James Kutcher (1912-1989): The man who never gave up

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Following are excerpts from an article in tribute to Jimmy Kutcher that appeared in the April 1989 issue of the Bulletin in Defense of Marxism. Kutcher died on Feb. 10 in Brooklyn, N.Y., at the age of 76.

James Kutcher suffered more than his share of misfortune and adversity, but he never stopped fighting against injustice. He met every challenge with quiet determination to win.

His life was more willful than accidental, more satisfying than frustrating. The decisions he made distinguished him from ordinary men, even though he described himself as a ordinary man "in most respects."

He came of age during the Great Depression. There were no jobs for a young man of 19 in 1932. He had hoped to become a teacher, but the family had no money for his education.

After a succession of low-paid temporary jobs, he began first to question his own ability and then the capitalist system that divides society between a few rich people and the poor.

Jim began to read about these questions and in 1935 joined the Socialist Party. His basic education began there when he was introduced to the political writings and organizational work of Leon Trotsky. He became a Trotskyist in 1936 and remained so for life.

Challenging consquences

In retrospect, Kutcher said his life was shaped by three man-made catastrophes: the Depression, the war, and the Cold War-each with consequences both tragic and challenging.

The Depression cut off his right to work, but it gave him a new outlook on the world. World War II cost him his legs. He had to learn to walk again on artificial legs, like a : child learning to use stilts. "But," he said, 'it also brought me a job I expected to keep for the rest of my life, and for the first time, I got a sense of personal security."

The Cold War cost him his job because he was a member of the Socialist Workers Party and decided not to renounce his socialist principles. The day he was notified by the Veteran's Administration that he was slated to be fired was when his illusory sense of security vanished. He felt it as a personal blow, but he understood it as a blow to civil SOCIALI.

liberties in this country.

From 1948, when he was fired from his clerk's job in Newark, until 1958, when his case was finally settled and he was securely back on this job, Kutcher conducted a tireless campaign against the government's unconstitutional blacklist. During that decade, he became the most prominent witch-hunt victim and the only completely vindicated champion of civil liberties in this country.

"The people are on our side"

He made two national tours. The first began early in June 1949.... [In his book, "The Case of the Legless Veteran,"I he talked about what he had learned on tour:

"Of course, it wasn't only the unions that helped me, although they took the lead," he said. "In addition, there were scores, hundreds, of liberal, civil-liberties, veterans, civic, religious, student, old-age, Negro, Jewish, Japanese-American, Slavic-American, fraternal, academic, political, and social groups and organizations who came to my aid morally and financially, although the overwhelming majority of their members disagree-and

LOYALTY REVIEW

BOARD JAMES KUTCHER sometimes violently-with the social and political views for which I was purged from my job."

His conclusion: ". "...the people are on our side. And if we redouble our efforts and reach them with the truth, they will come to our aid and guarantee that the liberties won in the Bill of Rights will never be destroyed in this country." "Jim left from Newark May 17, 1954, on his second national tour. Driving alone from city to city, he made his way across the country and back, returning to Newark on Nov. 8. One purpose of this six-month journey was to sell his book and get the widest possible distribution of it. It had been published in England the year before because he was unable to find a publisher in this country.

Reception at the Lawyers Guild He spoke at a National Lawyers Guild luncheon and got a good reception, which was somewhat surprising because the guild was influenced by Stalinist ideology. In the past, the Stalinists had tried to block support to his case. He had confronted them on several occasions, most memorably at a meeting in San Francisco of 2800 longshoremen in the blow. Iwo days before Christmas 1955, Kutcher's disability pension was bureaucratically terminated. His only income was gone. This focused public attention on the case as never before.

Public hearings were held for the first time in a "loyalty" case of this kind. Kutcher's testimony was widely publicized, the baseless charges against him exposed.

On April 20, 1956, a federal appeals court ordered Kutcher restored to his job. He went back to work at the Newark VA on June 26; and finally, two years later, on June 4, 1958, he got a settlement for back pay. The famous "Case of the Legless Veteran" was closed after nearly 10 years.

Bureaucracy in the unions [An] unanswered question: What happened in the unions? Why did so many union officials desert Kutcher?

The sad fact is that the union movement during World War II was subjected to government controls, and enactment of the Taft-Hartley Law in 1947 codified and extended those controls. Under these conditions the unions became highly bureaucratized. Bureaucrats do not risk their soft jobs for the sake of principles.

Kutcher came to the conclusion that "the unions were in a state of transition, starting around the time my case began." He said he hadn't sensed this in 1949 but it was clear in 1954, during his second tour. "Bureaucratization of the unions made enormous strides in those five years," he said. "That, and the impact of McCarthyism, had frightened some and served as a pretext for others."

Kutcher's defense of socialist principles did not end when he won back his government job. After he retired from that job, he took up the work of explaining those principles, what it means to defend them, and how best to do this. That was the purpose of the 1973 edition of his book.

He thought by that time, after all his experience of nearly half a century in the Trotskyist movement, that he could face any challenge. But even then another challenge, both personal and political, was still to come.

Expelled from the SWP In 1983, a new generation of leaders in the Socialist Workers Party, headed by the national secretary Jack Barnes, charged Kutcher with "hitting a comrade" at a party membership meeting (a charge that was later demonstrated to be patently false, based on the testimony of the individual allegedly hit) and expelled him on the grounds that he refused to appear when summoned to stand trial (when in fact he was ill and unable to appear, and had merely asked for a delay).

Kutcher was not sure at the time what the real reason for his expulsion was, but it soon became clear that he was deemed to be a Trotskyist when the party leadership was seeking to establish its own anti-Trotskyist credentials.

A list of comrades who remained loyal to Trotskyism had been prepared, and Kutcher

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STILL FIRED! YOU'RE MOTHING