Minnesota Congressman John T. Bernard fought throughout his life for working people against strong opposition. His outspoken and uncompromising views led him, on his second day in office, to cast the single “no” vote in Congress against the Spanish arms embargo. Bernard’s vote proved farsighted as the Spanish Civil War became, in many ways, a “dress rehearsal” for World War II.
Born in Corsica on March 6, 1893, John Toussaint Bernard followed his parents to the United States and Eveleth, Minnesota, in 1907. In 1910, he found work at the Spruce Mine. In 1916, he enlisted in the army, served on the Mexican border, and was sent overseas during World War I. While in France working for naval intelligence, he met Josephine Dinois. The couple married in 1928.
Back in Eveleth, Bernard was blacklisted from the mines because of earlier efforts to unionize fellow workers. Eventually finding work as an Eveleth fireman (1920–1936), the blacklisted Bernard was elected twice as president of the Governor Olson Local of the International Association of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers. Bernard also organized and served as chairman of the first Farmer-Labor Party club in Eveleth and served two terms as leader of the St. Louis County Farmer-Labor Association.
In 1936, Morris Greenberg, an Eveleth attorney and Farmer-Labor organizer, approached Bernard about running for the Eighth District seat in the U.S. Congress. Bernard agreed after Governor Floyd B. Olson contributed $200 towards the filing fee and campaign. Bernard, along with gubernatorial candidate Elmer Benson, was swept into office on a wave of Farmer-Labor support.
A test of Bernard’s integrity came on his second day in Congress. President Roosevelt had asked for a unanimous vote in both houses to deny military and financial support to either the democratically elected Republican government of Spain or to rebel general Francisco Franco.
Bernard saw a Spanish arms embargo as pro-fascist because Hitler and Mussolini already backed Franco. Although many progressives agreed and thought the measure anti-democratic, they considered voting against an embargo “political suicide.” When the call for a unanimous vote came, on January 6, 1937, only Bernard objected.
During the remainder of his term, Bernard supported the Spanish Loyalist cause. He also advocated for striking autoworkers, timber workers, and anti-lynching legislation. He alienated many in the American Federation of Labor (AFL) by organizing for its rival, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
Bernard’s outspoken, left-wing stance, combined with political backlash against Roosevelt and the New Deal, led to defeat in his 1938 re-election bid. His opponent, and much of the AFL leadership, accused him of being a Communist. Because the Catholic Church backed Franco in Spain, Bernard was denounced in nearly every local Catholic pulpit. His support of civil rights and anti-lynching laws also angered northern Minnesota’s chapters of the Ku Klux Klan. Bernard ran again in 1940, but lost.
Following his 1938 defeat, Bernard was blacklisted on a grand scale on the Iron Range. His vocal criticism of corporations and big banks and support of working people made it impossible for him to find work. His essentially popular-front political stance between the time of the Hitler–Stalin pact of 1939 and the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 also made enemies. Although fluent in French, Italian, and Spanish, Bernard was rejected for service in World War II, even after writing directly to Roosevelt.
In 1952, Bernard was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). His affiliations with Loyalist Spain, the CIO, and many other groups were deemed Communist. Bernard defied the committee. He called a previous witness a “stool pigeon” and asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege on many questions. But he also insisted on his loyalty to America and his willingness to fight in its defense.
A 1977 “Tribute to John T. Bernard” at Mesaba Co-op Park near Hibbing included many old Farmer Laborites, including Benson, veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, and Communist Party head Gus Hall. It was at this event, at age eighty-four, that Bernard accepted a membership card in the Communist Party of America.
Bernard died in 1983 in Long Beach, California. He was ninety years old.