Bartley Crum

In the 1920s, Crum worked for John Francis Neylan whose major client was media magnate William Randolph Hearst (here c. 1910)

In 1924, Crum joined the law offices of John Francis Neylan, chief attorney for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. As a Hearst lawyer, Crum helped defend Clarence Darrow in 1933. "Darrow taught me more law than I had known before," Crum said later.[3]

In 1934, Neylan, "along with Bartley Crum, a young associate who functioned as an administrative aide," called newspaper publishers together to take a stand against the 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike and accompanying San Francisco General strike.[6] According to ex-Popular Front, liberal journalist Sidney Roger, Neylan was the "mastermind" for the shipping industry to break the strikes by convincing Bay area newspapers of a "Communist plot," during which time Crum "became a strong supporter of the longshore union and Harry Bridges."[4]

Crum helped defend against the deportation of his friend Harry Bridges in 1939

In 1938, Crum left Neylan and set up a law office with Philip Ehrlich and David A. Silver. In 1938 or 1939, he joined the National Lawyers Guild as an organization of progressive and Communist lawyers to counter the conservative National Bar Association (NLG),[1] probably at the behest of friend and fellow liberal Republican Robert W. Kenny. In 1939, Crum helped defend Harry Bridges in one of his deportation hearings.[3] He also criticized the US policy during the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath.[3] In 1942, Crum was a vice president of NLG's local chapter.[2] In 1943, Crum served as president of the NLG's San Francisco chapter.[7] In 1943–1944, Crum sponsored American Youth for Democracy.[7]

For the 1940 and 1944 presidential elections, Crum supported Wendell Willkie (here, on the cover of Time magazine, July 31, 1939

Crum worked in the 1940 and 1944 campaigns of U.S. presidential candidate Wendell Willkie.[2][3] In 1941, he became chairman for the Western US of "Fight for Freedom, Inc.," an group favoring intervention in World War II (in alignment with Wilkie).[3]

In 1943, Crum served as special counsel on FDR's Fair Employment Practices Committee.[2][3] He also served as WilIke's liaison to FDR via David Niles. When Wilkie failed to get the nomination, Crum helped form "Independent Republicans for Roosevelt" and campaigned for FDR, occasionally with Harry S. Truman.[2][3][4]

In October 1944, Crum served as an attorney for Harry Bridges. In November 1944, Crum sent a letter to the Civil Service Commission on behalf of Larry Resner on the subject of loyalty charges.[7]

On March 18, 1945, Crum signed a statement issued by the National Federation for Constitutional Liberties, advertised in the Daily Worker.[7] In September 1945, Crum chaired a rally of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee (JAFRC), which featured an overseas call from Harold Laski.[2] By year end, Crum's clients included Owl Drug, United Drug, and Borden's Milk. He was national vice president of the NLG, national co-chair of the CIO-PAC, and California chair of United China War Relief. Rumor had it that he would succeed Harold L. Ickes as United States Secretary of the Interior.[2]

Crum served on the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry (here, future president of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, testifies before the committee)

On January 1, 1946, Crum accepted an invitation to join the Anglo-American Commission of Inquiry on Palestine (AACIP) that advised President Harry Truman to support the opening of the British Mandate of Palestine to unrestricted Jewish immigration and to ease restrictions on Jewish land purchases.[2][3] On February 17, 1946, Crum announced in Vienna, Austria, that he expected to see "mass suicides" if European Jews did not receive permission to emigrate to Palestine.[8] His book, Behind the Silken Curtain a Personal Account of Anglo-American Diplomacy in Palestine and the Middle East was published by Simon & Schuster in 1947.[3] "He charged the British were up to their traditional divide-and-conquer policies."[4] When Clifford Clarke succeeded the issue of Israeli independence from David Niles, he received "advice and assistance" from Crum, Eliahu Epstein, and Max Lowenthal.[9] Israeli State Archives show that on May 11, 1948, Crum visited President Harry S. Truman: "Crum [Bartley Crum] saw President yesterday, returned fairly optimistic."[10] Crum became chairman of the national council of Americans for Haganah, whose director was David Wahl.[7]

Robert W. Kenny (undated), 21st California Attorney General, was a long-time friend and colleague of Crum

As vice president of the NLG's state chapter and with Kenny as president, Crum entered into increasing prominent issues involving civil rights of left-leaning people.

In 1946, Crum answered Paul Robeson in his "crusade call" and endorsed the American Crusade Against Lynching (ACAL) organization.[11] The ACAL had been accused of socialist and communist motives; which led to the organization, including Crum, coming under close watch by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The FBI tapped Crum's phones, opened his mail, and shadowed him constantly.[2] In 1946, Crum was a member of the national board of the Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions (ICCASP), which also had a large branch in California, the Hollywood Independent Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences and Professions.[12] On July 9, 1946, Crum appeared on a radio program called "What's On Your Mind About Russia?"[7] In 1946–1947, Crum was vice chairman and a sponsor of the National Committee to Win the Peace, which joined another group that Crum sponsored called the Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy.[7] At the end of 1946, as ICCASP merged with National Citizens Political Action Committee to form the Progressive Citizens Association (PCA), Crum became the PCA's national vice chairman.[7]

In 1947, Crum served as attorney for some of the so-called "Hollywood Ten" (originally the "Unfriendly Nineteen"), subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. National Lawyers Guild members formed the core team, originally Charles Katz and Ben Margolis,[13][14] followed by Crum and Robert W. Kenny, followed by Martin Popper in Washington and Sam Rosenwein in New York.[15][16][17]

During pre-hearing preparation, the Nineteen and their lawyers negotiated and agreed to a strategy of unanimity as well as a please to cite the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.[18] His daughter recalled:

I first learned about the Hollywood blacklist on Nov. 24, 1947. I remember the exact moment. I was standing with my father, Bartley Crum, by a phone booth near Union Square in San Francisco, feeding him nickels and dimes while he made a series of intense phone calls to Dore Schary, who was the head of MGM.
If you're wondering why he had to make those calls from a pay phone, it's because our home phone was bugged by the F.B.I. At that point I was too young to quite grasp the significance of those bugged calls, but I did know that my father had been one of six lawyers who had just defended the Hollywood 10 in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in Washington.[19]

She also recorded differences between Communist and non-Communist lawyers (in which latter camp Crum was), contrary to other accounts of greater unity among lawyers.[19]

Crum bought PM with Joseph Fels Barnes from Marshall Field III (here, 1919) and renamed it New York Star

In 1948, due to blowback from the HUAC Hollywood hearings, Crum moved his family from the San Francisco Bay area to New York City.[2]

In 1948, Crum's name appeared as a member of the board of directors of the California Labor School, listed as a subversive organization by US Attorney General Tom C. Clark in December 1947 on the AGLOSO.[7]

In May 1948, Joseph Starobin, foreign news editor of the Daily Worker, referred in print to Crum's "unquestionably progressive career."[7] In early June 1948, Crum appeared before the American Russian Instititute and expressed his "Soviet sympathy" (according to the FBI)>[7] In June 1948, Crum bought a major interest in the dying PM newspaper with Joseph Fels Barnes from Marshall Field III, who maintained a minority interest. On June 23, 1948, they renamed PM as the New York Star.[3][20][21][22] Also in the 1948 United States presidential election, he supported Harry S. Truman (Democrat) over Thomas E. Dewey (Republican) or Henry A. Wallace (Progressive).[3]

In January 1949, the Star folded (and helped undermine Crum's personal finances).[1] During that year, Crum joined Hays, Podell, Algase, Crum & Feuer with offices at 39 Broadway.[3]

In 1950, Crum's name came up in Congress during investigation into Truman crony Max Lowenthal. On September 15, 1950, Lowenthal appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee AKA "HUAC" (two of whose members were Mundt and Nixon–of the Mundt-Nixon Bill). Already in August 1950, HUAC had re-subpoenaed four witness who had been part of Whittaker Chambers's Ware Group: Lee Pressman, Nathan Witt, Charles Kramer and John Abt. The committee had asked both Pressman and Kramer whether they knew Lowenthal; both confirmed. Lowenthal brought former U.S. Senator Burton K. Wheeler as counsel. After reviewing his curriculum vitae, the committee tried to link him with known Communist Party members and organizations, some of which he confirmed, others not, all without admitting any wrongdoing. Names mentioned included: Crum, Alger Hiss, Donald Hiss, David Wahl, Martin Popper, Allan Rosenberg, Lee Pressman, the Russian-American Industrial Corporation, the Twentieth Century Fund, and the International Juridical Association.[23][24]

In the 1952 United States presidential election, Crum supported Adlai E. Stevenson (Democrat) over Dwight D. Eisenhower (Republican).[3]

In 1953, syndicated columnist Westbrook Pegler wrote of Crum:

I telephoned Bartley Crum, a California lawyer with offices in New York and a Red record so bad that he hangs his head in shame, and asked whether Lowenthal had had any real connection with the Hollywood Reds and their friends, the so-called Hollywood Committee on the First Amendment... Incidentally, he became counsel for Drew Pearson in one of his dragging suits against me but finally came into my lawyer's office to say that he had never forsaken his Catholicism and that he was ashamed of his Red record. During the examination of the Hollywood Reds, Crum consulted Lowenthal because he regarded the man as an expert on the procedures and the authority of congressional committees. Crum says Lowenthal told him the best course was to tell the committee frankly whether this or that one was a member of the Communist Party. By contrast with this advice Lowenthal himself in his appearance before the House committee was remarkably vague on many matters. However, on careful review of his old testimony I conclude that my early impression was incorrect that he positively withheld the names of "organizations" which arranged for his appointment to a job on Gen. Clay's staff in Germany just after the war. He said there were five such "organizations" and named one, but the committee wandered off and did not press him to identify the others. It was not up to him to volunteer the information and I know the committee regarded the subject as a hot potato. He did admit knowing a number of the most notorious Reds of the movement but his voluntary estimate of the political character of his friend, Crum, is laughable in view of Crum's own admission to my attorneys and to Alfred Kohlberg, one of the most effective Red-baiters in the country, that he was ashamed of his activity in the Red movement, Lowenthal said: "I had confidence in his true Americanism." Thus, Lowenthal's notion of true Americanism is peculiar or his knowledge of Crum's activities up to then was faulty.[25]

Shortly before his suicide, Crum became embroiled in an issue with Jimmy Hoffa of the "Teamsters"

In 1958, Crum became involved in a controversy with Jimmy Hoffa, head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters ("Teamsters"). He had been trying to collect $210,000 in legal fees from the Teamsters for a client (lawyers represented by Godfrey P. Schmidt). He testified in before the United States Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field.[3]