The First Thing

As professors, journalists, and comedians are fired for their speech, and the “dear leader” who occupies the White House threatens his opponents, our First Amendment rights feel too close to expiration. We’ve been here before.

University professors have been fired for supporting the rights of the less powerful. Journalists have been punished and investigated for reporting the truth. And the McCarthy blacklist irreparably damaged the careers of hundreds of entertainers.

In 1928, a woman exposed another kind of blacklist. Twelve years after Helen (Tufts) Bailie joined the Daughters of the American Revolution, she discovered that the D.A.R. had a list of “doubtful speakers,” all of whom happened to be liberal. She wrote a pamphlet exposing the list—and the D.A.R. banned her.

The D.A.R. was within its rights because only government action violates the First Amendment. Private action on its own is not a violation of the First Amendment. (But private action at the behest of a weak, want-to-be dictator is likely a different story.) There is no small amount of irony that an organization founded to celebrate the establishment of the United States censored one of its members.

Tufts’s actions 97 years ago remind us that we need courage within private organizations to stop our downward spiral. Whistleblowers within private companies not only expose fraud on the public, but also protect our rights. It takes courage to speak out. The more of us who do it, the harder it will be for the oligarchs and authoritarians to destroy the nation. Make it hard. Make it impossible. Speak out, now.

Helen Tufts was born 9 January 1874, in Newark, New Jersey, to William W. and Isabel (Terrill) Tufts. By age six, she and her family had returned to her father’s home state of Massachusetts. She married Irish immigrant William Bailie in 1908. They had two children, only one of whom survived childhood. After her D.A.R. expulsion, Tufts continued her advocacy. She fought for legalized birth control and protested legislation that would require Massachusetts teachers to take an oath affirming the state and U.S. constitutions. After her husband died, she lived with their daughter in Ohio, and finally, in Florida. Tufts died there in 1962.

Sources

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Nearing), “Scott Nearing,” rev. 1 Aug 2025, 20:58. Scott Nearing “believed that unfettered wealth stifled initiative and impeded economic advancement, and hoped that progressive thinkers among the ownership class would come to realize the negative impact of economic parasitism and accept their civic duty of enlightened leadership.” University of Pennsylvania fired Nearing for his social activism. All sites visited 20 September 2025.

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_attacks_on_journalists_in_the_United_States), “Government attacks on journalists in the United States,” 16 September 2025, 22:35.

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_blacklist), “Hollywood blacklist,” rev. 10 September 2025, 15:01.

“Mrs. Bailie Defends Self,” The Boston (Massachusetts) Traveler, 21 June 1928, p. 1 col. 4 and p. 20 col. 5; available at OldNews.com (www.oldnews.com).

“D.A.R. 'Blacklist’ Charges Bring Expulsion to Mrs. Bailie,” The Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), 23 June 1928, p. 4, cols. 2-3; imaged, Chronicling America (https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83045462/1928-06-23/ed-1/).

1880 U.S. census, Franklin, Massachusetts, population schedule, Warwick, enumeration district (ED) 262, page 10, dwelling 87, family 91, Helen Tufts (6) in household of William W. Tufts; imaged, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/6742/records/16678922).

1910 U.S. census, Suffolk, Massachusetts, Boston, ED 1403, sheet 7A, dwelling 57, family 92, Helen Bailey in household of Mary Cheney; imaged, Ancestry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_attacks_on_journalists_in_the_United_States).

New England Historic Genealogical Society, “Massachusetts Vital Records,” imaged, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2511/records/11985891), entry for Helen Tufts and William Bailie, 31 October 1908.