Dickstein, Samuel, 1885-1954

Samuel Dickstein (February 5, 1885 – April 22, 1954) was a Russian-born American lawyer, politician, and jurist. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a U.S. Representative from New York's 12th (1923-1945) and 19th (1945) districts and as a Justice on the New York State Supreme Court (1946-1954).

Born near Vilna in the Russian Empire (now Vilnius, Lithuania), his family emigrated to the United States in 1887, settling on the Lower East Side of New York City. Dickstein attended public and private schools there and the City College of New York before graduating from New York Law School. In 1908, Dickstein passed the bar and began private practice in New York with the firm of Hyman and Gross. In 1911, he entered the Tammany Hall Democratic organization in Manhattan under mentor John F. Ahearn. From 1911 to 1914, he served as Deputy State Attorney General. In 1917, he became a New York City Alderman. In 1919, he was elected as an Assemblyman of the New York State Legislature from the 4th district, serving five one-year terms there.

In 1922, Dickstein was elected as a Democrat to the Sixty-eighth Congress, defeating Socialist incumbent Meyer London. By 1931, Dickstein was serving as Chairman on the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization (Seventy-second through Seventy-ninth Congresses). During his tenure, he became aware of the substantial number of foreigners legally and illegally entering and residing in the United States, and the growing Anti-Semitism along with vast amounts of anti-Semitic literature being distributed in the country. This led him to investigate independently the activities of Nazi and other fascist groups in the United States. On January 3, 1934, Dickstein introduced the "Dickstein Resolution" (H.R. #198), which passed in March 1934, to establish a "Special Committee on Un-American Activities Authorized to Investigate Nazi Propaganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities" or "McCormack-Dickstein Committee" (later, the "Dies Committee" and later "House Un-American Activities Committee").

In his 2000 book The Haunted Wood, writer Allen Weinstein wrote that documents discovered in the 1990s in Moscow archives showed Dickstein was paid $1,250 a month from 1937 to early 1940 by the NKVD (equivalent to $22,500 in 2020), the Soviet spy agency, which hoped to get secret Congressional information on anti-Communist and pro-fascist forces. According to Weinstein, whether Dickstein provided any intelligence is not certain; when he left the Committee the Soviets dropped him from the payroll.

Dickstein resigned from Congress on December 30, 1945. Following his time in Congress, Dickstein served as a Justice of the New York State Supreme Court until his death in 1954. He died in New York City and was buried at the Union Field Cemetery in Brooklyn.