 Some vocal supporters of the defendants spoke out in their defense . A New York resident wrote : " I am not afraid of communism ... I am only afraid of the trend in our country today away from the principles of democracy . " Another wrote : " the trial was a political trial ... Does not the Soviet Union inspire fear in the world at large precisely because masses of human beings have no confidence in the justice of its criminal procedures against dissidents ? ... I trust that the Supreme Court will be able to correct a grave error in the operation of our political machinery by finding the ... Smith bill unconstitutional . " William Z. Foster wrote : " every democratic movement in the United States is menaced by this reactionary verdict ... The Communist Party will not be dismayed by this scandalous verdict , which belies our whole national democratic traditions . It will carry the fight to the higher courts , to the broad masses of the people . " Vito Marcantonio of the American Labor Party wrote that the verdict was " a sharp and instant challenge to the freedom of every American . " The ACLU issued a statement reiterating its opposition to the Smith Act , because it felt the act criminalized political advocacy . 
