Whitney, Anita

WHITNEY, ANITA (1867-1955). In 1940, Anita Whitney was elected to the highest governing body of the Communist Party, USA, a tribute to her forty years of service to the organization. The source of her fame, however, dated to the 1920s when she was a defendant in a landmark case of criminal syndicalism.

Charlotte Anita Whitney, born in San Francisco to a prominent family of old Yankee stock, took up several reform causes before making a political home among radicals. Aspiring to a vocation in teaching, she enrolled in a teacher’s college in San Jose before transferring to Wellesley College, graduating in 1889. A trip to New York City piqued her interest in urban poverty and, like many of her former classmates, worked for a time in the College Settlement House in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Called back to California by her father’s death in 1901, she moved into charity work in Alameda County. She lobbied for the establishment of the juvenile court system and volunteered for a time as a probation officer. The grand mobilization for the victorious California woman suffrage referendum of 1911 opened a new door. Whitney worked as a national organizer for College Equal Suffrage League. A little later she served as vice president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and campaigned in Nevada and Oregon. Finally, in 1914 during the onset of the European war, she joined the Socialist Party of America. She did not put aside her dedication to the ballot, however, and chaired the militant Congressional Union of California. In 1919, Whitney split from Socialists to join the Communist Labor Party [CLP], the forerunner of the Communist Party, USA.

After speaking before the Oakland Civic Club on behalf of the CLP, advocating suffrage for Black Americans, she was arrested and charged with “criminal syndicalism.” Her membership in the CLP brought her into association with the Industrial Workers of the World, known for its advocacy of industrial unionism and syndicalism. For the next seven years she became the center of a campaign against the California Criminal Syndicalism law that made her party membership illegal. Found guilty, Whitney faced imprisonment at the San Quentin Penitentiary. After appeals and delays in the California judicial system, her defense team brought her case to the U.S. Supreme Court in July 1922. Meanwhile, the “Anita Whitney Committee,” which included many high-status women, sought a pardon. The California governor ultimately refused to grant executive clemency. Finally, in 1925, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld her conviction. In a concurring opinion, however, Justice Louis Brandeis ruled that the right of free speech could be restricted only in cases of “clear and present danger,” a landmark that would have repercussion into the McCarthy era of the 1950s. The new California governor, reviewing a case that had coursed nearly a decade, granted Whitney an unconditional pardon in 1927.

Once freed from these charges, Whitney helped form the San Francisco Labor School and became a standard bearer for the California Communist Party, running regularly in local elections and twice for the U.S. Senate. Given her own experiences, she found herself steadfastly active in International Labor Defense. She served as state chair of the Communist Party from 1936 to 1944. Whitney remained active well into her eighties, particularly in the area of civil rights, and enjoyed the status of living legend.

Bosmajian, Haig. Anita Whitney, Louis Brandeis, and the First Amendment. Cranbury, N.J.: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2010.

Richmond, Al. Native Daughter: The Story of Anita Whitney. San Francisco: Anita Whitney 75th Anniversary Committee, 1942.

Rubens, Lisa Rubens. "The Patrician Radical: Charlotte Anita Whitney." California History, vol. 65, no. 3 (Sept. 1986), pp. 158–171.