TAFT-HARTLEY CASE FILE,, 1948 and 1954-1962

Summary: The largest number of documents in the James West Papers concern the arrest, trial, and sentence of West and seven others who were charged with conspiracy to violate the non-Communist affidavit section of the Labor Management Relations Act, known as the Taft-Hartley Act. While Mrs. Marie Reed Haug and Mr. Fred Haug were the focus of the trial since they were union leaders that were communists, James West and the others were charged with helping the Haugs to violate their non-Communist affidavits.

Legal documents present include the court docket, the indictment, motions by the attorneys, orders and memoranda of the court and similar documents. Many of these documents concern all of the defendants as a group or individual defendants other than West. Of course, papers dealing with West are also present. A lengthy petition to the Supreme Court is in its own folder. Notes about the case have been separated out into a folder. These notes often do not indicate who authored them or the date they were written. Selected portions of the court testimony and a photocopy of what appears to be a piece of evidence in the case are found in the folder "transcripts and evidence."

This series also contains a large amount of correspondence that relates to the trial. Included are letters to and from court officials, several attorneys involved in the case, attorneys who turned down participation in the case, other defendants, public officials, supporters, and prison officials. Union support was also reflected in support letters and union meeting resolutions. Rabbi Wolf was a supporter who was in personal contact with West and who also headed a letter writing campaign on the defendants' behalf.

A large collection of press clippings was saved by West. Many of these have been photocopied onto acid-free paper due to the fragile condition of the original clippings. They principally come from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Cleveland Press, and the Cleveland News, but clips from other papers are also present.

Some of the other materials need a description. The folder labeled "Legal reference material on the case" contains photocopies of pages from legal reference books such as the Federal Reporter in which the court case was covered~

The defendants and their supporters printed a number of newsletters to help generate support for their cause. They also produced several similar documents, most with the words "fact sheet" in the title, to express their case to the public. Both of these types of documents are in the "Newsletters, 'Fact Sheets' and statements" folder.

The Cleveland Taft-Hartley case was not the only case of its kind in the country at that time. Defendants in Smith Act cases and in other Taft-Hartley cases, as well as their supporters, sent information from their cases to those in Cleveland. Some of these materials are to be found in the "I~formation on Taft-Hartley and related laws" folder.

A note regarding the nature of some of the documents in this series: it appears that a number of the court documents and related papers were retyped versions of the actual documents. This may have been because of the level of document reproduction technology that was available to those involved at that time. There is no indication if the court secretaries, the attorneys' secretaries, or the defendants themselves retyped these documents. However, many lack signatures, seals and/or impressions usually used to indicate authenticity.