Harry Renton Bridges 1901-1990

Harry Renton Bridges, a San Francisco labor leader and an Australian citizen who entered the United States in 1920, underwent two failed deportation attempts between 1938 and 1945 for his alleged affiliation with the Communist Party. This collection contains the official records and transcripts of both hearings.

Bridges was born in 1901 in Melbourne, Australia and settled in San Francisco in 1920 where he became an organizer of the longshoremen. As a labor organizer, he played an important role in the 1934 San Francisco strike. Two years later Bridges became the founding president of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU).

In 1938 the government instituted a deportation proceeding against Bridges pursuant to a law allowing deportation of individuals who are, at the time the proceeding is instituted and being prosecuted, members of or affiliated with an organization that advises, advocates, and teaches the overthrow by force and violence of the U.S. government. Bridges requested that the government name the organization and the government stated it was the Communist Party of the U.S. In December 1939 the Trial Examiner found that Bridges was neither a member of nor affiliated with the Communist Party and therefore could not be deported.

In 1940, in response to the failure to deport Bridges, the United States House of Representatives amended the law relating to the deportation of aliens to allow for deportation of those who were at the time they entered the U.S. or any time thereafter a member of or affiliated with an organization that advices, advocates, and teaches the overthrow by force and violence the U.S. government. The Attorney General then ordered the F.B.I. to investigate Bridges to see if there was cause under the amended law to reopen deportation proceedings. Bridges was again arrested in 1941.

The Presiding Inspector in the second deportation proceedings ordered deportation on the basis of finding that after entering the U.S. Bridges was a member of and affiliated with the Communist Party. The Immigration Appeals Board reversed. The Attorney General reviewed the case and ordered deportation. Bridges petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus but was denied by the District Court for the Northern District of CA. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. Bridges v. Wixon, 144 F.2d 927 (9th Cir. 1944). The Supreme Court reversed, 326 U.S. 135 (1945), on a 5-3 ruling that "affiliation" was improperly construed by the appellate court and that under a proper construction, Bridges had not been affiliated with the Communist Party at any time after entering the U.S.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Murphy wrote, "Seldom if ever in the history of this nation has there been such a concentrated and relentless crusade to deport an individual because he dared to exercise the freedom that belongs to him as a human being and that is guaranteed to him by the Constitution." The trials received national attention, thanks in large part to the Song for Bridges written and sung by Woody Guthrie, Lee Hays, Pete Seeger, and Millard Lampell.

Bridges became a U.S. citizen in 1945. Under Bridges' leadership the ILWU continued to grow in size and influence, and took an active stand against the Korean and Vietnam wars. Bridges passed away in 1990, and in 2001 the city of San Francisco honored Bridges by naming a plaza on the Embarcadero in his honor.

From the guide to the Deportation Hearing Transcripts and Records, 1939-1941, (Harvard Law School Library, Harvard University)