Vincent Raymond (V. R.) Dunne dedicated his life to improving the plight of workers. A leader in the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strike and convicted in the Smith Act Trial of 1941 for his involvement in the Socialist Workers Party, Dunne fought many battles in labor and politics.
Dunne was born in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1889. He was the second eldest of nine children. At the age of four, he moved with his family to Little Falls (now Pierz), Minnesota. Vincent’s father worked on the streetcar line and was injured in an accident. To help support the family, V. R. left school; at the age of fourteen, he began to work.
At fifteen, he went to North Dakota to harvest grain. There he found the Wobblies (the Industrial Workers of the World, or IWW), a radical labor union organizing in agriculture, mining, and lumber. Dunne worked as a lumberjack in Montana in 1905 and eventually moved west, where he organized with the Wobblies and was arrested several times for soap-boxing—speaking for the radical cause of the IWW.
When his family moved to Minneapolis in 1908, Dunne returned to his home state. The biggest branch of the IWW was in Minneapolis, and Dunne stayed active as a union organizer while working as an express driver.
In 1914, Dunne settled with his wife, Jennie Holme, in North Minneapolis. They had two children: Raymond Vincent, Jr., and Jeanette Adele.
In 1920, Dunne joined the Workers (Communist) Party. In 1928, he was removed from the Communist Party for supporting Leon Trotsky over Joseph Stalin. The Trotskyists eventually founded their own party, the Socialist Workers (SWP). Dunne made several trips to Mexico City to visit the exiled Trotsky.
In the early 1930s, Dunne had several jobs in the Minneapolis coal industry, including driving an express truck. The Teamsters were organizing truck drivers at the time, and Dunne became a leader in the struggle, along with his brothers, Miles and Grant.
In 1934, Teamsters Local 574 went on strike several times. Eventually, after dozens of casualties, all of the workers’ demands were met, including a closed shop (union-only) hiring policy. The strike put Minneapolis on the map as a “union town,” with 6,000 members organized by Dunne and the Teamsters.
By the end of 1934, Dunne was a renowned labor leader. Trotsky called him "the most effective labor leader in America.”
In 1941, a dispute arose between the president of the Teamsters, Daniel Tobin, and Local 544 (formerly 574). Feeling that Tobin was too dictatorial, 544 left the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Within the local, however, opposition formed against Dunne and the socialist union leaders. James Bartlett and Tommy Williams formed the “Committee of 100,” which worked with the government to ensure that Dunne’s cohort lost their prominent positions. Tobin immediately telegraphed President Roosevelt, and an intra-union struggle ensued.
While Dunne faced opposition locally, the FBI spied on him. By the end of his life, his file was over 1,000 pages long.
On June 27, 1941, the FBI raided the Socialist Workers headquarters at 919 Marquette Avenue in Minneapolis. They confiscated several boxes of papers, two red flags, and a picture of Trotsky.
Under the Aliens and Sedition Act (the Smith Act) passed in 1940, Dunne, along with his brothers and twenty-five others, was charged with conspiring to overthrow the government. The U.S. had not charged individuals with sedition in peacetime since 1798; this case marked the first use of the Smith Act.
The trial started on October 27, 1941. On December 1, the jury handed down its verdict: Dunne and others were guilty. They appealed the decision, but the Supreme Court refused to hear the case. On December 31, 1943, Dunne and his comrades surrendered to the authorities. Dunne spent sixteen months in Sandstone federal prison.
Dunne’s conviction did not slow his political activity. He ran for mayor of Minneapolis in 1943 and 1947 and embarked on nationwide speaking tours in 1942, 1949, and 1957. In addition to fighting for free speech, he spoke out against the Marshall Plan and the Vietnam War.
An active member of the SWP until the end, Dunne died in 1970.