Add to ORKGPhotograph showing Communist Party leader Charles Emil Ruthenberg propped upright in his casket, surrounded by saluting children, 1927. Ruthenberg was the son of German immigrants and a native of Cleveland, Ohio. In 1909 he joined the Socialist Party and quickly became an active organizer. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Ruthenberg's political activities became increasingly radical. He was arrested for speaking out against the war and began to identify with Russian Communists. Eventually he became Secretary General of the Worker's (Communist) Party of America. When he passed away in 1927, his ashes were interred at the Kremlin in Moscow
