Mayer Libson Nehring
Biography
Mayer Libson Nehring was born 1892 in Warsaw, Russia (present-day Poland). Worked as a hatmaker, chiropractor, pharmacist. Immigrated to the United States in 1914.
Anarchist and IWW organizer in Cleveland. In February 1919 he was convicted under the Espionage Act for an antiwar speech and sentenced to nineteen years. At his sentencing the judge declared: “I presume that the Russian Bolshevists would welcome you, and Lenine and Trotzky would be glad to see you back in the event that the government should deport you…in the event that the Government does not send you back to Russia I am going to protect America from your activities by sending you the Atlanta penitentiary for 19 years at hard labor.” His sentence was later commuted on condition of deportation, and he was deported February 26, 1921.
Refused entry at Libau because of anarchism, he coauthored An Open Letter to the Russian Premier Lenin and returned to the U.S., where he apparently ceased radical activity. He received an unconditional presidential pardon in September 1930. In 1935 he applied for US citizenship and was denied, but the decision was reversed on appeal.
Adapted from Kenyon Zimmer, Red Scare Deportees (kenyonzimmer.com), compiled from INS deportation case files.
The Northern District of Ohio row records M. L. Nehring sentenced to nineteen years on February 21, 1919, commuted December 10, 1920 to three years. A footnote makes the reduction subject to reconsideration when deportation becomes feasible; it is not an actual-release date. The table separately identifies sentencing, nominal judgment and circumstances of execution; no new jail admission or actual-service counter is inferred.
1921 Senate amnesty hearings, printed page 107 (PDF page 114).
