County Loses Activist with an Historic Record

Jan. 27, 2009   Last Friday, Irving Feiner of Nyack passed away at the age of 84 after a short illness. From early adulthood to the present, Irv dedicated himself to the defense of the civil rights guaranteed to all while fighting inequalities from the trial of the Trenton Six in 1949 to the current unfair tax burden on the residents of Spring Valley.

Irv joined the ranks of "The Greatest Generation" when he left high school before graduating in order to volunteer for military service during World War II. During his three-year hitch, he spent 18 months combat duty in Europe, and his division was among those that first liberated Dachau.

When he returned home, Irv enrolled at Syracuse University to work towards a degree in law. In his junior year (1949), "he participated in the Young Progessive Party’s decision to invite John Rogge, a past Assistant Attorney General of the U.S. and a member of the American Progressive Party, to give a speech about what he thought was the unfair conviction of several young blacks in a New Jersey courtroom (the trial of The Trenton Six ). To publicize the [changed] meeting place and to advertise some of the themes they expected Rogge to emphasize, Feiner held a street corner rally in downtown Syracuse." (From the Encyclopedia of American Civil Liberties.)

After listening to negative remarks about the Syracuse Mayor and several other politicians, one member of the gathered group told police officers that if they didn’t get "that son of a bitch" off the box he was on, he would do it for them. It was later alleged that the "S.O.B" man, who never was charged or called to testify, was actually an instigator sent to disrupt Feiner’s group.

Irv was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor disturbance charge. What followed was a free-speech case that worked its way all the way to the Supreme Court.

You can read the case at http://www.pbs.org/now/classroom/courtcases.html
PBS Now--The Supreme Court and the Freedom of Speech. There is also a short article with references at Wikipedia, titled Feiner v. New York.

To summarize, Irv lost his appeal claiming his first amendment right to free speech. He spent 30 days in jail and was expelled from Syracuse, which prevented him from attending the law school to which he had been accepted. The Supreme Court vote was 6 - 3, and scholars have since labeled it as one of the institution’s most faulty decisions—a decision conditioned by the political tenor of the times. Times pressured by Truman’s loyalty oath and the Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Hearings.

A little over two years ago, when Syracuse University formally dedicated the Tully Center for Free Speech, Irv was invited to address a colloquium. The Feiner Case is bannered at the Center as "Syracuse University’s Most Famous Freedom of Speech Case." You can view video of the session, which includes a telling of the story of what happened that night, subsequently in court, and in Irv’s later years as a result of the Supreme Court decision. The two-part video is available at http://tully.syr.edu/events_detail.cfm?event=2 (scroll down to >Video SU’s Most Famous Freedom of Speech Case—Irving Feiner Part 1 and Part 2.)

Although Irv was prevented from pursuing a law degree, there was never a question of a road not taken in his life. He had difficulty getting work after the Court decision and his 30-day sentence. The FBI harassed him for years, managing to get him fired from one of his earlier jobs at a small newspaper. Eventually, Irv settled into business, but he never lost his passion for politics. He was a founder of the Working Family Party here in Rockland, and he did run for several offices.

Most important though was his activism in defense of those whose rights were being abused. Irv was an endless source of information about local politics and law, and what he couldn’t tell you off the top of his head, he would find in the databases on his Apple. He worked with other local activists, and at one point he credited his longevity (84 years) to a lifelong preoccupation with "breaking politician’s balls."

He was a gadfly with a pretty sharp sting. In this letter to the Journal, Irv explained how one local politician (Ilan Schoenberger) has parlayed his position in the county legislature and within the Democratic machine to set up family employment for all.

But Irv was not only adept at swinging at overstuffed political piñatas. His statements on tax reform strategies were substantive and well researched. He discussed the desire for change in this political year in a Community View in the Journal News (2/07/08). He ended his formula for local change with this question: "Do we really need five towns, a county executive, his staff, the five supervisors, their staffs, 20 town trustees, 17 legislators, their staffs, 44 county and town attorneys, 15 part-time town judges, five assessors, five receiver of taxes, six personnel directors, six administrative assistants, six town/county clerks, six superintendents of highways, nine police chiefs and the entire town/county support bureaucracy, estimated at 300 to 400? The cost for all that bureaucracy is, minimally, $135 million in additional taxes. Why not a single town/county, one town/county supervisor and 17 town/county legislators? That’s enough government, simple government, and better government."

In the last two lines of this Community View you can see Irv’s reason for his argument, and, in a larger sense, his reason for political advocacy over the years. "All that is required is some courage and understanding that the lives of regular folks are more important than the jobs of the political class."

For others, he offers the following advice: "The role of a true citizen is not to be submissive. I don’t want ever to hear from someone, ‘But it’s our government, and we must trust them.’ I don’t think that’s the role of a citizen."

Irv Feiner  Nov. 23, 1924  Jan. 23, 2009