Biography
Ben Lifshitz was given thirty days on New York's Welfare Island in 1929 after being seized in a police raid on the Daily Worker office during a demonstration — one of the free-speech arrests the ILD's Labor Defender reported that year.
Daily Worker, June 14, 1929, page 1: The issue reports his actual release from Welfare Island the previous day, June 13, after serving twenty days of a thirty-day sentence imposed by Magistrate Goodman. His arrest was May 18 when he challenged the Workers Center raid and refused to remove the anti-police-brutality sign. Twenty-seven others were arrested but not individually identified. The reported twenty days is service of this term; it does not establish the complete original arrest-to-release total or a precise post-sentence admission date. This corrects the former year-only release placeholder and the assumed completed thirty days. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n084-NY-jun-14-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
The May 31, 1929 editorial describes his Saturday-afternoon arrest and conviction the following Sunday morning, indicating May 18 and May 19. It says three judges denied appeal bail without reasons after a ten-day delay. That delay is not a complete custody measure. The separately documented June 13 release and twenty reported days actually served remain unchanged. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n072-NY-may-31-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=6
The May 21 report describes Lifshitz in the Tombs awaiting transfer to a workhouse under the thirty-day imposed sentence. Its prediction that appeal would free him in a few days is prospective. His separately recorded June 13 physical release and twenty reported days of workhouse service are not replaced by the publication date, and the complete original custody interval remains unknown. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n063-NY-may-21-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
1920s custody-date review: The June 14, 1929 report records actual release from Welfare Island on June 13 after twenty reported days of workhouse service. That component differs from the thirty-day imposed sentence and does not establish the complete interval beginning with the May 18 arrest. The July 16 dismissal of the separate sign-ordinance charge is not his physical release. The May 21 report’s anticipated appeal release is prospective. The former year-only release and completed-thirty-day wording are superseded by the more specific contemporary release report.
Sources: Daily Worker, July 17, 1929, page 1; Daily Worker, May 21, 1929, page 1, contemporaneous custody report.
Daily Worker, June 14, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
