Америкалық адвокат Моррис Леопольд Эрнст өмірі мен қызметі

American attorney

Morris Leopold Ernst (August 23, 1888 – May 21, 1976) was an American lawyer and prominent attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In public life, he defended and asserted the rights of Americans to privacy and freedom from censorship, playing a significant role in challenging and overcoming the banning of certain works of literature (including James Joyce's Ulysses and Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness) and in asserting the right of media employees to organize labor unions. He also promoted an anti communist stance within the ACLU itself, and was a member of the President's Committee on Civil Rights.

Morris Leopold Ernst was born in Uniontown, Alabama, on August 23, 1888, into a Jewish family. His father, Carl Ernst, had been born in Plzeň, Bohemia (in what is now the Czech Republic), and had worked as a peddler and shopkeeper; while his mother, Sarah Bernheim, was the daughter of German immigrants and had graduated from Hunter College. The family moved to New York when Morris was two, and lived in several locations in Manhattan where Carl ran a general store. In 1937, as attorney for the American Newspaper Guild, he argued successfully in the Supreme Court that it should uphold the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act (the Wagner Act) as applied to the press. The case established the right of media employees to organize labor unions.

In 1912, he married Susan Leerburger, with whom he had a son (who died in infancy) and a daughter. Susan died in 1922. Ernst married Margaret Samuels in 1923, and together they had a son and a daughter. Margaret died in 1964. Ernst kept a summer home on Nantucket, Massachusetts, and enjoyed sailing small boats. He died at home in New York City on May 21, 1976. He was survived by his son, both daughters, and five grandchildren.