The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-05-02
DanOW and Hayes
Take Up SOrmenti
Case With Davis

Clarence S. barrow, the famous
Chicago attorney, and Arthur Gar
field Hayes, Darrow's associate in the
famous Scopes evolution" case in
Tennessee, are to plead before Score
tary Of Labor Davis at Washington
Monday the case Of Enea Sormenti,
the Italian anti-fascist leader, under
sentence Of deportation. The date
for the deportation is set for May 3.
SOrmenti's deportation to Italy means
certain death at the hands of the
fascist regime, which has made num-
erous attempts to murder him. not
only in Italy, but also in the United
States.
Recalls Similar Case.
Carlo Tresca, speaking for the
Anti-Fascisti Alliance, recalls in con-
nection with the order to deport Sor-
menti to the Italian butchers, the
famous case of Jan Janoff Pouren,
a Russian revolutionary, whom the
government Of the Car tried to ex-
tradite from this country in 1908.
The then secretary of state, Elihu
Root, absolutely refused to use the
machinery Of the government to place
in the hands Of the Russian black
hundreds the political enemies of the
Gar. In the Outlook of September
8, 1908, an editorial appeared, which
closed as follows:
ITO return a revolutionary to
Russia, whatever his offenses, is
to return to his torturers a man
who has been goaded by them into
the crimes which he has COM
mitted."
The same publication on October
81, 1908, reports Secretary Root as
refusing to issue the warrant that
would place Pouren in the hands Of
his political enemies in Russia and
declares the action will be approved
by all Americans who do not wish TO
see Russia use American courts and
the American government to get
back into its own hands men charged
with political offenses.'
Shielded Political Offender.
In his opinion on the Pouren case.
delivered March 80, 1909, Tmmigra-
ton Commissioner S. NJ. Hitchcock,
refused to send the defendant to
Russia and stated:
at is only necessary for me to
determine whether the accused has
established his defense, that the Of
lenses with which he is charged,
we're committed incidentally to,
and as part Of. political distur-
bance or revolutionary movement"
Certainly, if the decision of the
government was against deportation
OF Pouren because he was a political
eren'y Of the Czarist government, the
Same procedure shosld hold in the
case of Sormenti who, since he be-
came Ct age and able to participate
Ia POLITICAL movements, has beer
bounded by the fascist terror both
inside and outside of Italy.
Long Enemy of Fascism.
The stony Of Sormenti's political
persecution by fascist tyranny is one
Of the most amazing in the history
OF European despotism. On many
occasions he was beaten and stabbed
almost to the point of death and on
one occasion he was left for dead in
a dark street in Allesandria.
His tortures began in December,
1921, before the fascists came to
power. On that occasion he was
Kidnapped in Trieste, his native city,
taken into the woods and stabbed
with daggers, the marks Of which he
still carries on his forehead. He was
then forced by the fascist terror to
leave the city.
Marked for death by the fascists,
he fled to Germany, where a fascist
spy caused his arrest as an "unde-
sirable alien" by the German author
tiles, who placed him in a detention
camp. In March, 1922, he returned to
Trieste, where he remained until Nav.
when fascist band of outlaws raided
the Italian Chamber of Labor in an
effort to kill him. AS they shot at
him a young comrade of his, named
Gherliszza, threw himself before the
blazing guns, meeting instantaneous
death. Sormenti was on that occa-
sion stabbed in the face and lips, but
managed to escape in spite Of his
wounds.
Left in Street For Dead.
y few weeks later, in July,