Bill Bailey

Who is Bill Bailey?

Bill Bailey was an Irish-American labour activist, who spent some time fighting for the Republican forces in the International Brigades during the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War.

As a merchant seaman, Bailey stole the swastika that flew from the bow of the German ship Bremen docked in Manhattan in 1935. The Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels issued an angry statement, so New York's mayor, La Guardia, sent ten detectives to the German consulate. These were all Jewish detectives - with names the like of Goldfarb and Ginsburg. Goebbels thought this was the biggest insult. He said, "We don't want these inferior bastards to guard any of our people." Bailey, who was a Communist Party member from the working-class neighbourhoods of Hoboken and Hell's Kitchen, went on to fight fascism during the Spanish Civil War. He joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the American contingent of the International Brigades.

His autobiography, The Kid from Hoboken, was written with Lynn Damme and published in San Francisco by Circus Lithographic Prepress, 1993. It covers his childhood and the trip to Spain.