Vern Smith (journalist)

Vern Ralph Smith (8 May 1891 - 27 Oct 1978) was an American left wing journalist who served in an editorial capacity for several publications of the Industrial Workers of the World and the Communist Party USA (CPUSA).

[2] Smith, one of 4 children, spent his youth working on the family farm in the San Joaquin Valley, leaving for university at the age of 20.

[1] Smith remained as editor of the paper until June 1923, at which time the IWW sent him to Chicago to edit the organization's primary English-language newspaper, Industrial Solidarity.

[1] In 1927, Smith drew up a petition to have the paper's editor J. Louis Engdahl removed; most of the staff signed it (including Harry Freeman (journalist), Sender Garlin, and Whittaker Chambers).

Smith was arrested along with a number of strike organizers and relief workers, and was incarcerated for four months in the Harlan County jail, the last 31 days of which were in solitary confinement.

[5] Others included in this factional expulsion were Sam Darcy, William F. Dunne, and Smith's fellow editor at the Daily People's World, Harrison George.

[citation needed] Vern Smith's papers, primarily relating to his time as a member of the IWW, are located at the Kheel Center for Labor-Management Documentation and Archives in the Martin P. Catherwood Library at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.