Seeds

Melanie Proctor
April 20, 2025

The attacks on our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness are happening almost too quickly to follow.

Last week, I planned to write about Florence Esgate. In 1934, as secretary of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania branch of the Fraternal Order of Blind, she protested the abuse of “a pension for the blind” that was intended to supplement already low wages at a Pennsylvania Association for the Blind workshop.[1] Instead, the workshop slashed the wages by the same amount as the pension, and nearly $1.5 million went missing.[2]

Three years later, federal and state mediators traveled to Pittsburgh to resolve a strike of 100 blind employees of the Association, who began “a sitdown when a conference on demand for higher wages and adjustment of working conditions broke up in disagreement.”[3] The strike lasted the entire month of March 1937; at its end, the workers had achieved recognition as a collective bargaining unit, payment of 70% of their backpay while on strike, restoration of vacation and sick relief pay, and an independent audit of the Association’s books.[4]

Then, last Monday, all wheels came off due process. We wheeled from one shocking headline to the next: the Secretary of Health and Human Services mocked and defamed people with autism; Florida detained a United States citizen for ICE; the Regime suggested those who exercise their freedom of speech against ICE could be viewed as aiding and abetting a terrorist; the Secretary of Interior abdicated his responsibilities to DOGE.[5] And that’s not the half of it.

I turned my attention to due process and looked for early articles about people who sought to protect it. The first article I found caught my attention.

In 1938, the United States Supreme Court held that California’s tax on reinsurance premiums violated the due process rights of a Connecticut corporation.[6] Justice Hugo Black dissented alone, writing

But it is contended that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits California from determining what terms and conditions should be imposed upon this Connecticut corporation to promote the welfare of the people of California.

I do not believe the word ‘person’ in the Fourteenth Amendment includes corporations. ‘The doctrine of stare decisis, however appropriate and even necessary at times, has only a limited application in the field of constitutional law.' This Court has many times changed its interpretations of the Constitution when the conclusion was reached that an improper construction had been adopted. Only recently the case of West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379, 57 S.Ct. 578, 81 L.Ed. 703, 108 A.L.R. 1330, expressly overruled a previous interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment which had long blocked state minimum wage legislation. When a statute is declared by this Court to be unconstitutional, the decision until reversed stands as a barrier against the adoption of similar legislation. A constitutional interpretation that is wrong should not stand. I believe this Court should now overrule previous decisions which interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to include corporations.

Justice Black’s dissent was prescient; 72 years later, the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United allowed the oligarchs to capture the government.[7] Corporate interests have long competed with the individual liberties upon which the United States was founded.[8]

The oligarchs may think they have won. But the protests yesterday showed they have not.[9] There are more of us than there are of them. In the words of Dinos Christianopoulos,

What didn’t you do to bury me

But you forgot I was a seed.[10]

[1] Florence Esgate, “Blind Protest Wage Cuts and Pension Delays,” The Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Press, 16 Aug 1934, p. 14, col. 4; imaged, OldNews (www.oldnews.com). All websites visited 20 April 2025. By 1950, Florence and her husband resided in Stockton, California. 1950 U.S. census, San Joaquin, California, Stockton, enumeration district (ED) 39-54, sheet 6A, household 162, line 5, Florence Esgate; imaged, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2442/records/71157665).

[2] Florence Esgate, “Where Has Money for Blind Pensions Gone?,” The Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) Press, 27 Oct 1934, p. 4, col. 6; imaged, OldNews (www.oldnews.com).

[3] “Lewis Union Pushes Labor Plans As New Strikes Occur,” Greensburg (Pennsylvania) Daily Tribune, 5 Mar 1937, p. 17, col. 4; imaged, OldNews (www.oldnews.com).

[4] “Sit-Down Strike of Blind Ended, The Daily Times (Beaver, Pennsylvania), 31 Mar 1937, p. 5, col. 2; imaged, OldNews (www.oldnews.com).

[5] Meredith Kile, “RFK Jr. Says People with Autism ‘Will Never Pay Taxes, Hold a Job, Go on a Date,’ Sparking Fierce Backlash,” People (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2442/records/71157665), 17 Apr 2025.

Jackie Llanos, “U.S.-born man held for ICE under Florida’s new anti-immigration law,” Florida Phoenix (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2442/records/71157665), 17 Apr 2025.

Alex Woodward and Madeline Sherratt, “Trump’s counterterrorism czar says Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s supporters could be charged with ‘aiding and abetting’,” The Independent (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2442/records/71157665) 17 Apr 2025.

“Statement: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum abdicates, formally hands over power to DOGE,” Center for Western Priorities (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2442/records/71157665), undated but linking to Secretarial Order No. 3429 dated 17 Apr 2025.

[6] Connecticut General Life Ins. Co. v. Johnson, 303 U.S. 77, 78 (1938).

[7] Daniel I. Weiner and Tim Lau, “Citizens United Explained,” Brennan Center for Justice (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained), 12 Dec 2019, rev. 29 Jan 2025.

[8] For examples, see posts on this page from 12 February and 8 March 2025.

[9] Adeloa Adeosun and Jesus Mesa, “Photos Show Massive ‘50501’ Anti-Trump Protests Across the Country,” Newsweek (https://www.newsweek.com/photos-show-massive-50501-anti-ttrump-protests-across-country-2061783), 19 Apr 2025, updated 20 Apr 2025, 9:44 EDT.

[10] Ash Ponders, “On Buried Seeds: The history of ‘The tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.’,” Medium (https://www.newsweek.com/photos-show-massive-50501-anti-ttrump-protests-across-country-2061783), 3 Nov 2016.