Harry Bridges’s Australia, Australia’s Harry Bridges
Robert Cherny
Professor emeritus of History, San Francisco State University
Harry Bridges was born in Australia in 1901. He came to the United States in
1920, led the longshore workers of the Pacific Coast from 1934 until 1977, and died in
San Francisco in 1990. In this paper, I’ll look first at the ways that Bridges drew upon
his early life in Australia at crucial points in his career, and then at the way the
Australian press and government viewed Bridges once he rose to prominence in the
US.
Harry Bridges’s Australia
In December 1919, at the age of eighteen, Bridges left Australia and did not
return until 1967. His early years in Australia nonetheless left an indelible mark on him.
The lessons he learned in his parents' household pointed him along quite different
paths. One path was marked out by his devoutly Catholic mother, but a different one by
his unchurched father. His father's fervent Anglophilism clashed with his mother's Irish
nationalism. And the business priorities of his father conflicted with his uncles'
commitment to the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
Bridges was born in 1901 in Kensington, a suburb of Melbourne, and was
baptized at St. Brendan’s, the local Catholic church, as Alfred Renton Bridges.1 His
mother, Julia Dorgan Bridges, sometimes worked as a shopkeeper. Her parents were
Irish, and she and her sisters, Ellen and Beatrice, were devout Catholics. Julia and
Ellen considered themselves friends of Daniel Mannix, dating to when he served as
1
Baptism Register St. Brendan's Church, Kensington.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 2
parish priest near Ellen’s boarding house. As archbishop of Melbourne, Mannix
became an outspoken defender of Australia’s Irish and Catholics and sometimes took
controversial public positions. Bridges always remembered Mannix as "a great hero to
my family."2 Most of Bridges’s education came in Catholic schools. Julia also gave her
son lessons in Irish nationalism.3
Alfred Bridges, the father, was of English descent, unchurched but devoted to the
British empire. He bought and sold real estate and invested in rental housing in the
Melbourne suburbs east of the Maribyrnong River. Young Alfred worked for his father
on Saturdays, collecting rent and delivering eviction notices. He disliked that work,
especially when he had to deal with the families of children he knew.4
His father’s brothers were important in young Alfred’s family life, especially Henry
Renton Bridges, who had married his mother’s sister, Beatrice. They and their children
lived on a small farm near Yea, north of Melbourne. Known to his neighbors as Harry,
he worked as a woolpresser during sheep-shearing season and belonged to the
Australian Workers' Union (AWU), which represented agricultural workers.5 Then the
largest and wealthiest union in Australia, the AWU provided the major support for the
2
Cherny interview with Harry Bridges, 12/19/1985; interviews of Bridges by Charles Einstein, tapes 18,
21 (hereinafter Einstein tapes); letter, Harry Bridges to C. H. Fitzgibbon, December 18, 1963, item 98,
Waterside Workers Federation of Australia collection, N114, Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Australian
National University (hereinafter Butlin Archives). For Mannix, see, e.g., Colm Kiernan, Daniel Mannix and
Ireland (Morwell, VIC: Alella Books, 1984); B. A. Santamaria, Daniel Mannix: The Quality of Leadership
(Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press, 1984); and James G. Murtagh, Australia: The Catholic
Chapter (Sydney: Angus & Robertson Ltd., 1959).
3
Einstein tape 18; interviews of Bridges by Noriko Sawada Bridges, tapes 1, HB (hereinafter NSB tapes);
Cherny interview, 12/19/1985.
4
5
NSB tape HB; Einstein tape 49.
Einstein tape 4; Bridges, Henry Renton Nicholson, file, Personnel Dossiers for 1st Australian Imperial
Forces ex-service members, series B2455, World War I Personnel Records Service, Australian Archives,
Mitchell, ACT (hereinafter AA).
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 3
Australian Labor Party (ALP) in rural areas.6 The Yea Chronicle described "Harry
Bridges" as "the local organizer for the Labor Party," and noted that "whilst holding that
position he took a most prominent part in electioneering matters. . . . He was a fearless
speaker at all times, and a fair fighter."7 Charles, the third brother, also an ALP activist,
later held elective office in Sydney.8 Alfred, too, initially supported the ALP.9
The ALP, organized about the time young Alfred was born, advocated
nationalization of monopolies, social welfare measures such as old age pensions,
Australian nationalism (rather than emphasizing identity with Britain), and such tradeunion issues as industrial arbitration courts. During the first decade of the party’s
history, laborites and socialists contested for control within the ALP. The Victorian
Branch of the ALP initially favored the socialists but later moved toward the laborites.10
In 1910, the ALP became the first social-democratic party in the world to win a
national electoral majority and majorities in both houses of parliament. They
established a minimum wage, extended industrial arbitration, imposed a graduated tax
on land, and created a commonwealth bank, which competed with privately owned
6
John Merritt, The Making of the AWU (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 341.
7
Yea Chronicle, Aug. 24, 1916.
8
Alec H. Chisholm, comp. and ed., Who's Who in Australia, 13th edn. (Melbourne: Herald and Weekly
Times, 1947), p. 169.
9
Cherny interview, 12/19/1985.
10
For the ALP, see Frank Bongiorno, The People's Party: Victorian Labor and the Radical Tradition,
1875-1914 (Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press, 1996), chs. 1-2; Bede Nairn, Civilising Capitalism:
The Beginnings of the Australian Labor Party, rev. edn. (Carlton, VIC: Melbourne University Press,
1989); Ian Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics: The Dynamics of the Labor Movement in Eastern
Australia, 1900-1921 (Canberra: Australian National University, 1965), pp. 17-22; Robin Gollan, Radical
and Working Class Politics: A Study of Eastern Australia, 1850-1910 (Parkville, VIC: Melbourne
University Press, 1960), pp. 69-72, 78, 80-81, 128-150; George Healey, A.L.P.: The Story of the Labor
Party (Brisbane: Jacaranda Press, 1955), pp. 22-23.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 4
banks. In 1911 and 1913, the ALP submitted referenda seeking extensive federal
power over the economy, including power to nationalize monopolies, but voters
defeated both measures.11
Young Alfred so admired his favorite uncle that he decided to call himself Harry
Renton Bridges.12 He attended a secondary school run by the Christian Brothers from
May 1912 until February 1915, but left without graduating.13 While working for a
stationery firm, he frequented the Melbourne docks, talked with seamen, studied
seafaring, and dreamed of going to sea.14
By then, the world was at war. Greeting the war with naive excitement and
cheerful optimism, Australians immediately sent troops in support of Britain. Henry
Renton Bridges, young Harry’s favorite uncle, enlisted in early 1915, saw action at
Gallipoli, and died in France in mid-1916. A few months earlier, English troops had
suppressed the Easter Rising in Ireland. Archbishop Mannix publicly deplored the
actions of the British government, and, throughout Victoria, Irish nationalism became
increasingly coupled to criticism of the war.15
By late 1916, the need for additional troops became so great that William
Hughes, prime minister since 1915, called for conscription. That issue split the ruling
11
Russel Ward, The History of Australia: The Twentieth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), pp.
75-82.
12
Einstein tapes 4, 46; NSB tapes 1, HB.
13
Register, Christian Brothers' School, St. Mary's, West Melbourne.
14
Cherny interview, 12/19/1985; NSB tape 1; Einstein tapes 5, 18, 49; Essendon Gazette, July 5, 1934,
p. 1; and Wm. J. Mackay to W. J. Quinn, 8 Feb.1937, file c-6405274, box 6, Harry Bridges INS file,
National Archives Pacific Region, San Bruno, California; [Melbourne] The Age, Sept. 27, 1967, p. 1.
15
Mannix's speech was reported in the Advocate on May 6, 1916, and reprinted in Robson, Australia and
the Great War, 1918-1918, pp. 62-63; NSB tape HB; Ward, History of Australia, pp. 102, 118.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 5
ALP, which voted no-confidence in Hughes. Hughes and his supporters left the ALP
and formed the Nationalist Party. Harry’s father followed Hughes out of the ALP and,
according to his nephew, became "a very strong Tory."16
During 1917, events in Melbourne began to shape Bridges’s political
understanding. In mid-1917, Melbourne and Sydney dockworkers cited high food prices
when they resolved not to load food supplies onto ships other than those bound for
Britain and Allied ports. In mid-August, Melbourne dockworkers completely closed the
port.17 Other unions joined the strike, including carters and drivers, seamen, ironmolders, and waitresses. Then railway workers struck over the introduction of new work
rules. Other workers joined the stoppage, which came to be called the "Great Strike."
In Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland, the number of strikers swelled to
97,000. Prime Minister Hughes blamed enemy agents and the Industrial Workers of the
World, and newspapers vied with government spokesmen in discerning the specter of
the IWW's "general strike." The strikes largely collapsed by late September.18 Bridges
remembered that his father's admiration for Prime Minister Hughes and Hughes's
attacks on the strikers produced an anti-union atmosphere in the Bridges house.19
16
Ward, History of Australia, pp. 113-114, 116-117, 121-122; Laurence F. Fitzhardinge, William Morris
Hughes: A Political Biography, 2 vols. (Sydney: Angus & Robertson Publishers, 1979), 2:213, 225-234;
Turner, Industrial Labour and Politics, pp. 113-116; Thelma D. Bridges, on behalf of George Bridges, to
Robert W. Cherny, June 16, 1990.
17
Rupert Lockwood, Ship to Shore: A History of Melbourne's Waterfront and Its Union Struggles
(Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1990), pp. 134-146, 151.
18
Stuart Macintyre, 1901-1942: The Succeeding Age, vol. 4 of the Oxford History of Australia, ed.
Geoffrey Bolton (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 170-171; Michael McKernan, The
Australian People and the Great War (Sydney: William Collins Pty Ltd, 1984), p. 8; Fitzhardinge, Hughes,
2:271-274; Brian Fitzpatrick, A Short History of the Australian Labor Movement (Melbourne: Rawson's
Bookshop, 1944), p. 144; Lockwood, Ship to Shore, pp. 164-171; Ward, History of Australia, p. 120.
19
NSB tapes 1, 9; Einstein tapes 8, 28.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 6
Fifty years later, the significance of the Great Strike loomed large for Bridges: “I
did not know what it was all about then, but later on I could look back and I could
remember . . . No [labor movement] since 1917 has ever organized the power to shut
down industry as Australian unions shut down this whole country in 1917 . . . [It] began
my real working class education.”20
With the Great Strike underway, Adela Pankhurst launched a series of
demonstrations in Melbourne. Daughter of the British suffrage leader Emmeline
Pankhurst, Adela Pankhurst belonged to the Socialist Party of Australia and the
Women's Peace Army. She led demonstrations against high food prices--really against
the war--and, during the Great Strike, in support of the strikers. Several times in
September 1917, demonstrators surged through Melbourne, led by women carrying red
flags (banned by the Hughes government) and singing "songs of revolt."21
By November 1917, another campaign for conscription was underway, even
more bitter than the first Archbishop Mannix now called conscription "slavery imposed
by military domination" and argued that "all the capitalists are conscriptionists."22
In December 1917, Harry Bridges, sixteen years old, went to sea and worked
aboard ships for the next four-plus years. At first, he lived at home as he sailed
20
[Sydney] Maritime Worker, Nov. 8, 1967, p. 2.
21
Melbourne Argus, Aug. 16, 1917, p. 6; Aug. 17, p. 7; Aug. 23, p. 4; Aug. 24, p. 7; Sept. 5, p. 6; Sept.
20, p. 7; Sept. 21, p. 7; Sept. 24, p. 6; Sept. 25, p. 7; Oct. 3, p. 6; Oct. 6, p. 16; Oct. 10, p.10; Melbourne
Age, Aug. 24, 1917, p. 4; Aug. 30, p. 7; Aug. 31, p. 6; Sept. 30, p. 5; Sept. 21, p. 6; Sept. 24, p. 8; Sept.
26, p. 10; Macintyre, Succeeding Age, pp.171-172; Lockwood, Ship to Shore, pp. 159-160, 172-178;
NSB, tape 9; Einstein tape 3.
22
Cyril Bryan, Archbishop Mannix: Champion of Australian Democracy (Melbourne: The Advocate
Press, 1918), pp. 128-166, esp. 130, 158, 162; NSB tape 9; Einstein tape 3.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 7
between Victoria and Tasmania and later between Australia and New Zealand.23 His
recollections of seafaring include no mention of the strike by the Australian Seamen's
Union (ASU) in mid-1919, but the small vessels on which he worked were not unionized
and so were not affected by the strike.24
Though Bridges later took pride in having been a member of the ASU, the union's
dues registers list no one named Bridges during the years 1917, 1918, or 1919.25 If
Bridges paid dues in Tasmania or New Zealand, they may not have been properly
recorded in the union's ledgers. However, the likelihood is that he did not pay dues
regularly if at all.26 His final voyage as an Australian seaman was on a larger ship, one
covered by the union’s arbitration award, and he may have paid union dues when on
that voyage.27
In early 1920, he found himself in Auckland with an opportunity to sign onto the
Ysabel, a barkentine bound for San Francisco. He joined that crew, hoping to see some
of the places he had read about in the novels of Jack London.28 Arriving in April 1920,
23
NSB tape "HB"; shipping articles for the Daisy Knights, December 7, 1917; Sara Hunter, January 7,
1918; Lialeeta, July 5, 1918; Southern Cross, January 30, 1919; Valmarie, February 28, 1919; all in
Mercantile Marine Office records, Articles of Agreement, VPRS No. 566/P, units 215-218, 227, Public
Record Office of Victoria, Laverton Respository. See also application of Harry R. Bridges for certificate of
service as able seaman, April 21, 1920, Sailors' Union of the Pacific Archives, San Francisco.
24
NSB tape 2. For the strike, see Fitzpatrick and Cahill, The Seamen's Union of Australia, 1872-1972 p.
50; Macintyre, Succeeding Age, p. 183. Shipping articles had a place to paste in the terms of the most
recent arbitration award, but none of the articles for Bridges's vessels carried those provisions.
25
Contribution books for New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, 1912-1922, and transfer books
for Tasmania, 1916-1940, and New Zealand, 1916-1922, items 34/3-5, 10, 12, 19, 20, Seamen's Union of
Australia collection, Collection E183, Butlin Archives.
26
NSB tape 2.
27
I make the supposition that Bridges paid union dues on his voyage from Aukland to San Francisco both
because of his memory of being a union member and because he remembered that he joined the Sailors
Union of the Pacific (SUP) by transferring his membership in the SUA.
28
NSB tape 5; Einstein tapes 5, 6.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 8
he paid the US immigration entry fee, did some sight-seeing, applied for an American
certificate as an able seaman, and joined the Sailors Union of the Pacific.29 He sailed
from American ports for the next two years, then began to work on the San Francisco
docks.
Bridges seems to have digested his experiences in 1917 slowly, as they became
integrated with later experiences as a seaman and longshoreman. If he read
newspaper accounts of the events in Petrograd in November 1917, they made no
impression on him. Sometime later, on a voyage, he read John Reed's Ten Days That
Shook the World and gained some understanding of the Bolshevik seizure of power.
He probably didn't know that Thomas Walsh, head of the SUA, and Adela Pankhurst
Walsh supported the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) from the time of its founding
in 1918. After Bridges left Australia, he bought both volumes of Marx's Capital to read
on a voyage, but--like many others before and since--gave up before making his way
through it.30
Though Bridges left Australia in 1919, he thought of himself as an Australian
seaman long after his arrival in San Francisco. He loved to tell stories of his seafaring
experiences, and, from his earliest days shipping out of American ports, he talked about
the accomplishments of Australian unions. Within weeks of his arrival in the US, he was
extolling the efficacy of the ASU and talking about his experiences as a member of that
29
Cherny interview, January 29, 1986; Application for Certificate of Service as Able Seaman, April 21,
1920; Harry Bridges membership records, both in SUP Archives. Bridges SUP membership card does
not indicate that he transferred his membership.
30
For the Walshes, see "Biographical Notes on Members of the Victorian Socialist Party, Part II,"
Recorder, Melbourne Branch, Australian Society for the Study of Labor History, 82 (June 1976): 7;
Fitzpatrick and Cahill, The Seamen's Union of Australia, p. 53. For Reed and Marx, see Cherny
interview, September 2, 1986.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 9
union. In response, his shipmates elected him ship's delegate, a position comparable to
a union shop steward.31 In the early 1930s, when he was a San Francisco
longshoreman, his accounts of Australian unionism caused others, as one of them later
recalled, "just naturally" to turn to Harry for leadership.32
In 1933-34, Bridges emerged as a leader in the newly chartered San Francisco
local, 38-79, of the International Longshoremen’s Association. Though holding office
only as chair of Local 38-79’s strike committee, Bridges became the de facto leader of
the 1934 Pacific Coast longshore strike. The longshore strike quickly spun off strikes by
other maritime unions and eventually a four-day general strike in San Francisco.
Afterward, Bridges was elected president of the Local 38-79, then president of the ILA’s
autonomous Pacific Coast District. In 1937, when the Pacific Coast District broke away
from the ILA and was chartered by the CIO as the International Longshoremen’s and
Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), Bridges became its first president.
Bridges drew upon his Australian experiences or on Australian examples not only
during the 1934 strikes but throughout the 1930s. In 1935, when Bridges was in New
York for the annual convention of the ILA, a newspaper reported that he had
participated in the 1917 Great Strike.33 During the 1936 strike by the Maritime
Federation of the Pacific, Bridges pointed to the Australian shipping lines as having
better working conditions—wages, hours, and overtime—for ship stewards than
31
Einstein tape 8; NSB tape 12; Cherny interview, May 7, 1986; Marine Exchange Records, Maritime
Museum Library, San Francisco.
32
B. B. Jones, quoted in Larrowe, Harry Bridges, 16.
33
Canberra Times, July 12, 19335, p. 2.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 10
American lines.34 Also in 1937, Bridges, in addressing the Newspaper Guild, used the
ALP as a leading example for his claim “that labour in the United States was realizing
the necessity for political action, thus entering a phase which labour in other countries
had passed years ago.”35 In 1937, a brief biography of Bridges attributed his political
outlook to his experiences at sea. An Australian college student who interviewed
Bridges in 1938 noted that he looked upon the ALP as a model for American labor and
loved to talk about his experiences sailing the Bass Strait and the Tasman Sea. In
1940, in the New York Times Magazine, Bridges attributed important parts of his
political outlook to trips he had taken as seaman.36 Thus, his stories of his seafaring
were important to his definition of himself, especially his politics, and to the way that he
wanted others to see him.
As early as May 1934, Bridges's opponents charged that he was a Communist.
Bridges openly praised the Communist Party (CP) but always insisted that he never
joined.37 In 1939 Bridges faced a deportation hearing by the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) at which INS officials charged that he was a CP member
and should be deported. During the hearing, Bridges took the witness stand to discuss
his political beliefs and explain the origins of his political outlook. In his testimony, he
34
Sydney Morning Herald, December 10, 1936, p. 11.
35
Sydney Morning Herald, August 20, 1937, p. 12.
36
The account by Richard Bransten, in 1937, was apparently prepared with cooperation from Bridges;
see Bransten [Bruce Minton and John Stuart, pseud.], Men Who Lead Labor (New York: Modern Age
Books, 1937), pp. 172-176. See also Alan Benjamin, "Some Want to Deport Him: Australia's Bridges,"
Melbourne Herald, Sept. 2, 1938, p. 6, and Byron Darnton, "The Riddle of Harry Bridges," New York
Times Magazine, Feb. 25, 1940, pp. 5, 21.
37
I have explored this question at length in "Harry Bridges and the Communist Party: New Evidence, Old
Questions; Old Evidence, New Questions" (paper, annual meeting of the Organization of American
Historians, April 4, 1998).
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 11
pointed to his youth in Australia and his experiences as an Australian seaman as the
sources of his political views.38 The Australian press quoted Bridges: “I formed most of
my beliefs before the Communist Party existed. I came from Australia. The Australians
are pretty progressive. Many of the things which Communists here now advocate are
old stuff down there.”39 The hearing officer, James M. Landis, dean of the Harvard Law
School, concluded, "There is slight doubt but that Bridges' present conceptions as to the
place of trade-unionism derive considerably from his Australian experiences and
upbringing."40
When Landis found in Bridges's favor, and Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins
dismissed the charges against Bridges, the decisions touched off a political firestorm.
One result was that the INS was moved from the Department of Labor to the
Department of Justice. Another was that the House of Representatives, in June 1940,
voted 330 to 42 to deport Bridges; the bill died in the Senate only when Attorney
General Robert Jackson agreed to have the FBI investigate Bridges, producing another
INS hearing in 1941.41
In the midst of these events, two articles appeared in popular magazines in which
38
“Official Report of Proceedings before the Immigration and Naturalization Service of the Department of
Labor, Docket No. 55973/217, In the Matter of: Harry Bridges: Deportation Hearing, Angel Island, San
Francisco, California, August-September, 1939,” (typescript, 45 vols. bound as 11, Robbins Collection,
Boalt Hall, University of California, Berkeley), 18: 2865, 3052 - 3053, 3056 - 3058. His account of his
seafaring, however, included places that is highly unlikely he ever visited; see my article, "Constructing a
Radical Identity: History, Memory, and the Seafaring Stories of Harry Bridges." Pacific Historical Review
70 (2001): 571-600.
39
Sydney Morning Herald, August 5, 1939, p. 18.
40
James M. Landis, In the Matter of Harry R. Bridges: Findings and Conclusions of the Trial Examiner
(Washington, D.C., 1939).
41
For the four Bridges hearings or trials, see Stanley I. Kutler, The American Inquisition: Justice and
Injustice in the Cold War (New York, 1982), 118 - 151.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 12
Bridges commented at length on the nature and origins of his political views, attributing
them, as before, to his youthful experiences in Australia.42 In the magazine articles in
1940, as he had earlier in the 1939 INS hearing, Bridges presented accounts of his
Australian childhood and youth to explain his political beliefs. He reiterated those
explanations many times over the next fifteen years, as he fought off repeated attempts
to prove that he was a Communist and hence subject to deportation. Throughout the
rest of his life, he continued to tell those stories when asked about the origin of his
political views.43
Australia’s Harry Bridges
Australia remained central to Bridges’s identity through his life. He spoke with an
Australian accent and loved to tell stories about his experiences as an Australian
seaman. I’ve found no public opinion polls that asked Australians what they thought
about Bridges. However, in 1943, when Lon Jones, Hollywood correspondent for the
Sydney Morning Herald, was in the midst of a lecture tour of the US, he reported that
every audience wanted “to know what Australians thought of Harry Bridges.” His
answer: “Australians, like Americans, think about Bridges according to which side of the
political fence they happen to be on.”44 Evidence from the press and from governmental
archives suggests that Jones’s answer was especially accurate during the early Cold
War.
42
Darnton, "Riddle of Harry Bridges”; Theodore Dreiser, "Story of Harry Bridges," Friday, Oct. 4, 1940,
pp. 1 - 8, 28; Oct. 11, 1940, pp. 14 - 17.
43
E.g., Bridges’s comments on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1934 strikes, San Francisco,
June 30, 1984, or his comments at the recognition dinner sponsored by the Southern California Library
for Social Studies and Research, Los Angeles, Feb. 11, 1986, or his comments at his eighty-fifth birthday
celebration, San Francisco, July 15, 1986.
44
Melbourne Argus, March 27, 1943, p. 3.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 13
Stories about Bridges in the Australian press began to appear during the 1934
strikes, with the first nearly two months after the strike began. On Monday, July 2nd,
several papers published a brief account based on a June 29 release from the
Australian Press Association (APA that originated with a telegram to the APA from E.
O’Conner, an official of the Australian National Travel Association, who was in San
Francisco. O’Conner stated that Bridges “heads the strike” and supplied some
background information on Bridges, much of it inaccurate, but O’Conner also described
Bridges as having “a long record of efficient work on the waterfront” and as “a forceful
speaker” who “has established leadership which the strikers accept, in the belief that he
is incorruptible. They have lost their faith in other leaders.”45
Almost certainly in response to the press release, a reporter startled Bridges’s
mother when he rang her doorbell and asked if she were the mother of Harry Bridges.
Bridges’s family had received no letters from him for several years and knew nothing of
his union activities, so the reporter’s visit came as a surprise.46 An article in the
Melbourne Argus on July 2nd—likely the result of that reporter’s visit to Bridges’s
mother--contained more accurate information than the APA release.47
After San Francisco police killed two strikers and injured many more on July 5
and the San Francisco Labor Council voted for a general strike on July 14, Bridges’s
45
Most articles were identical copies of the press release; see, e.g., Burnie Advocate, July 2, 1934, p. 5;
Hobart Mercury, July 2, 1934, p. 3.
46
47
Interview with Dorothy McNaught, July 2, 1997.
Melbourne Argus, July 2, 1934, p. 10; see also Essendon Gazette and Flemington Spectator, July 5,
1934, p. 1.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 14
name appeared much more frequently in the Australian press,48 and the tone of those
articles quickly came to mirror that in the US press. By mid-July, with the general strike
underway, Australian newspapers were calling Bridges “a sharp-nosed young Australian
iron-man who rules the San Francisco longshore and seamen’s forces”49—a very
different characterization than that of June 29-July 2, but similar to what the major San
Francisco dailies had been saying over the previous several weeks.
On July 18, with the general strike underway, Australian papers quoted the
Hearst press as saying, “The Communists are in the saddle today,” and quoted Joseph
Ryan, national president of the ILA, as saying no settlement was possible because of
“Harry Bridges and his Communists’ control behind the scenes.”50 On July 20, as the
general strike was in its third day, a Queensland paper published a more balanced
article on Bridges, although it described him as looking “somewhat seedy, not having
shaved for three days.” The article began with a statement by Bridges, “I am not a
Communist,” then quoted him on the dangers of longshore work. As the San Francisco
Labor Council began winding down the general strike and urged the striking workers to
accept arbitration, Australian papers described Bridges as “red-faced and cursing” and
screaming in protest against the Labor Council’s actions. Australian newspapers also
credited members of Teamsters’ Local 85 “with having smashed the printing press” of
San Francisco’s Communist newspaper and quoted Michael Casey, president of that
local, as congratulating the Labor Council on “a great victory for conservatism and
48
A search in Trove for “Harry Bridges” returned about eighty articles in Australian newspapers during
July 1934.
49
E.g., Perth Daily News, July 14, 1934, p. 2; Rockhampton Morning Bulletin, July 16, 1934, p. 7.
50
Townsville Daily Bulletin, July 18, 1934, p. 7.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 15
sanity.”51
In the late 1930s, Bridges’s father was repeatedly interviewed by the Australian
press. The Sydney Labor Daily carried a long interview with him in 1937. In 1938, he
told the Melbourne Australasian that, while in Australia, his son “had not been a Labour
representative, agitator, or organizer, as had been alleged in certain quarters,” and that
it was only after arriving in the U.S. that he had become “active in trying to improve the
working conditions of the American seamen, which he had described as deplorable,
compared with those existing in Australia.”52 During the second INS hearing, in 1941,
Bridges’s father insisted that “his son was not a Communist,” but added, “if Harry
returned to Australia, he would probably go into politics.”53
When the 1941 INS hearing went against Bridges, he appealed, ultimately to the
Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor in 1945. During those years, 1941 to 1945, the
Australian press sometimes speculated on the likelihood that he would return. The
Department of External Affairs opened a file on Bridges at the time when the House of
Representatives voted to deport him. On February 27, 1941, the Australian legation in
Washington sent the Department of External Affairs a four-page, closely typed summary
of an interview of Bridges by David Wills of the London News-Chronicle. A few months
later, the legation sent the department a nine-page summary of information about
Bridges, which it had received from a “most reliable source,” and added a two-page
biographical summary a few days later. Though the source was not identified, the
51
Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, July 20, 1934, p. 7; see also, e.g., Cairns
Post, July 20, 1934, p. 8.
52
Sydney Labour Daily, August 21, 1937, in Box 79, file F, Frances Perkins Papers, Columbia University;
Melbourne Australasian, February 26, 1938, p. 8.
53
Canberra Times, April 7, 1941, p. 4.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 16
material is similar to that being provided in the late 1930s by the American Legion, the
Industrial Association of San Francisco (an anti-union organization), and others in and
out of government.54
On May 30 1942, the Melbourne Argus reported talk in Washington that
“Australian authorities do not desire Bridges’s appearance in Australia.”55 However,
two days later, Jack Beasley, the acting Attorney-General, announced, “there is no legal
bar to prevent Harry Bridges . . . from returning to Australia.” The paper quoted “highest
official sources”—perhaps Beasley again--as saying that “Bridges was still a British
subject and a member of the Australian community and . . . therefore no legal bar could
be placed in the way of his return to this country.”56 Beasley himself was sometimes a
controversial figure within Australian labor politics. Although close to the Communists in
the 1920s, he became critical of the CPA in the 1930s and helped to oust CPA
supporters from the ALP.57
Though a key figure in the ALP government of John Curtin, Beasley’s statement
did not reflect the position of the government. Ten days after Beasley’s comment
appeared in the press, an encyphered cablegram to the Australian minister in
Washington, with copies to the “P.M.; Minister E.A.,” stamped “Secret,” was
unambiguous: “I saw Mr. Cordell Hull [US Secretary of State] and told him that having
54
1940s External Affairs file on Bridges, especially Chancery to Department, February 29, 1941, June
10, 1941, and July 1, 1941. On the campaign against Bridges in the late 1930s and early 1940s, see
Kutler, American Inquisition, and Robert Cherny, "Anticommunist Networks and Labor: The Pacific Coast
in the 1930s," in Labor's Cold War: Local Politics in a Global Context, ed. by Shelton Stromquist,
(Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2008), pp. 17-48.
55
Melbourne Argus, May 30, 1942, p. 3.
56
57
Canberra Times, June 1, 1942, p. 3.
“John Albert (Jack) Beasley,” Australian Dictionary of Biography, online at
http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/beasley-john-albert-jack-9461 (consulted October 28, 2014).
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 17
in view Bridges long residence and domicile in the United States we could not be
expected to facilitate deportation to Australia. . . . In any case you know that Bridges
would have no legal right to re-enter Australian territory (Potter v. Minahan and ex parte
Walsh.) As there will be delay nothing need to done but refrain from taking any positive
step without prior reference to us.”58 Thus, Curtin’s government seems to have been
saying one thing to the press while privately preparing for something very different.
After the Supreme Court ruled in Bridges’s favor in 1945, he became a
naturalized citizen—and, in doing so, renounced all other loyalties. In 1949, however,
US authorities brought him to trial and charged him with lying on his naturalization
papers when he swore that he had never been a member of the Communist Party.
When convicted in 1950, he appealed. Had he been unsuccessful, he would have been
denaturalized and subject to deportation. In 1953, the Supreme Court ruled in his favor.
The Australian press again buzzed with speculation that Bridges might return to
Australia. This time, Australia had a Liberal-Country coalition government, led by
Robert Menzies. Menzies had entered politics as a Nationalist, then became part of the
United Australia Party (a coalition of anti-ALP parties). In 1945, he led in organizing the
Liberal Party, a center-right party with its base of support among business and the
middle-class. The Country Party, now called the National Party, was and is a
conservative party, strongest in rural areas.
58
Cablegram to Australian Minister, Washington, sent June 25, 1942, with copies to P.M. and Minister
E.A. on June 26; see also Cablegram from Dixon, Australian Legation, Washington, to Department of
External Affairs, sent June 20, 1942, which refers to Evatt’s recent meeting with Cordell Hull; both in
Series A981, Item MIG 3, Title Migration Restrictions: Deportation of Harry R. Bridges, Department of
External Affairs, AA, hereinafter 1940s External Affairs file on Bridges.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 18
As soon as Bridges was convicted in 1950, the New York Times reported from
Sydney that a “highly placed Government official” had stated, “Australia will not take
back Harry Bridges if he is deported.” The Times report continued: “’He is America’s
baby, not ours,’ this official said, ‘I don’t think we want him.’” The official continued that
there was no international agreement “whereby we would be legally obligated to receive
a denaturalized American deportee who was born in Australia.” If the US were to
request that Australia accept Bridges, the official continued, it “would be very
embarrassing” for Menzies who was promoting legislation to outlaw the Communist
Party and bar Communists from holding union office. “The only way that Bridges could
be admitted,” according to the anonymous official, “would be as an immigrant.
Australian laws prohibit the entry of convicted felons, suspected Fascists and
Communists and other persons of doubtful character.”59 The Department of External
Affairs saved a clipping from the New York Herald-Tribune quoting a “high immigration
official” in the US as saying that Bridges, though a stateless person, could remain in the
US if no other country would admit him.60
Nonetheless, a week after the Times article, Harold Holt, the immigration
minister, insisted that no decision had been made regarding the possibility of Bridges
returning to Australia.61 Two months later, however, the Melbourne Argus quoted a US.
Justice Department official: “the Australian Government has said that Australia doesn’t
59
New York Times, April 5, 1950, p. 00.
60
New York Herald-Tribune, April 9, 1950, clipping in Miscellaneous: Enquiry re Mr. Harry Bridges, file
marked secret, Department of External Affairs, Series/Accession Number A1838/2, item number
1461/131, AA, hereinafter 1950s External Affairs file on Bridges.
61
Melbourne Argus, April 12, 1950, p. 5.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 19
want him.”62 By then, Holt’s position had caught up to the reports in the US press; he
now said that Bridges should be regarded as a stateless person and any application for
Bridges’s admission to Australia would be considered “in the light of the current
immigration policy.”63
The Menzies government closely watched the Bridges trial and the appeals.
External Affairs had a file on Bridges, marked “Secret,” that began with newspaper
clippings on the trial. A memo from O. L. Davis, First Secretary of the Australian
Embassy in Washington, to the Secretary of External Affairs, on December 14, 1949,
discussed the trial in progress and, in a confidential memorandum five months later,
offered the information that the British Consul General in Los Angeles had learned from
“a source which he is not in position to quote” that Bridges was really named
Rosenstein and had been born in Poland! Davis asked about following up on the
information that Bridges was really Polish, and asked whether it could be done
informally through the FBI. Davis continued, “the Ambassador and other members of
the staff have to date taken a non-committal stand on the question of Bridges’ possible
deportation when the matter has arise in informal conversation, the suggestion being
made however, that it might be possible that Bridges would have lost his Australian
citizenship by virtue of his naturalization in the United States.”64
The External Affairs file on Bridges includes a thirty-three-page report on “The
Nationality Status of Harry Renton Bridges: An Opinion,” forwarded on September 14,
62
Melbourne Argus, June 19, 1950, p. 4.
63
Sydney Morning Herald, June 20, 1950, p. 3; Canberra Times, June 21, 1950, p. 2.
64
Memo, O.L. Davis to Secretary, Department of External Affairs, December 14, 1949; Confidential
Memo, Davis to the Secretary, May 24, 1950, 1950s External Affairs file on Bridges.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 20
1950, from the Australian consulate in San Francisco. The author, John Anderton, was
a San Francisco attorney. During World War II, he had risen to the rank of Lieutenant
Colonel in US Military Intelligence, and, while stationed in Brisbane, had met and
married a local woman. After the war, his law practice in San Francisco specialized in
international law, and he served as a commissioner of the supreme courts of all the
Australian states.65 The acting consul general in San Francisco described Anderton as
doing “the legal work of this office,” and noted that he had prepared the lengthy report
“without any initiative from us.”66
In his report, Anderton summarized relevant US, Australian, and British law then
“safely concluded,” first, that Bridges lost his British and Australian nationality when he
became a US citizen and renounced all other loyalties; that Bridges lost his Australian
but not British nationality earlier when he became a resident alien in the US; that he lost
his British nationality when he became a US citizen; that revocation of his US
citizenship would not ipso facto restore his British nationality; and, therefore, that
Australia could not be required to accept Bridges as a deportee and would be fully
entitled to treat Bridges like any other immigrant.67 Thus, Anderton reached the same
conclusions, though perhaps with more legal citations, as had the “highly placed
Government official” five months before.
65
James C. McNaughton, Nisei Linguists: Japanese Americans in the Military Intelligence Service During
World War II (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 2006), 17; Hastings Community, 21 (Spring
1977): 33 (online at
http://repository.uchastings.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1051&context=alumni_mag, accessed
October 29, 2014); Anderton also provided pro bono assistance to Australian war brides seeking divorces
from their American husbands, see Australian Women’s Weekly, July 12, 1947, p. 19.
66
Name illegible, acting consul general, San Francisco, to Secretary, Department of External Affairs,
September 14, 1950, item number 1461/131, 1950s External Affairs file on Bridges.
67
“The Nationality Status of Harry Bridges: An Opinion,” item number 1461/131, 1950s External Affairs
file on Bridges.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 21
As Bridges’s appeals moved through the courts, the Menzies government began
to worry that Bridges might enter the country covertly. On February 5, 1952, External
Affairs sent a telegram marked “secret” to the Australian embassy in Washington, with a
copy to Australia’s high commissioner in Ottawa: “Information received from reputable
source that strong efforts will be made by Communist party to arrange entry to Australia
from America of Harry Bridges.” The embassy was directed to refer any request for a
visa and to advise all British passport offices in the US, including Hawaii. Further,
“Bridges may possibly endeavor [to] secure passage Australia as seaman.” A coded
teletype on Feb 8-11, 1952, to C. T. Moodie, counselor of the Australian embassy in
Washington, from Norman N. Frewin, the Australian vice-consul in San Francisco,
expanded on the danger, noting that Bridges was in Hawaii but planned to return to San
Francisco soon. The message continued that Bridges was a member of the Marine
Cooks and Stewards Union (MC&S) and “ostensibly has sufficient seaman credential(s)
to permit him to be signed as crew member.” In fact, Bridges had not gone to sea since
1922; any membership in the MC&S would have been honorary. Nonetheless, Frewin
had contacted several shipping company officials to alert them to the danger and found
that all “can be relied on to follow our wishes.” One company official raised a concern
that Bridges might try to stow away. Frewin did not approach the Matson line as he
feared “leakage”—the ILWU had developed a comfortable working relationship with the
Matson line.68
On February 14th, the Australian embassy in Washington sent a confidential
telegram to External Affairs in Canberra and the Australian commission in Ottawa with
68
File: Deportations: Bridges, Harry, File No. 609/1/2, Files of the Australian Embassy, Washington,
D.C., 1952-1953, AA.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 22
the information provided by Frewin and a request for advice about whether to approach
the US Coast Guard, informally and confidentially, and to ask that they alert their
offices. Two months later, Moodie sent a confidential message to Canberra about his
visit to the Security Division of the Coast Guard. Though Moodie found the Coast
Guard official “non-committal,” Moodie also quoted him as saying “quite definitely that
the seaman’s documents which Bridges now held were no longer valid.” The Coast
Guard official did not promise to alert all Coast Guard offices. Two days later, Moodie
spoke to Donald Nicholson, Chief of Security for the State Department, who also did not
seem greatly concerned but did agree to ask the FBI to inform him informally if Bridges
applied for clearance for seaman’s papers.69
Bridges’s FBI file contains a reference to an FBI bulletin of February 7, 1952—
two days after the first correspondence by the Australian officials—raising the possibility
that Bridges might be contemplating a trip to Australia. The FBI attributed the
information to “a reputable foreign source who could not guarantee its accuracy.” On
February 7, a person whose name was redacted but whose office was at the same
address as Anderton’s office told the San Francisco FBI that “he had received a request
from [name redacted] for whereabouts of subject and possibility of his sailing as an
American seaman [. name redacted] authorities had obtained information from their
intelligence sources as to such a possibility.” Apparently the Australian authorities had
asked Anderton to approach the FBI for assistance. However, the FBI report continues
that Anderton “was politely informed of the confidential nature of Bureau information and
that if the [name redacted—probably the Australian consulate] desired to make a formal
69
File: Deportations: Bridges, Harry, File No. 609/1/2, Files of the Australian Embassy, Washington,
D.C., 1952-1953, AA.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 23
request of the Bureau, it would be promptly forwarded.” Anderton indicated that there
would be no official request. The FBI report continues that Anderton, “in view of his
past and present cooperation in other cases, was advised that BRIDGES activities are
usually noted by the press and are a matter of public knowledge and he was referred to
an article in a local paper showing BRIDGES in Hawaii.”70 Frewin informed Moodie the
next day that Bridges was in Hawaii.
The FBI kept the matter on its agenda for a few more weeks. A subsequent
report by the San Francisco FBI office, on March 5, noted that “regular contacts with
confidential informants and sources have given no indication of any contemplated travel
by BRIDGES outside the jurisdiction of the United States. They have indicated that
BRIDGES sincerely believes his chances of being acquitted by the 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals are excellent.”71 A lengthy summary of information on the Bridges case,
prepared by the San Francisco FBI office on April 2, 1952, includes the information that
“[name redacted—clearly Anderton] in San Francisco has prepared an opinion [for
name redacted—obviously the Australian] government of thirty-three pages with
citations which conclude that the cancellations and revocations of the citizenship of
BRIDGES . . . does not ipso facto revive his previous nationality . . . [name redacted—
obviously the Australian] government can not be required, under international law, to
accept BRIDGES as a deportee.”72 So Anderton had not only informed the FBI of the
concerns of the Australian government that Bridges might try to sneak into that country
70
The Director, FBI, to SAC, San Francisco, February 26, 1952, marked “Secret” and “Confidential”; SAC
San Francisco to Director, FBI, February 13, 1952, both in FBI File Number HQ 39-915, Section129,
hereinafter Bridges FBI File.
71
SAC San Francisco to the Director, FBI, March 5, 1952, marked “Confidential,” Bridges FBI File.
72
Confidential report, San Francisco FBI Office, on Bridges, April 2, 1952, Bridges FBI File.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 24
and shared with the FBI his extensive legal opinion, but he had also presented his legal
opinion as prepared for the Australian government, unlike the Australian government’s
characterization of the report.
One is left to wonder about the source that so impressed the Australian
authorities that they had their representatives reaching out for assistance to so many
US agencies, but my only clue is that Bridges was known to take pleasure in
hoodwinking those who had him under surveillance.73
One is also left to wonder why the Australian government was so deeply
concerned that Bridges might show up there. One clue is that Anderton, on February 7,
attributed the Australian authorities’ concern to “possible economic and political unrest
[in location redacted--obviously Australia—in the] immediate future.”74 Australia had
experienced a series of strikes throughout 1950 and 1951, as inflation ate away at
purchasing power and the Menzies government sought to hold down wages. More
strikes loomed in early 1952. In early February 1952, some members of Parliament
became especially concerned that a bill to raise their salaries might provoke “left wing
unions” in the light of a recent decision rejecting a wage increase for metal trades
workers.75 Two hundred thousand metal-trades workers did stop work for twenty-four
hours on February 5 to protest that decision.76 At the same time, both the Menzies
73
See, e.g., St. Clair McKelway, “A Reporter at Large: Some Fun With the F.B.I.,” The New Yorker,
October 11, 1941, pp. 58-65.
74
SAC San Francisco to Director, FBI, February 13, 1952, Bridges FBI File.
75
Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate, January 29, 1952, p. 4; Brisbane Sunday Mail,
February 3, 1952, p. 5.
76
See, e.g., Sydney Morning Herald, January 24, 1952, p. 1, February 1, 1952, p. 4; Wage Waga Daily
Advertiser, Feb. 5, 1952, p. 2; Ipswich Queensland Times, February 9, 1952, p. 1; Brisbane Worker,
February 11, 1952, p. 1.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 25
government and the ALP were pushing Australian unions to bar Communists from union
leadership, and some major unions—including the Waterside Workers—were
experiencing deep divisions over that issue.77
Fifteen years later, in 1967, Bridges did visit Australia. By then, the excesses of
the McCarthy era and the Red Scare of the early Cold War had passed. In 1960,
Bridges had led the ILWU into a Modernization and Mechanization Agreement that was
considered a model of its kind. Secretary of Labor James Mitchell proclaimed that "next
only to John L. Lewis, Bridges has done the best job in American labor of coming to
grips with the problems of automation." Some even called him a “labor statesman”—an
title that Bridges disavowed. When he applied to visit Australia in 1967 as the guest of
the Waterside Workers Federation, the government of Henry Holt put up no obstacles.
The Australian labor movement gave him a hero’s welcome, and the Australian press
treated him like a visiting celebrity.78
Bridges’s experiences reinforce the notion that the Pacific both separates nations
and links them together. Bridges’s Australian accent did not mark him as unusual on
the San Francisco docks, where well over half of the longshoremen were foreign-born
and from many lands and many had previously worked as seafarers. Bridges used his
Australian experiences to establish himself as knowledgeable about unions and labor
politics and later argued that his political outlook had been formed through his
experiences in Australia rather than by exposure to the CP in the US. Although the
Pacific provided a way for Bridges to bring Australian concepts to the docks of San
77
Sydney Morning Herald, January 4, 1952, p. 2, January 16, 1952, p. 3.
78
E.g., Melbourne The Age, September 27, 1967, p. 1.
Cherny, “Harry Bridges and Australia, p. 26
Francisco, the Pacific proved too much of a barrier for the INS and FBI agents who
began investigating Bridges in 1940. Though they secured copies of his birth certificate
(which contains numerous errors when compared with the baptismal certificate), they
failed to locate documents that contradict some of his claims for his seafaring
experiences.79
Once Bridges became a prominent labor leader in the US, the Australian press
made him familiar to its readers. Just as he was both lionized and demonized in the
US, the same process occurred in Australia. Just as some business groups and rightwing politicians in the US saw Bridges as a dangerous radical, so too did some
Australians let their fear of Bridges carry them into a Quixotic campaign to prevent him
from sneaking into their country. With the thaw in the Cold War and a decline in antiCommunist rhetoric in both nations, Bridges could be celebrated in both places as a
“labor statesman,” no matter how much he disliked that title.
79
Cherny, "Constructing a Radical Identity.”