Ruthenberg Convicted

Charles E. Ruthenberg, second defendant to be tried under the Michigan State Criminal Syndicalism law, was found guilty. The jury was out five hours and took three ballots.

Ruthenberg faces a prison sentence of ten years or a fine of $5,000, or both.

This is the third conviction for the ex-Secretary of the Communist Party in recent years and his ninth arrest since he entered the revolutionary movement a dozen years ago. During the war he was found guilty of obstructing the draft and sent to an Ohio workhouse. After the war, he was convicted of writing the notorious "left wing" manifesto which split the regular Socialist Party and led to the birth of insurrectionary Communism in America. He was sentenced to ten years in Sing Sing prison and served 18 months before the Appellate Court reversed the decision and released him pending a new trial.

Ruthenberg's conviction in the Michigan trial was based upon his advocacy of force in realizing the Communist revolution. The main exhibit which condemned him was an article written by him in which he said that the workers must adopt " extraparliamentary means," including the " use of armed force to overthrow the Government of the United States."

The next Communist to be tried will be Robert Minor, cartoonist, writer and former editor of the Liberator, leading Bolshevik monthly in America.