The tragedy of India

San Francisco: The Hindustan Gadar Party, 1919. Pamphlet. [8p.] staplebound pamphlet, 8.5x11 inches, horizontal fold crease with some toning. Rear cover has an address stamp of the Friends of Freedom for India in New York. First page has portraits of Gopal Singh, Santokh Singh, and Bhagwan Singh, three Sikh activists targeted for deportation. Text begins with a statement co-signed by these three as well as three other potential deportees: "To the People of the United States of America: We know you love fair play. The people of the other continents have looked on America for the past century and a half as the refuge of the oppressed - a haven where the fighter of right against might could claim sanctuary from the wrath of tyrants. We claim that sanctuary today! For we, the sons of oppressed and bleeding Mother India, have fled here from the vengeance of an empire, builded on the corpses of defenseless nations and peoples. Today the United States Government proposes to send us manacled back to India. How joyous our hearts would be, if we were going back to a free and unfettered India. But the India we are being returned to is an oppressed and desolate one. Famine and plague are killing our people by the millions. Death, raining from British aeroplanes armed with bombs and machine guns, daily decimates those who dare protest against alien rule. OUR DEPORTATION MEANS DEATH AT THE HANDS OF A BRITISH FIRING SQUAD!" Ed Gammons was an Irish immigrant activist, an anarchist affiliated with the IWW, who worked to foster Irish-Indian anti-imperialist solidarity.