Conspiracy or Guilt by (tenuous) Association?

Federal Erasure of Individuality '42

I’ve never been a fan of the Mass Sedition proceedings, to put it mildly, but I never realized just how slimy and underhanded, partisan and sovietized, “our” government’s tactics were in bringing the charges about and attempting to make them stick. Of course, they never did stick, but “the process is the punishment” seems the proper cliche, as it is with the J6 embarassment.

We just had a look at an 80-year-old man who was hounded to death by the investigation. Do you require an even uglier example? I think I’ve got one.

Frances L. Dusenberry was born in 1856, making her 86-years-old (!) when hauled before a Chicago grand jury in the summer of ‘42.

Miss Dusenberry had been at the head of a small publishing house and book shop for over half a century by that time. The Dusenberry line of books, many under the imprint of her mother’s maiden name “Purdy,” dealt with ideas and subjects considered quite progressive for the turn of the last century: Women’s rights, vegetarianism, anti-vivisection, racial egalitarianism. From early issues, the NAACP journal The Crisis carried Dusenberry’s advertisements.

Here is a very succint United Press wire story from the front page of a California newspaper which sets the general tone for how the public was introduced to Miss Dusenberry in 1942.

She must have done something awful, right? Why would the government have the right to request all of her records and who were the 32 individuals on their list other than Bund Leader Fritz Kuhn and Reverend Charles Coughlin? I have managed to piece together nearly all of the names from various press coverage, not having found the subpoena which was made public at the time.

There were a great many of the “usual suspects” along with more moderate voices, critics of local political machines mostly. Some of the names I’d never heard of and a bit of digging still provides little to no context or answers as to why they were included. It smells like yet another attempt to dirty the water and pollute public opinion of all named based on the reputation of some.

Here is another news item I want to digest.

First off, the lady was not a mere 65. She was half-past being an octogenarian, age 86! Maybe that fact would have drawn too much sympathy from the general public. Next, this item is one of few reports to admit that Purdy Publishing had been dissolved for two years, thus well before the US had gone to war.

How does the government, under any circumstance, have the right to subpoena records and personal correspondence, assuming these items were even kept, for a defunct and dissolved company which had not been previously indicted or come under scrutiny?

I don’t think they did have that authority, but would I fight it at the age of 86? Probably not. Miss Dusenberry, according to one account, showed up with boxes of records and a lawyer; was told on at least one ocassion that the jury wasn’t ready for her, come back tomorrow, and finally grilled for over two hours.

What kind of conspiracy could those records have proven? That 32 people carried on correspondence with the same elderly spinster book shop proprietor?

Presumably they were getting around to accusing her of trafficking in enemy propaganda, though the majority of those named were native-born Americans. Some were, to my knowledge, not writers or publishers, but some obviously were. It is possible that all those named were at least responsible for disseminating some dissident opinion, some criticism of the establishment or other, however small their effort, and that Miss Dusenberry had acted as a clearing house for these opinions. I really don’t know without access to the full report or grand jury interview transcripts.

What is obvious is that a very old woman with sympathy for some views which would not be considered far-right, was hauled in by the grand jury because she entertained some “ugly thought” from the perspective of the Soviet-sympathizing federal administration.

Here’s one of the few FBI citations I could find for her…

So, she carried some of Mrs. Dilling’s books as well as Pelley’s… allegedly.

Whatever the federal grand jury got out of her correspondence with these political dissidents, the public announcement of their efforts blackened her reputation in the nation’s press and she was harassed by journalists.

Practically the last press coverage regarding her Star Chamber interrogation was this sickening item, which was carried in dozens of papers nationwide…

“An alert photographer” went to a bookshop and took a picture of an elderly woman cowering behind a shelf. Stunning and brave! I have words to describe the bugmen journos of their day… and a few rare examples of photos of the photographers in action which really aren’t surprising.

Here is the last news item I could find regarding Miss Dusenberry’s case, and I think William J. Grace was probably spot on.

Also worth mentioning is that among the most complete press coverage of the incident was this report from the communist Daily Worker…