Hugh De Lacy

Emerson Hugh De Lacy (May 9, 1910 – August 19, 1986)

Career From 1933 to 1937, De Lacy taught English at the University of Washington. De Lacy was accused of encouraging students to fight for the Spanish Republicans.

De Lacy was elected to the Seattle City Council in 1937. He was subsequently elected as president of the Washington Commonwealth Federation, a left-wing faction within the Washington State Democratic Party that included a number of members of the Communist Party USA. He was re-elected and served on Seattle City Council until 1940.

As a congressman, De Lacy often expressed controversial views that earned him a reputation of a Communist fellow traveller. He attacked Patrick J. Hurley for his support of Chiang Kai-Shek instead of supporting "the dynamic new democracy represented by the Chinese Communist Party". He was the only Washington delegate at the 1940 Democratic National Convention to oppose the re-nomination of President Roosevelt, calling him a "warmonger". De Lacy spoke against conscription in 1940, but backed down and called for extending the draft in reaction to Operation Barbarossa in 1941. He also spoke in defense of prosecuted Communists such as Earl Browder and Harry Bridges.

Louis Budenz named De Lacy as a covert Communist in 1948. According to historian of American Communism Harvey Klehr, De Lacy was a secret member of the Communist Party USA at the time of his 1937 election.

De Lacy was elected to the United States Congress in 1944, replacing fellow Democrat Warren G. Magnuson who had retired from the House to run (successfully) for United States Senate. Harvey Klehr noted that by 1944, De Lacy moderated his political views and became "once more a loyal New Dealer and won election to Congress for one term". De Lacy was defeated by Republican Homer Jones in the 1946 election.

In 1947, De Lacy became editor of the Bulletin of the Machinists' Union in Seattle. From 1948 to 1950, he was state director of the Progressive Party of Ohio and was active in the 1948 presidential campaign of Henry Wallace. They introduced folk singers Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger to the word when they came to visit Seattle in 1941, who went on to popularize it as term for a folk music jam. In 1949, De Lacy married actress Hester Sondergaard; that marriage also ended in divorce. His third wife was Dorothy Baskin to whom he was married to from 1960 until his death. He had four daughters from his first marriage. He was buried in Home of Peace Cemetery in Santa Cruz, California.