Harold I. Cammer

Harold I. Cammer (June 18, 1909 – October 21, 1995) was an American lawyer who co-founded the National Lawyers Guild. He was known for his participation in labor law, civil rights, peace and justice issues, and freedom of speech cases; in particular, defending those accused of communist leanings.

Background Cammer was born in June 1909 in the borough of Manhattan in New York City to Harry and Anne (Boriskin) Cammer, Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. He attended New York City public schools and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1929 from City College.

Clients included: the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO); the Joint Board, Fur, Leather & Machine Workers Union; the Brewery Workers' Union (now International Union of United Brewery, Flour, Cereal, Soft Drink and Distillery Workers, New York Teachers Union, and Amalgamated Meat Cutters union. )

During 1948, Pressman formed Pressman, Witt & Cammer. Bella Abzug started her career there.

On August 20, 1948, Cammer represented Ware Group members Witt, Pressman, and John Abt before HUAC, less than a week before on the famous "Confrontation Day" hearing of HUAC in which Alger Hiss and Whittaker Chambers faced each other publicly for the first time. Chambers described the day as follows: On August 10th, a trio of witnesses collectively more interesting than [Henry] Collins appeared before the Committee. They were Lee Pressman, who had been a member of the Ware Group, Nathan Witt and John Abt, each of whom, in succession, had been its head. Witt and Abt were now law partners in New York City. Each was accompanied at his hearing by an attorney, Mr. Harold Cammer, a partner in the law firm of Nathan, Witt and Cammer.

The firm changed its name briefly to Pressman, Witt & Cammer after Lee Pressman joined in 1948, But Pressman became caught up in the Hiss Case. HUAC began investigating Pressman and Witt (also a member of the group) and the stress began to wear Pressman down, even causing him to become paranoid to a degree. Cammer represented Witt and fellow attorney John Abt before HUAC in the 1950 hearings.

In 1951, Cammer joined more than half a dozen other lawyers in defending 17 Communist Party members, including Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. The communists were accused of charged conspiring to "teach and advocate violent overthrow" of the government. The other lawyers were: Abraham L. Pomerantz, Carol Weiss King, Victor Rabinowitz, Michael Begun, Mary Kaufman, Leonard Boudin, and Abraham Unger. Later, they were relieved by O. John Rogge, gangster Frank Costello's lawyer George Wolf, William W. Kleinman, Joseph L. Delaney, Frank Serri, Osmond K. Fraenkel, Henry G. Singer, Abraham J. Gellinoff, Raphael P. Koenig, and Nicholas Atlas.

Later career

Cammer's legal practice focused on labor law. Among his clients were the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the Teachers Union (a local union which had been ejected by the American Federation of Teachers for being communist-dominated and which, in the 1950s, belonged to the United Public Workers of America), In many cases, he represented union members and others who had been accused of being members of the CPUSA or harboring communist views. His involvement was part of the circumstances which led to the Ocean Hill-Brownsville strike.

Cammer (left) and his client Ben Gold leave the District Court in Washington, D.C. October 1953

Cammer was chief defense counsel for Fur and Leather Workers' Union President Ben Gold after Gold was accused of lying when he submitted his Taft-Hartley Act-required anti-communist oath. Cammer was held in contempt of court in June 1954 for sending a questionnaire to potential grand jurors in the case. Although Cammer lost his appeal, a unanimous Supreme Court of the United States overturned his conviction in Cammer v. United States, 350 U.S. 399 (1956).

In 1955, when Witt left the firm to become full-time counsel to the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, Ralph Shapiro (November 10, 1916 – January 9, 2014), a graduate of City College of New York and University of Michigan Law, as well as member of the American Labor Party and National Lawyers Guild, was elevated to partner, so Cammer's firm changed its name to Cammer & Shapiro.

In 1978-1979, Cammer & Shapiro were working for the Joint Board, Fur, Leather & Machine Workers Union (see International Fur & Leather Workers Union, Ben Gold, Henry Foner).

Cammer retired from an active legal practice in the mid-1980s. the nation's first racially integrated bar association and an organization dedicated to achieving economic, racial, and social justice through the legal system.

The National Lawyers Guild was branded a communist front by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Department of Justice, and (later) the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).

Pro Bono

Cammer was interested in more than labor law issues. He worked as a pro bono attorney in the civil rights movement during the 1950s and 1960s.

Harold I. Cammer died age 86 on October 21, 1995, at his home in Mamaroneck, New York; he was survived by his wife, son, daughter, grandson, and two great-granddaughters.