{"value"=>"<p>Two Freedom of Speech files deal with the rights of trade-unions to buy radio time in the face of industry restrictions against \"controversial subjects\" like union organizing and the rights of labor; with restrictions against Japanese-Americans and other national minorities during the war years; and with the rights of Trotskyites indicted in Minneapolis under the Smith Act and labeled by the Federation in NY as \"fifth column agents\". Included are some materials of the American Civil Liberties Union which supported the Minneapolis Trotskyites. War related activities include a brief but intensive campaign against compulsory military training in 1940; a 1943-1944 campaign in favor of federal legislation for a voting program for absentee soldiers, opposed by a coalition of conservative Republicans and Southern Democrats; and a petition drive in support of the War Department's special order against denying commissions and other appointments to Communists and Communist sympathizers. Chaired by Dashiell Hammett, NFCL's Committee on Election Rights mobilized on behalf of minority parties kept off the ballot in 30 states in 1940 and 1941. In several states people were indicted for signing nominating petitions, and Communist Party workers and candidates were sentenced to heavy jail terms. Election rights materials include statements by Hammett, Theodore Dreiser and Lloyd K. Garrison, drafts of a NFCL pamphlet, \"Will You Vote as You Please in 1942?\" and several Action Letters and campaign literature. There are also affidavits by Mississippi African-Americans denied the right to vote in 1946 and clipping files on the intimidation of black voters in several Southern states.</p>"}