# Labor Defender

Labor Defender (1926–1937) was a magazine published by the International Labor Defense (ILD), itself a legal advocacy organization established in 1925 as the American section of the Comintern's International Red Aid network and thus as support to the Communist Party (which in 1926 was legally the Workers Party of America).

## History

In January 1926, the ILD began publishing Labor Defender, as a monthly, profusely illustrated magazine with a low cover price of 10 cents. Magazine circulation boomed. It rose from some 1,500 paid subscriptions and 8,500 copies in bulk bundle sales in 1927, to some 5,500 paid subscriptions with a bundle sale of 16,500 by mid-1928. This mid-1928 circulation figure was said by Assistant Secretary Marty Abern to be "greater than the combined circulation of The Daily Worker, Labor Unity, and The Communist combined."

## Outlook

Labor Defender depicted a black-and-white world of heroic trade unionists and dastardly factory owners, of oppressed African Americans struggling for freedom against the Ku Klux Klan and the use of state terror to stifle and divide and destroy all opposition. Writers included prominent Communists such as trade union leader William Z. Foster, cartoonist Robert Minor, and Benjamin Gitlow, a former political prisoner in New York., as well as non-party voices like novelist Upton Sinclair, former Wobbly Ralph Chaplin, Socialist Party leader Eugene V. Debs, and Gavin Arthur, grandson of U.S. President Chester A. Arthur. Between April 1936 and December 1937, Sasha Small, Gavin Arthur, and communist poet Langston Hughes served as editors.
The magazine made a constant plea for additional funds for jailed labor activists across the country. A regular column called "Voices from Prison" highlighted the plight of those behind bars and reinforced the message that good work was being done on the behalf of the so-called "class war prisoners" of America.

## Masthead

The magazine's masthead included:

### 1926

January–August 1926
* Editor: T. J. O' Flaherty
* Business: George Maurer
* National Officers: Andrew T. McNamara (chairman), Edward C. Wentworth (Vice Chairman), James P. Cannon (Executive Secretary)
September–December 1926
* Editor: Max Shachtman
* Business: George Maurer
* National Officers: Andrew T. McNamara (chairman), Edward C. Wentworth (Vice Chairman), James P. Cannon (Executive Secretary)

### 1927

* Editor: Max Shachtman
* Business: George Maurer
* National Officers: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (chairman), Edward C. Wentworth (Vice Chairman), James P. Cannon (Executive Secretary)

### 1928

January–November 1928
* Editor: Max Shachtman
* Business: George Maurer
* National Officers: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (chairman), Edward C. Wentworth (Vice Chairman), James P. Cannon (Executive Secretary)
December 1928
* Editor: Karl Reeve
* Business: George Maurer
* National Officers: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (chairman), Norman Tallentire (Assistant Secretary), Alfred Wagenknecht (Executive Secretary)

### 1929

January–April 1929
* Editor: Karl Reeve
* Business: George Maurer
* National Officers: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (chairman), Norman T. Tallentire (Assistant Secretary), Alfred Wagenknecht (Executive Secretary)
May–June 1929
* Editor: Karl Reeve
* Business: Walt Carmon
* National Officers: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (chairman), Edward G. Wentworth (Vice Chairman), Juliet Poyntz (Executive Secretary), Carl Kacker (Assistant Secretary)
July–August 1929
* Editor: Karl Reeve
* Business: Walt Carmon
* National Officers: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (chairman), Edward G. Wentworth (Vice Chairman), Alfred Wagenknecht (Executive Secretary)
September–December 1929
* Editor: J. Louis Engdahl
* National Officers: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (chairman), Edward G. Wentworth (Vice Chairman), J. Louis Engdahl (Executive Secretary)

### 1930

January–February 1930
* Editor: J. Louis Engdahl
* National Officers: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (chairman), Edward G. Wentworth (Vice Chairman), J. Louis Engdahl (Executive Secretary)
March–June 1930
* Editor: J. Louis Engdahl
* Associate Editor: Sol Auerbach
* National Officers: J. Louis Engdahl (General Secretary), George Maurer (Assistant Secretary), A. Jakira (Organizational Secretary)
July–December 1930
* Editor: J. Louis Engdahl
* Associate Editor: Sol Auerbach
* National Officers: J. Louis Engdahl (General Secretary), Sam Darcy (Assistant Secretary), A. Jakira (Organizational Secretary)

### 1931

* Managing Editor: Sender Garlin
* Editors: William L. Patterson, Sasha Small
* Associate Editor: Sol Auerbach

### 1932

January–September 1932
* Editors: J. Louis Engdahl, Sender Garlin, Joseph North
October–December 1932
* Editors: J. Louis Engdahl, Joseph North
* Associate Editors: Louis Colman, Sasha Small

### 1933

* Editors: William L. Patterson, Joseph North
* Associate Editors: Louis Colman, Sasha Small

### 1934

January 1934
* Managing Editor: Sender Garlin
* Editors: William L. Patterson, Sasha Small
February–December 1934
* Managing Editor: Sender Garlin
* Editors: William L. Patterson, Sasha Small
* Associate Editor: Louis Colman

### 1935

January–June 1935
* Managing Editor: Nichola Wirth
* Editors: William L. Patterson, Sasha Small
* Associate Editor: Louis Colman
* Art Editor: Limbach
July–December 1935
* Editors: William L. Patterson, Sasha Small
* Associate Editor: Louis Colman

### 1936

January–March 1936
* Editors: William L. Patterson, Sasha Small
* Associate Editor: Louis Colman
April–May 1936
* Editor: Sasha Small
* Pacific Coast Editor: Chester A. Arthur Jr.
* Editorial Board: Nathan Asch, Louis Colman, Anna Damon, Joseph Freeman, Jerre Mangione, Robert Minor, Maurice Rosenfield, Walter Wilson
* Contributing Editors: Jack Conroy, Langston Hughes, John Howard Lawson, Waldo Frank
June–December 1936
* Editor: Sasha Small
* Pacific Coast Editor: Chester A. Arthur Jr.
* Editorial Board: Nathan Asch, Louis Colman, Anna Damon, Joseph Freeman, Jerre Mangione, Robert Minor, Maurice Rosenfield, Walter Wilson
* Contributing Editors: Jack Conroy, Langston Hughes, John Howard Lawson, Waldo Frank

### 1937

January–September 1937
* Editor: Sasha Small
* Pacific Coast Editor: Chester A. Arthur Jr.
* Editorial Board: Nathan Asch, Louis Colman, Anna Damon, Joseph Freeman, Jerre Mangione, Robert Minor, Maurice Rosenfield, Walter Wilson
* Contributing Editors: Jack Conroy, Langston Hughes, John Howard Lawson, Waldo Frank
October–December 1937
* Editor: Sasha Small
* Pacific Coast Editor: Chester A. Arthur
* Editorial Board: Nathan Asch, Louis Colman, Anna Damon, Joseph Freeman, Jerre Mangione, Robert Minor, Maurice Rosenfield, Walter Wilson
* Contributing Editors: Jack Conroy, Langston Hughes, John Howard Lawson, Waldo Frank

## Pamphlet series

The magazine also published occasional pamphlets:
* Under Arrest! Worker's Self-Defense in the Courts (1928)
* Smash the Frame up Against the Anthracite Miners—Free Boniat, Mendola and Moleski by B. F. Gebert (1928)
* Sedition to Protest and Organize Against War Hunger Unemployment by J. L. Engdahl (1930)
* The Story of the Imperial Valley by Frank Spector (introduction by John Dos Passos) (1931)
* Tampa's Reign of Terror by Anita Brenner and S. S. Windthrop (1933)
* Night Riders in Gallup by Louis Colman (1935)
* You Cannot Kill the Working-Class by Angelo Herndon (1936)