In contrast, Anita Whitney could not have anticipated her criminal syndicalism arrest. The Oakland Civic Center, an organization of conservative middle- and upper-class “club women” who were the wives of distinguished doctors, lawyers, professors, and public officers, had asked the patrician communist to address them on November 28. She delivered a dynamic speech on “The Negro Problem in America,” recounting the shameful history of slavery, deconstructing the theory of black inferiority, and comparing current disparities in the economic and political power of the races. What most grabbed Whitney’s audience, however, was her shocking statistics on and descriptions of the abhorrent practices of lynching. Coming to a rousing conclusion, Whitney figuratively wrapped herself in red, white, and blue: “It is not alone for the Negro man and woman that I plead, but for the fair name of America that this terrible blot on our national escutcheon may be wiped away. . . . Let us then both work and fight to make and keep her right so that the flag that we love may truly wave ‘O’er the land of the free / And the home of the brave.’”[37]
The club ladies applauded her; but upon her exit, she was arrested. Detective Fenton Thompson informed the stunned 52 year-old communist stalwart that she was charged with criminal syndicalism. Although Whitney was at that time the treasurer of the Labor Defense League, an association formed to defend and employ counsel for penniless defendants, she had sacrificed so much of her own funds that she had insufficient resources to make bail for herself. While her friends scrounged for bond money, she was led to a cell, searched, and divested of her jewelry. To her indignant allies, she had a characteristically humble answer: “Why worry about it? They do it to others – hundreds of others. Why not to me?” On December 30, Whitney’s information was filed: five counts, all drawn in the language of the relevant statute. The all-significant first count charged: “the said Charlotte A. Whitney . . . unlawfully, wilfully, wrongfully, deliberately and feloniously organize[d] and assist[ed] in organizing, and was, is, and knowingly became a member of an organization, society, group and assemblage of persons organized and assembled to advocate, teach, aid and abet criminal syndicalism.” A demurrer to the information was overruled, her request for a bill of particulars was denied, and trial was set for January 27 of 1920. Thus began the case that would later be known as Whitney v. California.[38]
