MINNESOTA: Sedition?

Fifteen men marched through Minneapolis last week on their way to jail. They went because they are followers of the late Leon Trotzky. Almost all are members of a minuscule political group known as the Socialist Workers Party. On the march they were led, as always, by volatile Vincent R. Dunne, ardent Trotzkyite,onetime head of Minneapolis’ volatile Local 544 of the A.F. of L. Teamsters Union. Two years ago they were convicted of sedition, not because of any overt act, but because they believe in the proletarian revolution.

But the Federal Government did not prosecute all other U.S. citizens who hold a similar belief, not even all other U.S. Trotzkyites. The prosecution of Vince Dunne and his followers was begun at the instigation of “Uncle Dan” Tobin, general president of the Teamsters Union, with whom they had fought bitterly in Minneapolis. And Uncle Dan has powerful friends in Washington.