More on the Oehlerites! This comment deal with their involvement in the Odell Waller civil rights case, which seems to be almost forgotten today.
This is an extremely interesting issue of “Fighting
Worker”, the magazine of a small Marxist group based in Chicago, the
Revolutionary Workers League (RWL). The group was headed by Hugo Oehler and
existed from 1935 to circa 1950. Their politics were similar to Trotskyism, but
more sectarian than those of Trotsky´s American co-thinkers.
A large part of this issue, published in July 1942, is
devoted to the case of Odell Waller, a Black sharecropper in Virginia sentenced
to death for murdering his White landlord. His case gained national attention
(and notoriety). Waller´s lawyer Thomas Stone is described by “Fighting Worker”
as a “capable labor attorney”. According to other sources, he was actually a
member of the RWL. “Fighting Worker” admits that the original defense campaign
for Waller was almost single-handedly conducted by the RWL. They imply that
Stone was won to the RWL´s perspective during the defense campaign itself.
The RWL called on the much larger Workers Defense
League (WDL), dominated by the Socialist Party, to conduct a “class struggle”
defense campaign on Waller´s behalf. The WDL preferred a more traditional
campaign. They involved John Dewey, Pearl Buck, the NAACP and Eleanor Roosevelt
(sic). RWL´s main competitors on the revolutionary left, the Socialist Workers
Party and the Workers Party, also supported the WDL. However, Waller permitted
Stone to stay on as his attorney. In the end, the campaign to save the young
sharecropper was unsuccessful, and he was executed in the electric chair.
The RWL believed that Waller was innocent, and accused
the WDL of really regarding him as guilty and therefore working for a
“compromise” (perhaps life in prison). According to the RWL, the WDL and the
liberals entered the fray on purely “humanitarian” grounds, since Waller had
been sentenced to death by an all-White jury. Apparently, the WDL had accused
the RWL of sabotaging Waller´s defense by their “super-radicalism” and
“inefficiency”. The WDL also accused Stone of having made several legal
blunders during the trial, something the RWL hotly denied.
I admit that I never heard of Odell Waller before. For
some reason, his case has faded from memory, in contrast to, say, the
Scottsboro Boys or the frame up of Joe Hill. Thus, I don´t know whether the RWL
or the WDL had the best strategy to save Waller´s life (or whether it was even
possible to do so). Overall, however, the RWL do give a hopelessly sectarian
impression. “Fighting Worker” actually writes concerning the WDL: “They too are
*guilty*, guilty of aiding the real criminal CAPITALISM, to take the life of
the young Negro sharecropper Odell Waller”. They are? “Fighting Worker” further
claims that the WDL and their liberal allies merely used the Waller case to
line up workers in support of the American side in World War II! This inability
to see any difference between Waller´s executioners and the people protesting them,
is somewhat disturbing…
The RWL´s position on the war is made clear in another
article in this issue: no support to either the Axis or the Western Allies.
Hence, no support to the U.S. war against Japan. The RWL did defend the Soviet
Union (despite Stalinism) but argued that Western aid to the Soviets is
“counter-revolutionary” and that true defense of the Soviet Union can only come
from “the world revolutionary front against imperialism”. Things get seriously
out of hand when RWL´s magazine express support for “the revolt of the Burma
natives” (which was provoked by Japan) and “the antagonism and opposition of
the Arabs” (unspecified – do they mean Rashid Ali, King Farouk, the Grand Mufti
or what?).
The RWL did the right thing, of course, when they
protested Jim Crow, but somehow the rest of their politics don´t inspire much
confidence…
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