Daniel Boone Schirmer

Released
Full name:Daniel Schirmer
Date of birth:22. 02. 1915
Date of death:21. 04. 2006
Age:91† Deceased
Gender:Male
Race:White
Era:1950s
State:Massachusetts
Support
Communism Anti-Imperialism Communist Party USA
No image available

Biography

Daniel Boone Schirmer was a Harvard-educated Massachusetts Communist Party leader who became one of the "Bay State Reds" prosecuted under the Smith Act. In 1949 and 1951 he had represented the CPUSA in challenges to Massachusetts loyalty-oath laws barring Communists from office. Facing Smith Act sedition charges, he lived underground for about four years before voluntarily surrendering in October 1955; the prosecution of the Massachusetts defendants dragged on until the case collapsed after the 1957 Yates decision. Later disillusioned with the Soviet Union but not with socialism, Schirmer returned to graduate school, earned a Ph.D. from Boston University in 1972, and became a New Left historian and anti-imperialist — best known for "Republic or Empire: American Resistance to the Philippine War" and a lifetime of Philippine solidarity work.

Case

Charges: Conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government, under the Smith Act.
Sentence: No conviction — arrested and prosecuted, but the Smith Act case was dismissed in 1957 without a trial verdict. Verdict as recorded: No — the charges were dismissed in 1957 after the U.S. Supreme Court's Yates v. United States decision; the defendants "won their case." Charges as recorded: Conspiracy to advocate the overthrow of the U.S. government, under the Smith Act — a McCarthy-era prosecution of Massachusetts Communist Party leaders (the "Bay State Reds") for their political beliefs and association, brought in 1956.
Convicted: No — charges dismissed

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