MADISON, Wisconsin - Two large boxes containing the record of the eight-year fight to free framed-up meatpacker Mark Curtis were turned over to the State Historical Society of Wisconsin here October 5. The files of the Mark Curtis Defense Committee (MCDC) give an extensive view of the defense fight and of the political events that surrounded it. At the Historical Society, located on the University of Wisconsin campus, they will be accessible to anyone who wants to study them, along with the archives of the defense cases of many other working-class fighters.

Curtis and John Studer, the former director of the Mark Curtis Defense Committee, drove here from Chicago to deliver the files to Richard Pifer, the head of collections development for the historical society's archives division. Curtis, on parole since his release from prison in June, requested and was granted permission to leave Cook County to make the trip.

Supporters of the defense fight "must have spent at least a hundred hours organizing the files so they will be as useful as possible," said Studer. The material spans the period from March 1988, when Curtis was framed by the Des Moines, Iowa, police on false charges of rape and burglary, to the dissolution of the MCDC in August 1996.

Defense committee literature and mailings, letters of support from around the world, photographs, key legal documents, and a financial summary of the defense committee's work are part of the collection. Minutes of the weekly meetings of the MCDC are there, along with copies of the video The Frame-up of Mark Curtis in both English and Spanish. Some of the files document Curtis's victorious lawsuit against the Des Moines cops who beat him the night of his arrest. Others describe fights to defend his rights behind bars during the seven years he was imprisoned.

All of the files are neatly labeled and organized by year. An introductory note, indices of both the political and legal files, and a timeline of the defense fight are included at the beginning, making it easy to find all the documents. Working-class rebels attracted to case
The collection tells the story of more than just the struggle to free Mark Curtis. The letters of support and defense committee minutes give a picture of the other working- class fighters who looked to the defense committee.

At one MCDC meeting in 1989, a young airport worker who is Black came to tell his experience. According to the minutes, he "reported on being arrested and beaten by the Des Moines police.... He was struck in the face with a shotgun butt, and also had his thumb forced backwards.... He and his father were held overnight in jail and were released the next day after paying a fine." Curtis later met the young man when they were in prison together in Fort Madison, Iowa.

Under the outreach point on a defense committee meeting in 1990, the minutes report, "Support is burgeoning around the world in organized ways. Example, tour of the [coal mining] pits by Sheffield support group [in the United Kingdom].... U.S. women miners are touring mines in support of Mark Curtis. Textile workers in Venezuela sent letter." The same report also mentioned defense work in Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and France. Letters of support from revolutionaries in Cuba, South Africa, Ireland, and many other countries appear throughout the files.

The State Historical Society of Wisconsin is a good place for the Curtis archive to be preserved. Pifer offered a tour of the facility and an explanation of its work. The historical society has a substantial collection on labor history, particularly on the meatpacking industry, he said. It houses materials on different tendencies in the workers' movement as well. These include the Socialist Party, Socialist Labor Party, and Curtis's own party, the Socialist Workers Party.

The records of various social protest movements, such as the civil rights struggle of the 1950s and '60s, the movement against the U.S. war in Vietnam, the fight for abortion rights, and opposition to U.S. policy in Central America are available there. Archives of other defense cases
Among these materials are the records of many previous defense cases. The files of the Civil Rights Defense Committee are available at the Wisconsin library, for instance. This organization was formed in 1941 to defend leaders of the SWP and the Teamsters union in Minneapolis, who were framed-up under the Smith Act for the class-struggle example they were setting in the labor movement. Eighteen of these defendants, including SWP national secretary James P. Cannon, were jailed during World War II for campaigning in the unions to oppose Washington's entry into the inter-imperialist slaughter.

The files on James Kutcher's fight are in the Madison archive as well. The story of Kutcher's eight-year fight to win back his government job from the witch-hunters in the 1950s is told in the Pathfinder book The Case of the Legless Veteran.

The work of the Committee to Aid the Bloomington Students, which defended three members of the Young Socialist Alliance charged with sedition against the state of Indiana in the 1960s, is another piece of the collection.

The entire record of the successful lawsuit of the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialist Alliance against the FBI, CIA, and other government agencies for spying and harassment is also in the Madison archives. That collection was donated by the Political Rights Defense Fund, which also backed Curtis's case and is committed to help if any legal challenges come up during his parole.

Pifer helped Curtis look up a number of these cases in the State Historical Society's on-line catalog. Anyone with Internet access can use this catalog to find listings of most of the material archived there. To actually use the material requires a visit to the reading room; the documents are not allowed off-site.

Curtis took some time to look through the archives of another defense fight, that of Joe Johnson. In the mid-1960s, U.S. authorities attempted to deport Johnson, who was born in the United States, claiming he forfeited his U.S. citizenship when he lived in Canada in the 1950s. He had gone to Canada during the McCarthyite witch-hunt, before joining the communist movement. Johnson had already been railroaded to prison for two years on charges of avoiding the draft, after returning to the United States in 1958. He joined the SWP in Minneapolis when he was released from prison.

The Committee to Oppose the Deportation of Joseph Johnson was built as opposition to Washington's war against the Vietnamese people began to take off. Johnson won broad support, particularly among youth. Ultimately, the state dropped its case against him.

"I found those files especially interesting because of what you can learn about the party from them," Curtis said. Johnson was the organizer of the SWP branch in Minneapolis when the anti-deportation fight began. Among the documents in the files are letters from Johnson to the party's national office describing work in the branch as well as the defense effort. Later correspondence documents a national tour Johnson made where he spoke on his case and broader politics, and raised money for the defense committee. The files also include a scrapbook of news clippings, defense committee mailings, and drafts of a pamphlet by Johnson telling his story, They Have Declared Me a Man Without a Country.

After processing at the State Historical Society, the Curtis files will be available in the same way.  
 
 
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