a quality check of my comments and see if I've missed anything. --Sp33dyphil ©^hat_ontributions 06:45, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Do you want a review of your review or a second review of the whole article? If the latter is there anything you want the second opinion to focus on? AIRcorn (talk) 03:24, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Aircorn: thanks for volunteering to offer a second opinion (I'm the GAN nominator). FYI: User:Sp33dyphil put a "semi retired" banner on their user page a couple of days ago, so I'm not sure if they will respond to your query soon. For what it's worth, my guess is that Sp33dyphil is asking for a review of the entire article, since they say "...and see if I've missed anything" which means looking for things they missed which could only be accomplished by looking at the parts of the article not mentioned in their comments. I have no objection to another review of the entire article. But that is just my guess. Maybe they'll respond here and clarify. --Noleander (talk) 14:06, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

---

• "Communist Party of the United States" --> "Communist Party USA" Official name, shorter, and removes the double occurrence of of in one sentence.

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• Could "The trial is sometimes referred to as the Smith Act trial of 1949." be moved to the start to keep the boldened phrases together?

Done - Moved that up to be the 2nd sentence. Let me know if you think the first 2 sentences should be merged: I like keeping the 1st sentence very direct & simple, so I'm avoiding that. --Noleander (talk) 14:52, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "all 11 eleven defendants"? Same with "12 Party members were indicted, only 11".

Done - --Noleander (talk) 14:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "Cold War" should be capitalised.

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "Communist Parties" Generic usage doesn't require capitalisation.

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• USSR or Soviet Union?

Done - went with USSR. --Noleander (talk) 14:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "president Roosevelt" The title should be capitalised as per WP:JOBTITLES.

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:38, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "demonstrations: The" No need to capitalise The

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "New York city" City should be capitalised.

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "the Communist Manifesto" --> "The Communist Manifesto"

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "New Republic" --> "The New Republic"

Done --Noleander (talk) 14:42, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

• "The first persons convicted" Why persons?

In that 1941 trial there were about a 18 SWP member that were convicted under the Smith Act, in a single trial. So "first person convicted" would be inaccurate. --Noleander (talk) 13:29, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "the Communist Party" It's becoming increasingly necessary to replace "the Party", "the US Communist Party" and "the Communist Party" with "CPUSA" to minimise confusion.

Done - Changed all to "CPUSA". --Noleander (talk) 13:29, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "when judge died" Missing article?

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:29, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Wikify "ally in World War II"?

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:33, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "Truman had become disturbed by the antagonistic behavior of the USSR, and abandoned President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policy of appeasing the former ally." It's either "Truman had become disturbed by the antagonistic behavior of the USSR, and thus abandoned President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policy of appeasing the former ally." or "Truman had become disturbed by the antagonistic behavior of the USSR, and had abandoned President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policy of appeasing the former ally."

Done - The "thus" wording seemed to capture the source's meaning better. --Noleander (talk) 13:33, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Communism, in its generic use, should not be capitalized.

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:33, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "information on Party members, with the goal of demonstrating the Party's subversive goals," --> "information on Party members to demonstrate the Party's subversive goals,"

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "29 June, 1945,"

Done - changed to " issued on June 29, 1945" --Noleander (talk) 13:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Could the first paragraph under "Prosecution" be split in three at "The interpretation of the texts was performed by witnesses..." and "Another important witness..."?

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Should "amicus" be italicised?

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:39, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Wikify "lynched in this country"

That phrase is within a quote. The MOS on Linking says "Items within quotations should not generally be linked; instead, consider placing the relevant links in the surrounding text or in the "See also" section of the article." Let me know if you think it should be linked or not, and I will.

• "During the course of the ten month trial, the Red Scare grew in intensity intensified across America."

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:46, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Should words right after ":" be capitalised

Done - Yes, that is the desired convention. --Noleander (talk) 13:46, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "the USSR detonated its first atomic bomb; and on October 1, 1949, the Communists in China prevailed in the Chinese Civil War and declared a communist state." --> "the USSR detonated its first atomic bomb; and on October 1, 1949, communists in China prevailed in the Chinese Civil War before declaring mainland China a communist state."

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:46, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "35 miles" Metric conversion?

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "which provided funding for the legal expenses" --> "which provided funded the legal expenses" Only change if the CRC provided 100% of funds.

The sources are not clear on how much of the Foley Square trial $$ was provided by the CRC. The bail funds were 100% paid for by the CRC, but the attorneys' fees appear to also have been paid for by other donors. So the sentence probably should continue to be worded to suggest that the CRC only paid for part of the legal fees. --Noleander (talk) 13:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• "of the Second World War" --> "of World War II" The former is decidedly British.

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:53, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• Be consistency about whether titles should be capitalised. Justice vs justice, etc.

Done - I capitalized Justice and President (when appearing immediately before a person's name); but not "judge". --Noleander (talk) 20:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• "Korean war" Proper noun...

Done --Noleander (talk) 20:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

• Travelled I hate these minor British vs American English differences. --Sp33dyphil ©^hat_ontributions

Done --Noleander (talk) 20:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

---

As Phil took a WikiBreak without finishing the review, I'll see if I can finish it. Read the lead and all after the points he raised, no issues so far! :) igordebraga ≠ 01:02, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

An excellent article overall, a few nitpicks so far:

• The "Communist Trial Ends with 11 Guilty" article appears four separate times as a reference - can it be condensed into just one? And all the instances really use the same page (31)? And you can split the aggregate refs (such as the added book page on Ref 40) into their own refs!

Done --Noleander (talk) 13:46, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• Maybe add a link to Kangaroo court when the term appears?

Done However MOS:QUOTE says "As much as possible, avoid linking from within quotes, which may clutter the quotation, violate the principle of leaving quotations unchanged, and mislead or confuse the reader." However since that term may not be familiar to non-US readers, I've made an exception and linked it. --Noleander (talk) 13:46, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• "Yates was a landmark case that refined the limits of freedom of speech: It held that contemplation of abstract, future violence may not be prohibited by law, but that urging others to act in violent ways may be outlawed." Can it be re-written in a single sentence, or in a way it doesn't need the colon?

Done - Changed to " Yates was a landmark case which held that contemplation of abstract, future violence may not be prohibited by law, but that urging others to act in violent ways may be outlawed." --Noleander (talk) 13:49, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

igordebraga ≠ 01:29, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Then I have no issues. I had not heard of this before the review, and learned a lot from the article, it deserves to pass! Congratulations on the good work!

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

igordebraga ≠ 17:34, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

"Clear and present danger" material, etc

Savidan: In the Talk page above here, you pointed out a couple of issues that needed resolution. I'm planning on nominating the article for FA status soon, and I want to make sure the issues are resolved to your satisfaction. The issues were (1) material about the jury instructions (".. as a matter of law.."); and (2) material about Hand's "grave and probable" vs "clear and present". After your comments, I re-read the sources and updated the material to address the concerns. If you have time, could you review the new material and see if there are any remaining issues? The material can be found in the article at: (a) jury instructions material; and (b) clear and present. Also, note that the Legal Appeals section has a prominent "see also" link to First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Speech_critical_of_the_government which is the article in WP that goes into detail about the relevant legal tests. Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 18:31, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Improvements to the article

Based on the great suggestions from editors, above, I've made a few improvements to the article:

• Re-scoped the article so it explicitly covers all the Smith Act trials of CPUSA leaders, not just the 1949 trial
• Added a hatnote at top of article disambiguating it from other similar Smith Act articles/topics
• Rename article to Smith Act trials of communist party leaders or a variant thereof (waiting a couple of more days on this, pending additional input)

These improvements should help resolve some of the issues raised above. One remaining issue is evaluating the relationship between this article and First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Speech_critical_of_the_government. The latter article (actually, just a section within an article) covers the constitutional issues of the Smith Act trials. More work needs to be done to see if/how any material can be shared between the articles. Note that this article currently has a "main" link to the 2nd article. --Noleander (talk) 21:27, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Based on a previous discussion on the constitutional issues (which seem complex and legalistic), I wonder if the article should try to address them here. This article is more sociological or political history rather than a legal article, though it uses a legal trial as a "take off". MathewTownsend (talk) 19:19, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

More on appeals needed

I received a talk page notice that the author intends to nominate this article for featured. Before I would be able to consider supporting this article for that status, I would want to see more detail on the appeals. Be specific. Don't just say "dozens." Be clear about which defendants appealed and which defendants didn't; which appeals were consolidated and which appeals weren't; what judges heard what appeals (in the Second Circuit); which went to the Supreme Court; what issues were litigated on appeal and how were they decided. Once we see the full picture on this, it will also be easier for others to judge whether separating the trial from the Supreme Court case is appropriate. Savidan 05:09, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for providing feedback. I've looked through the sources, and they don't give a lot of detail on the appeals (such as the names of specific defendants; nor any consolidation info); in fact, I cannot even find the names of any except for Hand's decision. Here is one representative quote from Arthur Sabin (professor at The John Marshall Law School): In calmer times: the Supreme Court and Red Monday, page 46:

"The Dennis [lower court] trial encompassed many thousands of pages of record and resulted in not one, but more than a dozen, appellate-level decisions, including at least five United States Supreme Court opinions These cases on appeal contained another important result, highly relevant to those times and since: the contempt proceedings initiated by Judge Medina against certain defendants and all of the defense lawyers [Sacher v. United States]."

The sources do explicitly mention three supreme court decisions that arose from the trial:

• Sacher v. United States
• Dennis v. United States
• Yates v. United States.

The Sacher Supreme Court case which arose from the Foley Square / 1949 Smith Act trial is covered in lots of sources in its own right (I gather it was the first case in which the Supreme Court definitively upheld the right of a federal judge to impose contempt of court punishments on attorneys ... but I have not researched that much).

The Dennis decision is the most famous of the Supreme Court cases.

The Yates v. United States decision is always discussed by the sources also. That is, the sources generally treat the 1949 Smith Act trial as the main event, which led to the follow-on trials of the "second tier" communist leaders, which also had multiple supreme court cases (!) including Yates v. United States.

Regarding the possibility of merging this article with Dennis v. United States: the sources always discuss this topic as an organic whole consisting of several events: the cold war, the lower court trial; the Dennis Supreme court case; the subsequent "second tier trials", and the Yates Supreme court case which essentially overturned Dennis ... each of which could have its own WP article. Singling out the Dennis article as the "main" article is not supported by the sources ... for instance, the Yates case is also mentioned by them with equal prominence.

The sources tend to fall into two categories, suggesting that WP should have two articles: (1) this article, which focuses on the cold war political/historical/cultural events (comparable to Hollywood ten or Alger Hiss); and (2) an article focusing on the legal aspects of free speech that is critical of government. Both articles would encompass multiple Supreme Court decisions. In fact, there is already a start on the second article, namely First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Speech_critical_of_the_government. That should be expanded into a full article in its own right, covering the legal details of Dennis v. United States, Yates v. United States, and the several other related cases. --Noleander (talk) 15:55, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

This issue you raise also relates to the "what title is best" RfC above. Specifically, the current title "Foley Square trial" is perhaps causing confusion because it leads readers to think the article is only about that one trial. But, in fact, the article is about several lower court trials (including the "second tier" trials). Perhaps one way to resolve both issues is to rename the article to a name that avoids that confusion. Maybe something like Smith Act trials of US Communists or similar. The plural would emphasize that there were about a dozen Smith Act trials against US communists from 1949 to 1953, and that they, collectively, resulted in several Supreme Court decisions. --Noleander (talk) 17:35, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

I'd support a change of titles along the lines you suggest. It would remove the problems of the article's focus that a title that seemingly refers to a specific trial presents. MathewTownsend (talk) 17:39, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I think that title solves all sorts of problems. I can't believe I didn't think of it before. --Noleander (talk) 17:41, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

It allows you to address the broad subject of the trials, aftermath etc. which your sources seem to do. The problem of focus prevented me from supporting the GA1. MathewTownsend (talk) 17:51, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

If your sources don't even mention all five Supreme Court opinions, you simply haven't consulted enough sources. You can start with the text of the five Supreme Court opinions themselves. Very likely, each of the five (not just Yates) has received substantial commentary and analysis from other sources. Given the time period, any appeal to the Second Circuit would have been published in the Federal Reporter, and thus also documented. These too will almost certainly have received some commentary and analysis, although probably less than the Supreme Court cases. As for a title along the lines of "Smith Act trials," this is not much better. That is like referring to the Gotti trial as the "RICO Act trial." This was not the only prosecution under the Smith Act to go to trial, not the only one to involve Communists. Savidan 06:13, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Ah, that explains a lot. The topic of this article is not "the supreme court case(s)", it is - based on what the sources discuss - "the cold war episodes involving the trial(s) of US communist leaders". That is how all of the sources treat it. The sources do mention the supreme court cases, but usually that accounts for 2% to 10% of their material. The article accurately represents the material (emphasis and proportion) that the sources discuss. As for reading the supreme court decisions themselves: I did read three of them, but the WP:Primary source and WP:Secondary source guidelines suggest that secondary sources are preferred as the basis for articles. Here are some of the sources I consulted:

Secondary sources utilized for the article

• Auerbach, Jerold S., Unequal Justice: Lawyers and Social Change in Modern America, Oxford University Press, 1977, ISBN 9780195021707
• Belknap, Michal R., Cold War Political Justice: the Smith Act, the Communist Party, and American civil liberties, Greenwood Press, 1977, ISBN 9780837196923
• Belknap, Michal R., "Foley Square Trial", in American political trials, (Michal Belknap, Ed.), Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994, ISBN 9780275944377
• Belknap, Michal R., "Cold War, Communism, and Free Speech", in Historic U.S. Court Cases: An Encyclopedia (Vol 2), (John W. Johnson, Ed.), Taylor & Francis, 2001, ISBN 9780415930192
• Martelle, Scott, The Fear Within: Spies, Commies, and American Democracy on Trial, Rutgers University Press, 2011, ISBN 9780813549385
• Morgan, Ted, Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth-Century America, Random House Digital, Inc., 2004, ISBN 9780812973020
• Navasky, Victor S., Naming Names, Macmillan, 2003, ISBN 9780809001835
• Redish, Martin H., The Logic of Persecution: Free Expression and the McCarthy Era, Stanford University Press, 2005, ISBN 9780804755931
• Sabin, Arthur J., In Calmer Times: the Supreme Court and Red Monday, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999, ISBN 9780812235074
• Starobin, Joseph R., American Communism in Crisis, 1943–1957, University of California Press, 1975, ISBN 9780520027961
• Walker, Samuel, In Defense of American Liberties: A History of the ACLU, Oxford University Press, 1990, ISBN 0195045394

Secondary sources, not yet utilized for the article

• Caute, David, The Great Fear: the Anti-Communist purge under Truman and Eisenhower, Simon and Schuster, 1978, ISBN 9780671226824
• McKiernan, John, "Socrates and the Smith Act: the Dennis prosecution and the trial of Socrates in 399 B.C.", Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review, Vol. 15 (Fall, 2005), pp 65–119
• Nathanson, Nathaniel, "The Communist trial and the clear-and-present-danger test", Harvard Law Review, Vol. 63, No. 7 (May, 1950), pp 1167–1175
• Schrecker, Ellen, Many are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America, Princeton University Press, 1999, ISBN 9780691048703
• Smith, Craig R., Silencing the Opposition: How the U.S. Government Suppressed Freedom of Expression During Major Crises, SUNY Press, 2011, ISBN 9781438435190
• Steinberg, Peter L., The Great "Red menace": United States Prosecution of American Communists, 1947–1952, Greenwood Press, 1984, ISBN 9780313230202
• Stone, Geoffrey R., Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism, W. W. Norton, 2004, ISBN 9780393058802

Selected works by Smith Act defendants

• Davis, Benjamin, Communist councilman from Harlem: autobiographical notes written in a federal penitentiary, International Publishers Co, 1991, ISBN 9780717806805
• Dennis, Eugene, Ideas They Cannot Jail, International Publishers, 1950
• Dennis, Eugene, Letters from prison, International Publishers, 1956
• Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley, et al., 13 Communists Speak to the Court, New Century Publishers, 1953
• Foster, William Z., History of the Communist Party of the United States, Greenwood Press, 1968, ISBN 9780837104232
• Gates, John, The Story of an American Communist, Nelson, 1958
• Green, Gil, Cold War Fugitive: a personal story of the McCarthy years, International Publishers, 1984, ISBN 9780717806157
• Healey, Dorothy; and Isserman, Maurice, California Red: A Life in the American Communist Party, University of Illinois Press, 1993, ISBN 9780252062780
• Lannon, Albert, Second String Red: The Life of Al Lannon, American Communist, Lexington Books, 1999, ISBN 9780739100028
• Nelson, Steve, Steve Nelson, American Radical, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992, ISBN 9780822954712
• Scales, Junius Irving, et al., Cause at Heart: A Former Communist Remembers, University of Georgia Press, 2005, ISBN 9780820327853
• Williamson, John, Dangerous Scot: the Life and Work of an American "Undesirable"., International Publishers, 1969
• Winston, Henry, Africa's Struggle for Freedom, the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R.: a selection of political analyses, New Outlook Publishers, 1972

Selected works by prosecution witnesses

• Budenz, Louis, This is My Story, McGraw-Hill, 1947
• Budenz, Louis, The Techniques of Communism, Henry Regnery, 1954, ISBN 0405099371
• Calomiris, Angela, Red Masquerade: Undercover for the F. B. I., Lippincott, 1950
• Philbrick, Herbert, I Led Three Lives: Citizen, 'Communist', Counterspy, Hamilton, 1952

As you can see, all there is a large amount of literature on these cold war trials. Could you help me understand your concern by answering some specific questions: (1) What secondary sources are you relying on to conclude that the current level of detail about the appeals is not sufficient? (2) Can you identify a secondary source on this topic that covers material not already in the sources listed above? (3) Have you read any of the sources listed above? (4) in the sources above, what percentage of the material is devoted to the supreme court cases? (5) Are you aware of any other WP article cluster about a very widely publicized lower court trial that resulted in multiple Supreme Court cases (so we can look at it as a possible model for this article)? (6) You write "this was not the only prosecution under the Smith Act to go to trial, not the only one to involve Communists" - however, the article does cover all Smith Act trials of the CPUSA ... what source makes you think otherwise? (7) You write that "Smith Act trials" is not a suitable title for the article because it is not precise: Yet Google Books has 17,000 hits for "Smith Act trials"; what trials are those authors referring to? (8) You write "Before I would be able to consider supporting this article for that status, I would want to see more detail on the appeals" - Assuming that the article was improved to meet that request, what title would you give the resultant article? Thanks in advance for answering the questions ... the answers will help me understand the concerns you have, and - ultimately - help improve the article. --Noleander (talk) 13:36, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

This article has shifted in scope from when I first saw it. When I first saw it, it included only the Foley Square trial. Now, it purports to cover the trials in all the Smith Act prosecutions where the defendants were communists. I think neither is sensible. I am not inclined to think that biting off trials, and ignoring appeals, is a sensible scope for an article to have. It would not fair to a defendant to write about the trial where a defendant was convicted without mention (or with only barebones mention) of the appeal that reversed the defendants conviction. It is no more appropriate to omit appeals that affirm. Beyond fairness, it does not comport with the basic demands of context and relevance in an encyclopedia. My view is that the appeals must be included, whether the scope is the single prosecution or all. My original comments were given under the assumption that the scope was the single prosecution. And I continue to think that the specific things I mentioned in my first post in this section are achievable. While I do not personally have time right now to find secondary sources for you, I am not inclined to believe that two Supreme Court cases entirely escaped the historical record. Nor do I think that any Wikipedia policy prevents you from citing to a published opinion itself in all instances. If the scope is the single trial, I think article should have a == heading for appeals (that includes mention of the appeals that did not reach the Supreme Court) and a === heading under that for each of the five Supreme Court cases. It need not be as exhuastive as an article solely about a case whose trial produced a single appeal would be; a substantial summary of each (with the things I mentioned earlier being the bare minimum) would do. The "speech critical of the government" section of the First Amendment article does not absolve this article of doing this. That section has both a broader and a narrower scope than what I am describing. That section is broader because it includes all cases relating to the legal concept of speech critical of the government, an issue which was not only litigated with respect to the Smith Act. That section is narrower because it does not mention all the issues raised on appeal, either from this trial, or from all Smith Act Trials. If the intended scope is to include all Smith Act prosecutions of communists, the coverage of those other than the Foley Square prosecution is so bare bones that it is hard for me to comment, but I would not think it sensible to completely separate trial and appeal for those either. If the mention of the trials other than the Foley Square trial is really so bare bones that you cannot expand beyond what is given here, then the addition of these two paragraphs does not change my view about how much coverage of the Foley appeals is appropriate for this article. If it is more substantial, it should be expanded, perhaps with an eye towards creating daughter articles, and the first logical candidate would be the Foley Square prosecution itself. The title is not as important to me as getting the scope right. I am happy to clarify my comments for you, within reason, but I am not interested in having page after page of debate in multiple forums, or submitting myself to cross-examination on the exact scope of my knowledge in this area. I think it is sufficient to appraise you of my concerns a single time. Savidan 21:47, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Noleander, I think the kind of sources you come up with is a function of how you search. The books load toward sociological/political interpretations of the events and not so much on the law. That's why I suggest that you not attempt a "legal" article which would not likely include autobiographies, for example. The sources are loaded toward a social/political view as we look back today and not toward a legal interpretation of how the law was affected. (By the way, there's a new biography on J. Edgar Hoover that says he wasn't interested in going after Communists, but was pressured by Harry Truman to do so. He was way more interested in the mob.) MathewTownsend (talk) 22:10, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Savidan: Thanks for the feedback. To recap: the key improvement you are suggesting is to add more material - even relying on primary sources if necessary - that gives more details about all the fed. appeals and supreme court cases that are related to the set of trials. And you want them in dedicated subsections: one for (all the) fed appeals, and one subsection each for each supreme court case. I can do that. I'll look again for more legal sources (as MT suggests), and add as much as I can. Thanks again. --Noleander (talk) 00:46, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I found the other two cases that Sabin was referring to: they are

• Scales v. United States 367 US 203 (1961)
• Noto v. United States 367 US 290 (1961)

I'll go ahead and add info about them into the article. Thanks for prompting me to search further! --Noleander (talk) 15:33, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

RfC: What is best title?

I"m planning on nominating this article for FA status, and I want to make sure it has the best title. Unfortunately, the sources do not uniformly use a single phrase for this major cold war event, so there are three several candidates:

1. Foley Square trial
2. Smith Act trial of 1949
3. 1949 trial of US Communist leaders (or some variation thereof)
4. Smith Act trials of US Communists (plural emphasizes inclusion of second-tier trials)
5. Cold War trials of US Communist party leaders

I'd appreciate it if other editors could glance through the sources, and evaluate those candidate titles against the criteria of WP:TITLE, and give an opinion. The WP:TITLE criteria are: Recognizability, Naturalness, Precision, Conciseness, and Consistency. This Talk page above has a brief discussion on the title here, but no conclusions were reached. Thanks in advance for any help. --Noleander (talk) 13:57, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - I have no strong feeling about which is best: all three are decent. I initially named the article Foley Square trial because that is what the Belknap source calls it. Some Google hit stats are:
  • "Foley Square trial" - 145 on Web (133 in Books)
  • "Smith act trial" Dennis 1949 - 146 on Web ( 43 Books)
  • trial 1949 communist leaders party dennis - 493 Web ( 364 books)
  • "Smith act trial of 1949" - 10 on Web ( 7 in Books)

The above stats are actual sites (not the initial guess visible on the first Google results page). 1949 trial of US Communist leaders ranks high on Recognizability criterion; but Foley Square trial is high on Conciseness. Smith Act trial of 1949 may be superior because that is more specific than "foley square" which is the location where the trial happened, but Smith Act trial of 1949 is not, verbatim, used by many sources. Note that The Smith Act trial probably should not be used as a title for this article because there were several Smith Act trials including a a trial in 1941 totally unrelated to this one. There is an entire book devoted to the event, titled The Fear Within: Spies, Commies, and American Democracy on Trial, but the book does not have a specific phrase it uses for the event. Belknap has an article devoted to the event, and he calls it "The Foley Square trial". The sources treat this as an important event in the Cold War, much like the Hollywood ten (redirects to Hollywood blacklist) or the Alger Hiss trial, unfortunately, the titles of those articles are not good models for this article's title. --Noleander (talk) 14:03, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Even the Scopes Trial had a formal name: The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes. What is the formal name of this one? MathewTownsend (talk) 14:36, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing up the Scopes trial ... that is a good model for this article. Unfortunately, tons of sources call it "the Scopes trial" so that is a slam dunk; but for the cold war event that is the subject of this article, the sources have not yet settled on a single moniker. I'm starting to think that 1949 trial of US Communist leaders is better, but I'd like to wait and see what other, uninvolved editors think. Hence the RfC. Regarding formal title: I believe the formal title was United States v. Foster et al, but I'm not 100% sure. The sources do not use the formal title ... in fact I'm not aware of any WP article named after the formal title of a lower-court trial (cf Roe v Wade which was a SCOTUS case). In any case, the sources do not use the formal case name when discussing this cold war event. --Noleander (talk) 14:42, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• Requests for input - I notified 8 or 9 random editors about this RfC, with the hopes of getting some input from a wide range of editors. I selected the random editors from the Law and History lists of the RfC Feedback Request Service. --Noleander (talk) 15:20, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• Responding to request for input: "The Foley Square trial" is concise, I agree. I prefer it. All titles should be redirected to the one decided upon. In that way, all those looking for the trial under the name they know it, will find the WP article. DonaldRichardSands (talk) 15:29, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Another response to request for input: Normally, I worship at the altar of WP:COMMONNAME, but that's not going to help us here. I think "Foley square trial" scores lots of points for conciseness. Have there other other high-profile trials under the Smith act, or high-profile trials in 1949? That might affect the specificity of the latter two options. "1949" might not be desirable in the title if events started before 1949 (and if effects in later years are an important part of the article). bobrayner (talk) 15:37, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

Regarding "other trials under Smith Act": Yes, there were two other notable trials under the Smith Act: one in 1941 (defendants SWP) and one in 1943 (defendants US Nazi party) ... see Smith Act trials. Regarding year "1949": The defendants were indicted in 1948, and the trial officially opened in late 1948 .. but there were 3 months of jury selection & other pre-trial stuff. So the trial itself went from January to October 1949. Appeals lasted another 2 years after that. --Noleander (talk) 15:58, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

• Responding to request for input: While I would normally push for using an official case name (such as United States v. Foster et al.), I concede that this article constitutes a special situation. I'm not completely comfortable with "Foley Square trial" because it's not unique (there were obviously other trials conducted in the same courthouse) and it's apparently used by only one source. "1949 trial of US Communist leaders" seems more specific, though I question whether anyone would ever think of looking up the article via this title. I would prefer something in any case that contains the year (such as "Foley Square trial of 1949", or "Smith Act trial of 1949"). — Richwales 03:42, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - I've added the candidate title Smith Act trials of US Communists based on the confusion indicated below in the "Appeals" section. The advantage of Smith Act trials of US Communists is that the plural indicates to the reader that several lower-court trials were involved (the main 1949 trial; plus a dozen "second tier" trials in 1951 to 1953); plus the several Supreme Court decisions that arose from those lower court trials. --Noleander (talk) 17:39, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
• Comment - I've added Cold War trials of US Communist party leaders based on discussion below. --Noleander (talk) 13:55, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

• Yet another response to request for input: Let's look at the tabled options above. #3 is not preferable because it somehow implies that all American communist leaders were tried in that same year. #4 may be a bit better, but as suggested above it makes no distinction to which trials of which US communists, and also gives no context about the time, the place or the background. The last one, #5, is too broad as the Cold War lasted several years and could refer to any incident during the McCarthy era, and the article refers mainly to 1949 and the subsequent trials that followed in the aftermath. I think either one of the first two are the best options, and would suggest either "1949 Foley Square trials" (to indicate the date, unless this happens to be the only trial ever taking place in relation to Foley Square) or "1949 Smith Act trials" (which gets more hits on Google, and puts the date prior to the event name). ~AH1 ^(discuss!) 18:33, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

AH1: Thanks for responding. Regarding your suggestions: the trials (there were about a dozen) lasted from 1949 to 1953. The first trial was, far and away, the most famous and heaviliy publicized (twice on the cover of Time magazine during the course of the 10 month trial). Only the first trial was in New York's Foley Square Courthouse, the others were in various cities around the country. The sources only use "Foley Square trial" to identify the 1949 trial. The sources often say "the Smith Act trials" or "the Smith Act trials of US communists" (the latter to distinguish from a few other Smith Act trials against, e.g. American Nazis). I agree that #5 "Cold War ..." is a bit too broad. --Noleander (talk) 19:15, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

• But Foley Square is a courthouse, and there were many trials there in 1949 having nothing to do with the Smith Act or communism. MathewTownsend (talk) 19:22, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - MT: Yes, I agree, and that point seems to rule out candidate #1. Based on the discussion below, a title that emphasizes the 1949 trial alone is causing too much confusion. That rules out candidates #1 #2 and #3:

1. Foley Square trial
2. Smith Act trial of 1949
3. 1949 trial of US Communist leaders (or some variation thereof)
4. Smith Act trials of US Communists (plural emphasizes inclusion of second-tier trials)
5. Cold War trials of US Communist party leaders

Likewise, AH's comments above, and the discussion below suggests that a broad title like #5 "Cold War trials" is inferior to #4, because #4 is more precise (plus, the sources use #4 more than #5). There are 17,000 hits in Google Books for "Smith Act trials"; 6,000 for "Smith act trials" communist leaders. By process of elimination, #4 is starting to look like the best choice. But I'll wait a couple more days to see if there is any more input before renaming the article. --Noleander (talk) 19:27, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - Based on the interim results above, I've moved the article to Smith Act trials of communist party leaders. If anyone has additional thoughts, or other ideas, please continue the conversation. --Noleander (talk) 19:11, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
• Belatedly weighing in in support of the move: In case what Noleander calls the "interim results" are disputed, I'll add that "Foley Square trials" is the worst choice. MathewTownsend isn't completely correct in saying that Foley Square is a courthouse; as noted in our Foley Square article, the area is actually the site of multiple courthouses, two of which (one federal, one state) have each seen many significant trials. As an attorney who's appeared in each of those courthouses, I find the phrase "Foley Square trials" to be like "the New York Times story" -- in some contexts, the meaning would be clear and this would be an acceptable shorthand, but not as the title of an article in a general-interest encyclopedia. JamesMLane t c 23:34, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

RfC on legal appeals material

Should this article include more material on the legal appeals (namely: the federal appeals, the supreme court cases, and associated constitutional issues)?

Background: this article has two sections already that deal with legal appeals: here and here. A user has suggested that more information should be added. User Noleander has looked for additional material, but cannot find any that is supported by the sources and is relevant to the Smith Act trials. Note that WP has a related article First Amendment to the United States Constitution which includes a section devoted to "Speech critical of the government", and that section already includes a discussion of the constitutional issues raised by the Smith Act trials. In addition, WP already has articles on three of the Supreme Court cases: Dennis v. United States, Yates v. United States, and Sacher v. United States. So this RfC should also address how these multiple articles should split-up the legal material. --Noleander (talk) 19:19, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - I have no objection to adding more material into the article about the legal appeals, but I'm having a hard time finding any. Another editor has suggested adding more (see discussion here), but has not yet provided any secondary sources to justify the inclusion. I've double checked all the reliable secondary sources, and I cannot find any additional non-trivial material to add. If some secondary sources are found (that relate to these Smith Act trials) I'd be happy to add the material into the article ... provided that this article does not infringe on the existing First Amendment to the United States Constitution article (or the 3 supreme court case articles listsed above). --Noleander (talk) 19:22, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

To follow on to what user MathewTownsend writes above: I concur that this article's focus is on the political/historical/social aspects of the trials, treating them as a Cold War/McCarthyism episode of US history; contrasted with the First Amendment to the United States Constitution article which is the home of the legalistic/constitutional material. Naturally, there should be a small amount of overlap, but not too much. --Noleander (talk) 19:27, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

• Comment: No need to try to squish in more info that may only be tangential to the article itself. Status quo looks fine. Lord Roem (talk) 21:30, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
• Comment - I agree with Lord Roem. I like the article the way it is. MathewTownsend (talk) 21:35, 19 March 2012 (UTC)
• Comment - without squishing, i think you could add some. Soosim (talk) 06:38, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree the article has room to add some more material; but the question is: what material? I cannot find any additional material in the secondary sources which discuss the Smith Act trials. Even if we were to find some more material on the constitutional First Amendment issues, that material should be added to the First Amendment to the United States Constitution article (see the section devoted to "Speech critical of the government"). This RfC is asking for new sources which contain new material related to the Smith Act trials. --Noleander (talk) 14:02, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

• Sample source - Here is a typical secondary source that discusses the legal aspects of Dennis & Yates. The book is Congress shall make no law: the First Amendment, unprotected expression, and the Supreme Court, by a professor at Univ of Virginia. The key points the author makes are (pp 7-8):
  • The court was "bitterly divided" during the Dennis decision
  • The Dennis decision was a "watershed" case
  • in Dennis, the "Vinson court reforumlated the clear and present danger test" and "rendered virtually futile further relilance on the test".
  • In Vinson's hand, the "clear and present danger test became a balancing technique for rationalizing restrictions on speech and press"
  • Hands decision: Hand "concluded that it [the C and P test] was no more than a balancing technique. But he also .. gave the test greater precision by adding that courts must consider 'whether the gravity of evil discounted by its improbability, jutifies such invasion of free speech as is necessary to avoid the danger'".
  • "The opinions in Dennis underscore the competing interpretative approaches toward the first amendment in the early and mid-twentieth century."
  • Yates: "By the time [Yates] appeal was granted in 1955 … Vinson and his three supporters in Dennis were off the bench. … Eisenhower had apppointed Earl Warren as chief justice". paraphrase: Reed, Jackson, and Minton had been replaced by Whittaker, Harlan, and Brennan.
  • "Harlan's opinion for the court in Yates abandoned the clear and present danger test and substituted instead an explicitly balancing approach on which First Amendment freedoms were weighted against society's right of self-preservation. He claimed that was the essence of Dennis in distinguishing between advocacy of abstract doctrines (which receive FA protection) and the advocacy of violence and unlawful action."

I have not yet used this source, but it does have a couple of tidbits that are not yet in this article (nor in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution article). I'll go ahead and add a few more factoids from this source, but this source is representative of the kind of depth & details the secondary sources go into on the legal appeals, so I don't think much more is going to be found. --Noleander (talk) 15:15, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I added new material, from the above source, into the article. I also submitted the article for another Peer Review, to get a fresh pair of eyes before the FA nomination. --Noleander (talk) 17:15, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

My verbose comments can be found on this same page. I do not intend to restate all my points within this section. Summary: I think the proper scope for an article about a case is the entire case, from complaint to final disposition. This includes appeals. I think the same for an article about a family of companion cases, although I am skeptical of the recent page move because this aren't doesn't include much about the non-Foley Square cases. Savidan 22:10, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Comment: Decisions handed down in appeals can be stated in one line. That is something that could be included with the case citation. Otherwise it seems counterproductive to turn it into a complete legal history.—Djathinkimacowboy 18:06, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

That's a good point. I think, as Savidan points out, it is appropriate to mention all the significant appeals cases, and even to briefly summarize them. The only reason to limit the detail in this article is if it starts overstepping and taking on the duty of the other articles which are specifically about the legal cases. Here are some other articles that do (or should) have the nitty-gritty legal detail:

• First Amendment to the United States Constitution (section devoted to "Speech critical of the government")
• Dennis v. United States
• Yates v. United States
• Noto v. United States
• Sacher v. United States
• Scales v. United States

I think this article is reaching a good state now, thanks to Savidan's prompting. A lot of detail on the appeals has been recently added, including specifically naming the cases. I'm still in the middle of adding material, so stay tuned. --Noleander (talk) 18:15, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

The other possibility that occurs to me is to create a new article of intermediate generality, about appellate treatment of prosecutions of Communists. It would fall between the articles about specific appeals (such as Dennis) and the overall First Amendment article. Such an artice would be a logical home for some of the points noted by Noleander from the Clear and Present Danger book. My inclination is that, without doing original research, there's probably not enough encyclopedic material to make such a new article appropriate; what we have can fit in either the articles about specific appeals or the First Amendment article. I don't agree with Djathinkimacowboy about confining the coverage in this article to one line, though. These trials are significant partly because they're part of the history of the CPUSA and the government's attacks on it, but also partly because they generated historically important appeals. JamesMLane t c 23:58, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

One easy way to implement that suggestion (of a new intermediate article) is simply to split-off the "Speech critical of government" section (into its own article) from the First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution article. The WP:CONTENT FORK and WP:SUMMARY STYLE guidelines cover that process. That "speech critical of government" topic is rather significant, and could stand on its own. I probably won't undertake that task myself, because I've got my hands full with this article, which is best viewed as a subarticle of the Communist Party USA article or the Smith Act article. --Noleander (talk) 01:22, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I made this point above, but I will repeat it because it appears to have been ignored: "speech critical of the government" is a legal issue that has been litigated in a far broader context than the Smith Act. To name a few others: Espionage Act of 1917, Sedition Act of 1918, the state criminal syndicalism statutes, etc. Thus, to claim that an article (or section) at that title would serve as a main article for the First Amendment implications of the Smith Act, or actually for the First Amendment issues decided in the Smith Act prosecutions of communists, is simply to true. Savidan 04:30, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree. But I don't see any comment above suggesting that "speech critical of the government" is 100% about the Smith Act ... but maybe I'm misreading JamesMLane's comment? This RfC is asking: Where in WP should the legal details about the Smith Act trials go? The First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution article is one of the (multiple) articles that already contains legal information about the Smith Act trials. And that article is missing some additional, detailed legal material regarding the Smith Act trials. --Noleander (talk) 13:00, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

More on other trials

If the intention is to keep the scope of this article as all the Smith Act trials of Communist party leaders, it needs considerable work for the non-Foley square trials. The infobox in the intro should probably be moved to the relevant section (and each trial might need its own such box, if boxes are to be used). Perhaps you could start by counting exactly how many trials there were. And then giving each its own == section. Perhaps collecting the bare minimum information about each trial: names of all the defendants; district in which the defendants were indicted and tried; name of the presiding judge; key dates (each indictment, each trial, each verdict); result at trial (conviction, acquittal, mistrial); result of appeal if any (e.g. affirmed, reversed for sufficiency, reversed for procedural issue and remanded for new trial, etc.). The Foley Square trial might justifiably get more coverage, but right now the others get questionably little coverage. Savidan 04:24, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I can look into that information, but - based on what I've seen so far - giving the other trials much more coverage would start to violate the WP:UNDUE policy. The sources tend to treat them as an afterthought, as in "here was this big 1949 trial (blah, blah, blah) and then there were these smaller trials". Yates is the only one of the dozen second-tier trials that is discussed to any degree. But I'll see what I can find. Thanks for the input. --Noleander (talk) 13:00, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I don't agree at all that giving such basic facts (classic who, what, when, where) can be "undue." Savidan 13:13, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you're right about the who/what/when/where ... if it is limited to that. I'll see if I can find that info. As far as I can tell there were about 150 defendants, but I have not yet seen a source that lists them all, or even lists more than a few. --Noleander (talk) 13:19, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I would say that it is probably unnecessary to mention every defendant. Most notable defendants should get some mention, but a lengthy list does not serve the reader well. And if the major references on the Smith Act trials does not see fit to mention every defendant, no reason we should. And if trials don't get a lot of play in sources, I see no problem with lumping them together.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:23, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Do you think the lengthy section on prison and deaths etc. of the defendants is necessary? MathewTownsend (talk) 21:44, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Status update: I've put all the information on the 2ndary trials that I can find in the secondary sources. I found the complete list of all the cities, and added that. I found the total count of all indictments and convictions, and added that. I found about 6 names of individuals, and added them. And, of course, there are the three Supreme Court cases: Yates, Noto, and Scales: those each have a dedicated section, with some good legal detail. I have not been able to find a complete list of all 144 defendants, but, as user Wehwalt says above, it may not be encyclopedic to list them all, because the sources treat them (except for the Yates case) rather superficially. If anyone can think of other information (that may be in the secondary sources) let me know and I'll add it. --Noleander (talk) 00:51, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Rosenbergs?

• I don't think the Rosenbergs were convicted under the Smith Act, but rather under the Espionage Act of 1917. MathewTownsend (talk) 17:29, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Are you talking about the recently added sentences which mention the Rosenberg trial? I just added that text in response to the Peer Review, where the reviewer suggested adding more material that would explain the anti-communist feelings in the US at the time of the events of the article. The new sentences read:

• "Subsequent high-profile hearings involving alleged communists included the 1950 conviction of Alger Hiss, the 1951 trial of the Rosenbergs, and the 1954 investigation of J. Robert Oppenheimer"
• "Also in these years, the US expanded the Radio Free Europe broadcasting system in an effort to promote Western political ideals in Eastern Europe. In March 1951, American communists Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of spying for the USSR. In 1952 the US exploded its first hydrogen bomb, and the USSR followed suit in 1953."

The context should indicate to the reader that the Rosenbergs were not defendants in the Smith Act trials that are the subject of the article. But if you think those sentences should be worded more clearly, let me know and I can re-word them (or, of course, you can edit it directly). Thanks for raising that issue. --Noleander (talk) 19:03, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Link to Peer review

• Wikipedia:Peer review/Smith Act trials of communist party leaders/archive1

Further review

At Noleander's request, I'll add a few comments here as an informal peer review:

• I made a few minor copyedits.
• In "Background", where you say "the US government passed the Smith Act in 1940", I think it's more typical to say "the US Congress passed the Smith Act in 1940" [Done --Noleander (talk) 15:13, 6 April 2012 (UTC)]
• In "Start of the trial" this sentence should probably be broken up: "The Smith Act trial was held in the Foley Square federal courthouse in New York City, and opened on November 1, 1948; preliminary proceedings and jury selection lasted until January 17, 1949; the defendants first appeared in court on March 7; and the trial concluded on October 14, 1949." [Done --Noleander (talk) 15:13, 6 April 2012 (UTC)]
• I'll try to read some more later tonight or this weekend. --Coemgenus (talk) 14:48, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks ... any help is appreciated. One special area that needs input from reviewers is assessing the amount of detail regarding the legal/constitutional aspects: Does the article need more detail? or less? If more: what sort of detail? Should the article push off more legal/constitutional information into related articles like Dennis v. United States, Yates v. United States, and First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Speech_critical_of_the_government? Or is the level of detail detail in this article appropriate? Thanks! --Noleander (talk) 15:08, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to take so long in returning here. I've just finished the article, and really can't find fault with it. A truly excellent work that I'll be glad to support at FAC. As to the legal issues, I think leaving them in is a good idea. The summaries aren't too long, and are important to the story. --Coemgenus (talk) 23:47, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the review and the edits you made to the article. --Noleander (talk) 12:31, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Add Bentley

Note to self: add sentence on Elizabeth Bentley (in 1945 stopped spying for USSR and gave info to FBI ... her info became public in 1948). Many sources, e.g. The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide, Athan G. Theoharis, page 27. --Noleander (talk) 13:34, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Background and associated image

The Source of the image Step by step greene.jpg, used in the "Background" section, is an image database maintained by the William and Anita Newman Library, Baruch College, CUNY.

The 2nd sentence of the Background section misrepresents the Red Scare of 1919-20 as indicative of fear of communists, a term rarely used in the US at that time. The most common targets were bolsheviks and anarchists. The fear was of revolution, not of everything else implied in the term communism. Note the illustration: labor radicalism leads inevitably to the overthrow of government and chaos, i.e, anarchy, not collectivism or statism. I'd make the same complaint of the image caption. The Red Scare's targets and concerns were far more generic (labor, immigration, foreign ideology) than communism. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 20:17, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the info ... I'll update the article & pic data accordingly. --Noleander (talk) 21:14, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

More detail needed for Venona material

AJCohn: The material regarding the Venona intercepts is good material ... but I think it needs to be integrated better into the article. Can you supply a few more details (here on the talk page) so I can work on integrating it? If you can just give me some raw quotes from the source(s), I can take it from there. For example, in the lead you put " The Truman administration also used intelligence gathered from its then secret Venona Project which intercepted and deciphered diplomatic cables from Moscow to its New York Embassy, to determine which members of the Communist Party’s leadership were acting intelligence assets for the Soviet Union" ... I've glanced at the Haynes source in Google Books, but I don't seen anything that directly says that. Ditto for the sentence "the government was made aware that high ranking US Communist Party members like Eugene Dennis, Earl Browder, Gus Hall and other Party functionaries were being covertly financed by the Soviet Union, or were acting as intelligence and espionage assets for the KGB." ... I believe that may be in the source, but I cannot find it. Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 16:30, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

... also, here are some specific Qs that should be addressed in this article (if the Haynes source discusses them):

1. Did the prosecutors of the Smith Act trials know about the Venona source/material? Or was Venona related to the trials only indirectly in the sense that Venona caused the original 1949 charges to get brought?
2. If Venona did play a role in the 1949 charges getting brought, who was the Venona-knowledgeable person who did that? Hoover?
3. The CPUSA defendants in the Smith Act had tons of connections to the Communist Party of the USSR, including receiving guidance and financial support ... that was well known even without the Venona material. What specific proof of espionage by any of the 12 defendants were included in the Venona materials? (Note that Browder was not a defendant). I.e. which of the 12 defendants, if any, did the Venona material explicitly show where engaged in espionage? Dennis? Foster? Any of the lower-level leaders?
4. There is an important distinction between a CPUSA leader (such as Dennis or Foster) having a relationship with the Communist Party of the USSR (such as merely communicating secretly, receiving financial assistance, etc) and the conclusion that they were "spying" or "conducting espionage". Do any secondary sources (such as Haynes) say that "CPUSA leader ABC was a spy" or anything similar? We'll need explicit quotes from the secondary sources before that kind of assertion can be included in the article.

Thanks in advance for any help. --Noleander (talk) 20:39, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

... also, on (4) above, I see the following material in the Venona article:

Some remain skeptical of both the substance and the prevailing interpretations made since the release of the VENONA material. Victor Navasky, editor and publisher of The Nation, has written several editorials highly critical of John Earl Haynes' and Harvey Klehr's interpretation of recent work on the subject of Soviet espionage. Navasky claims the VENONA material is being used to “distort … our understanding of the cold war” and that the files are potential “time bombs of misinformation”.[4] Commenting on the list of 349 Americans identified by VENONA, published in an appendix to Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, Navasky wrote, "The reader is left with the implication — unfair and unproven — that every name on the list was involved in espionage, and as a result, otherwise careful historians and mainstream journalists now routinely refer to VENONA as proof that many hundreds of Americans were part of the red spy network."[4] Navasky goes further in his defense of the listed people and has claimed that a great deal of the so-called espionage that went on was nothing more than “exchanges of information among people of good will” and that “most of these exchanges were innocent and were within the law”.[5]

can you shed any light on that? If the secondary sources are in dispute, that needs to be reflected in how the Venona material is presented in this article (e.g. the wording should be qualified as in "Venona may have ..." rather than 100% conclusive wording). --Noleander (talk) 21:00, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Here are some of the relevant passages I was refering to:

Information from the Venona decryptions underlay the policies of U.S. government officials in their approach to the issue of domestic communism. The investigations and prosecutions of American Communists undertaken by the federal government in the late 1940s and early 1950s were premised on an assumption that the CPUSA had assisted Soviet espionage. This view contributed to the Truman administration's executive order in 1947, reinforced in the early 1950s under the Eisenhower administration, that U.S. government employees be subjected to loyalty and security investigations. The understanding also lay behind the 1948 decision by Truman's attorney general to prosecute the leaders of the CPUSA under the sedition sections of the Smith Act. It was an explicit assumption behind congressional investigations of domestic communism in the late 1940s and 1950s, and it permeated public attitudes toward domestic communism. pg 22 Haynes & Khler

In late 1945 and in 1946, the White House had reacted with a mixture of indifference and skepticism to FBI reports indicating significant Soviet espionage activity in the United States. Truman administration officials even whitewashed evidence pointing to the theft of American classified documents in the 1945 Amerasia case (see chapter 6) because they did not wish to put at risk the continuation of the wartime Soviet-American alliance and wanted to avoid the political embarrassment of a security scandal. By early 1947, however, this indifference ended. The accumulation of information from defectors such as Elizabeth Bentley and Igor Gouzenko, along with the Venona decryptions, made senior Truman administration officials realize that reports of Soviet spying constituted more than FBI paranoia. No government could operate successfully if it ignored the challenge to its integrity that Stalin's espionage offensive represented. In addition, the White House sensed that there was sufficient substance to the emerging picture of a massive Soviet espionage campaign, one assisted by American Communists, that the Truman administration was vulnerable to Republican charges of having ignored a serious threat to American security. President Truman reversed course and in March 1947 issued a sweeping executive order establishing a comprehensive security vetting program for U.S. government employees. He also created the Central Intelligence Agency, a stronger and larger version of the OSS, which he had abolished just two years earlier. In 1948 the Truman administration followed up these acts by indicting the leaders of the CPUSA under the sedition sections of the 1940 Smith Act. While the Venona Project and the decrypted messages themselves remained secret, the substance of the messages with the names of scores of Americans who had assisted Soviet espionage circulated among American military and civilian security officials. From the security officials the information went to senior executive-branch political appointees and members of Congress. They, in turn, passed it on to journalists and commentators, who conveyed the alarming news to the general public. pg 14 Haynes & Khler

On the specific questions

1. The source isn’t specific enough as to whether the prosecution knew. It only states that Hoover, senior FBI officials and individuals in the DOJ (aside from FBI) knew of the contents of Venona. The source is clear the Venona was a deciding factor in prosecuting CP leaders.

2. Out of the 12, here are the individuals that were positively indentified through Venona: Eugene Dennis, John Gates, Jack Stachel, Robert G. Thompson,

3. There is a distinction between having a relationship and “having a relationship”, very true, but the “relationship” that the above mentioned had was directly tied to intelligence work. Who in particular would you have me elaborate on?

4. Not to sound pedantic, but saying Haynes’ and Khler’s work is in dispute because of Navasky, is like saying the NIST report on the WTC collapse is in dispute because of James H. Fetzer. H&K have a done remarkable job answering their (very few) critics, and many have ceded the debate on the particulars (Rosenbergs, White, Hiss, etcetera) and have gone to a broader criticism that these people didn’t stain the reputation of the Party. I personally don’t find 5000 words in The Nation Magazine (which employed its fair share of KGB spies) to be compelling enough to seriously challenge the thousands of pages and several books H&K (and various collaborators) have compiled on this subject. AJCohn (talk) 21:52, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the quotes. I was hoping for something more specific, like "In 1947 Hoover read the March Venona intercepts, and based on those he asked the DOJ to initiate charges against Dennis and Hall ..." or something like that. Based on the Haynes quotes you provided above, it sounds like the Hayne's source is a bit vague on the details of the chain leading from the intercepts to the trials. Based on the quotes above, this article could probably say something like "Members of the Truman administration, but not Truman himself, had access to Venona intercepts of USSR intelligence communications which indicated that several leaders of the CPUSA received funding and guidance from the USSR, and those communications contributed to the administration's decision to charge CPUSA officials". [temporary emphasis on "contributed" for Talk page purposes]. The quotes from Haynes you provide above do not support such specific statements as "which members of the Communist Party’s leadership were acting intelligence assets for the Soviet Union" or "the government was made aware that high ranking US Communist Party members like Eugene Dennis, Earl Browder, Gus Hall and other Party functionaries were being covertly financed by the Soviet Union, or were acting as intelligence and espionage assets for the KGB." [italics are specific assertions which need a quote from a secondary source]. Unless you can provide additional quotes for those two examples, we'll have to reword it to reflect the more indirect/vague wording that is present in the Haynes quotes you give above. Do you have any more quotes from Haynes that would help? --Noleander (talk) 01:49, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

The point of the excerpts was to demonstrate Venona's impact on the prosecution (generic) and not to the specific prosecutions of any individual. Did you want additional material on Dennis, Gates, etc? — Preceding unsigned comment added by AJCohn (talk • contribs) 13:17, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, can you supply any more quotes from 2ndary source: (a) quotes that show that the govmt specifically relied on the the Venona material to initiate the Smith Act indictments (preferably naming a date and govmt official involved); and (b) quotes that specifically state that the Venona material demonstrated that some (which?) of the 12 defendants were "agents" or "assets" or "carried out espionage". Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 13:32, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

AJC: Pending additional quotes from sources, I've modifed the text in the article to be consistent with the quotes provided above:

In addition to international events, the US government officials compiled domestic evidence of spying by the USSR within the United States. In 1945 a Soviet spy, Elizabeth Bentley, repudiated the USSR and gave the FBI a large list of Soviet agents in the United States. The FBI also had access to secret Soviet communications, available from the Venona decryption effort, which indicated significant efforts by Soviet agents to conduct espionage within the United States. The growing influence of communism around the world and the evidence of Soviet spies within the US motivated the Department of Justice – spearheaded by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – to initiate an investigation of communists within the United States.

I think that is a fair summary of the source material so far. We can modify it as more material becomes available (e.g. material that specifically says that Venona demonstrated that some of the defendants were spies; or says that Venona directly caused the DOJ to initiate indictments, etc). --Noleander (talk) 18:06, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Here's a very different source for the import of the Verona intercepts: Moynihan, Daniel (1999), Secrecy: The American Experience, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-08079-7;. I hope you don't get distracted from the trials by too much of this. Verona is background info and closely held. Not the sort of thing to be shared with prosecutors. Moynihan argues that if the contents of Verona had been more widely shared, the entire approach to "subversion" might have been different. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 13:42, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

NY Times citation

Searching the archives of the New York Times online, I cannot locate this article, which is now used at ref 48: cite news|title = Communist Drive in Industry Bared | work = The New York Times | first= Russell | last = Porter | page = 11 | date = April 29, 1949. That doesn't mean the article isn't there (necessarily), since sometimes there are indexing problems. But usually with persistence I can track down something like this, which should include the name Calomiris at least. But in this instance I can't, even though the citation includes author and title. Puzzling. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 13:32, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. That material is from the Martelle book, pp 148-149; and Martelle cites (in his footnotes) that NY Times article. I must have intended to write "NYTimes, cited by Martelle pp 148,149" but only managed the first half. I'll update this article's footnote to cite Martell per WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT. --Noleander (talk) 13:51, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Picketing

RE: "In response, the US House of Representatives passed a bill in August to outlaw protests near federal courthouses, but the Senate never voted on it.[26][33]"

The first citation is to Life magazine, where we read: "in August the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill outlawing pickets at federal trials. But the Senate had not acted on it by the trial's end."

The second citation is to Walker, where it says that "a bill to prohibit the picketing of federal courts was introduced in Congress", but nothing about a vote in either House or Senate.

So are we talking about "protests" (a general term) or picketing (a comparatively specific term)? New York Times articles describe pickets as the issue at the trial, e.g. here and as the object of the legislation here.

Do we know the Senate never voted on it or just that the Senate didn't vote on it before the end of the trial as Life's Oct 24 1949 issue says?

In 1950 the McCarran Internal Security Act (a sadly deficient wikipedia article) was passed over Truman's veto by votes of 286-48 and 57-10. According to the Times here report of the legislation's provisions (September 25, 1950), "Picketing of Federal Courts is made a felony."

Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 02:34, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I presumed the anti-picketing law was never passed, but maybe it was? The only sources I recall that touch on that are the two that you repeat above. I'll do some more research and see if I can get to the bottom of it. --Noleander (talk) 03:02, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if the 1949 law that passed the House was the Mundt–Ferguson Communist Registration Bill ... that article says that it did not pass the Senate; and then portions of it were later incorporated into the McCarran Internal Security Act. --Noleander (talk) 03:08, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

BMc: Do you have access to JSTOR? there is an article that may shed light on this: "The Internal Security Act of 1950", Columbia Law Review; Vol. 51, No. 5, Security and Civil Liberties (May, 1951), pp. 606-660; Published by: Columbia Law Review Association, Inc.; Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1119245. --Noleander (talk) 03:13, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

That article mentions picketing only in a note that says it will not cover the restrictions on picketing. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 10:51, 25 June 2012 (UTC)