When the Assembly Expelled Socialists for Disloyalty

New York Times headline from Sept. 22, 1920 A front-page headline of The New York Times from Sept. 22, 1920, after the State Assembly expelled three Socialists.

ALBANY — Albany is no stranger to lawmakers who tread on the wrong side of the law, whether for official misconduct or personal transgressions.

The latest is Senator Hiram Monserrate, the Queens Democrat, who was recently found guilty of misdemeanor assault, but acquitted of more serious felony charges in a case in which he was accused of cutting his companion’s face with a glass.

On Wednesday, Democratic leaders in the Senate announced the formation of a special committee to determine whether Mr. Monserrate should be punished, or even expelled, as several of fellow lawmakers have called for.

But it turns out that expulsion is quite a rare event in Albany. In fact, as far as anyone can remember, the last time it happened was 90 years ago, during the anticommunist Red Scare. And it was quite a dramatic affair.

The lawmakers involved five assemblymen: August Claessens and Louis Waldman of Manhattan; Charles Solomon of Brooklyn; and Samuel Orr and Samuel A. DeWitt of the Bronx.

At the time, Republicans controlled the Assembly, headed by Speaker Thaddeus C. Sweet.

The grounds cited for expulsion were disloyalty to the United States and New York State, and their affiliation with the Socialist Party of America, a “disloyal organization composed exclusively of perpetual traitors” and intent on overthrowing the government by force and violence, according to a March 1920 report by the Assembly’s judiciary committee.

On a 7-to-6 vote, the committee found that “the right of the Assembly to exclude members is fundamental, inherent, and exclusive.”

A debate on the floor took almost 24 hours and ended on April 1, 1920, with all five members expelled. Speaker Sweet was congratulated with “scores of telegrams, some from persons of prominence in the political, financial, or industrial world,” according to the account in The Times.

Messrs. Waldman, Claessens and Solomon went down, 116 to 28, with members of both parties in both camps. Messrs. DeWitt and Orr were expelled, 104 to 40.

Messrs. Waldman and Solomon issued a statement accusing the Assembly itself of treason. “The Constitution has been lynched,” they said.

During debate two weeks later in the Senate, Senator George F. Thompson, Republican of Niagara, accused one Mark Daly, a lobbyist for upstate manufacturers, of procuring liquor for the debating Assembly members. He said some of them got so drunk during the debate that they had to be carried out.

“A great deal of liquor was on hand and was used for the purpose of getting votes over on the other side the night they threw the Socialists out,” Mr. Thompson charged. “Some even got so drunk that they had to be carried out of the Assembly chamber.”

All five men were re-elected in September 1920, in special elections called to fill their seats. By this time, the Socialist Party had repudiated key clauses of its party constitution, and Speaker Sweet told members that he believed that the Socialist lawmakers were therefore again eligible to serve.

Nonetheless, on Sept. 21, the Assembly voted again to expel Messrs. Waldman, Claessens and Solomon, this time by a vote of 90 to 45.

A motion to expel Messrs. Orr and DeWitt failed, 48 to 87. But the two men resigned in solidarity with their Socialist brethren, who had been denounced as “un-American.” Their resignation was met with cheers.

Messrs. Orr and Solomon ran again in November, and won their seats back. In the same election, Gov. Alfred E. Smith, a Democrat, lost his seat to a Republican challenger, Nathan L. Miller, who, evidently persuaded that persecuting the Socialists was hurting the Republican Party in the Bronx, pressured Assembly Republicans to leave them alone.

The new Republican speaker, H. Edmund Machold, agreed, and resolutions to expel Messrs. Orr and Solomon, and a new Socialist assemblyman, Henry Jager of Brooklyn, were defeated at the opening of session in January 1921. (Mr. Jager was later expelled amid accusations that he lived in New Jersey at the time of his election; his accusers also said he had made inflammatory comments against President Woodrow Wilson during World War I.)

A subsequent vote in April 1921 confirmed that Messrs. Solomon and Orr could keep their seats, bringing an end to a year of rancor and fear-mongering.

Correction: An earlier version of this post gave the incorrect date for an announcement by Democratic leaders in the State Senate of the formation of a special committee to determine whether Senator Hiram Monserrate should be punished. It was Wednesday, not Thursday.

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nowadays the 3 socialists would be given high-level “czar” jobs in the Obama administration, and the liberal media would run glowing puff pieces on them.

Oh how John Public must miss the days when Nazi’s were in power. T’was just last year.

Bush had drug czars, etc. I don’t know why Republicans harp on the usage of an informal title that is prevalent from everything in government to public administration

apparently, nothing is more American than discriminating against a person for their beliefs.

we could use some more socialists in this country. then maybe we wouldn’t be having a non-debate about health care reform, because we would already have universal healthcare.

@ John Public: Why do you think socialism is so bad? Look at the UN’s list of the countries with the highest standards of living, and you will find that all of them are social democracies. And the “social” there comes from “socialism.” It’s this crazy idea where people actually believe that society is only as strong as it’s weakest link.

I believe that the Assembly recanted and repealed those resolutions some time in the 80’s. I recall that Mr. Gottfried (D,WFP – Man) was the prime mover.

Interesting history about a past injustice to our democracy, but totally unconnected to the fact that a violent man who slashed up his girlfriend is still in the Assembly. Monserrate should have been thrown out much earlier already. It speaks volumes perhaps to how little the Assembly has progressed in the past 90 years that it hasn’t done anything yet to remove him.

Socialism is only a bad word to those that do not actually know what it means, john public. Most countries in Europe follow a social democratic model to some degree. Scary!

PS, Socialists aren’t liberals.

Nowadays the three socialists would be unable to have ever called themselves socialists on the record without the right successfully calling for their respective ousters from power.

Developed democratic countries the world over have healthy socialist parties represented in their legislative bodies. The idea that socialist ideologies are incompatible with democracy is ridiculous and pretty uniquely American.

An expulsion would do very well
For Monserrate, a true knell,
In a not holy place,
He’s a stick-out disgrace,
And it’s time to be tolling his bell!

Poster number one (“john public”) is an excellent example of the self-proclaimed patriot who is opposed to freedom of speech, and the right of others to be represented by a candidate of their choice. This has always been my definition of a fascist.