Biography
Isaac Edward "Ed" Ferguson was a Canadian-born, Chicago-based attorney and a founding leader of the Communist Party of America in 1919, serving on its Central Executive Committee as International Secretary and party legal counsel. During the First Red Scare he was indicted in New York and, in October 1920, tried jointly with party leader C.E. Ruthenberg in the Supreme Court of New York County under the state's 1902 Criminal Anarchy statute for their role in publishing the "Left Wing Manifesto"; both were convicted on October 29, 1920, sentenced to five years, and Ferguson was imprisoned at Sing Sing. He was released on bond in April 1922, and the New York Court of Appeals reversed both convictions in July 1922 — a companion decision to the landmark Gitlow case — for lack of evidence linking the men to the Manifesto's publication. After his release Ferguson withdrew from radical politics and built a long career as a prominent Chicago attorney; he died in Chicago in 1964.
