March 18, 1919: 105 years ago, March 18 1919, a bomb exploded at the Oakland home of [...]

105 years ago, March 18 1919, a bomb exploded at the Oakland home of banker George Greenwood, killing his wife. Within days, Russian-born IWW member Pavel Melnikov was arrested for the murder on scant evidence. He was deported without trial in December 1919 as a “dangerous alien”

Melnikov, who had participated in revolutionary groups in Russia, New Jersey, and Seattle, was arrested at the IWW’s Jack London Memorial Library in Oakland, and accused of plotting the murders of local capitalists as a member of an alleged IWW secret society, the Cat’s Claw Club

At the request of the federal government (who claimed Melnikov was an expert bomb maker simply because he had studied chemistry) he and his alleged co-conspirator, IWW member Basil Saffores, were immediately handed over to immigration authorities

His case was taken up by the International Workers Defense League, an IWW-linked legal group known for defending high-profile radicals like Joe Hill and Tom Mooney. They were unable to obtain a writ of habeas corpus, and Melnikov was sent to New York by train to be deported

Some would-be deportees on Melnikov’s train managed to escape at the last minute, including Melnikov’s comrade Basil Saffores. Melnikov was just one of hundreds of foreign-born radicals who were deported to the Soviet Union in December 1919 as part of the First Red Scare

---