Biography
Caroline Decker was the secretary of the Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union, one of the eighteen indicted at Sacramento in July 1934 for criminal syndicalism after the California agricultural strikes. In the summer of 1934, after leading the great California agricultural strikes, the leadership of the Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union was rounded up and eighteen were tried at Sacramento under the state's criminal-syndicalism law — the largest such prosecution of the decade, with defendants facing six to eighty-four years. Eight were convicted in 1935; the convictions were reversed on appeal in 1937.
In a letter printed in the Daily Worker of December 18, 1934, page 4, Decker described her confinement in Sacramento County Jail during the criminal-syndicalism trial. She wrote about detained working-class women, the transfer of women through the jail to Napa, and hostile treatment by a city-jail matron. The letter documents pretrial custody by December 1934, distinct from later state-prison admission; it does not supply the first admission or discharge day. Her account of other women is not treated as a medical diagnosis or an identification of unnamed prisoners.
The Daily Worker of February 16, 1935, page 5, reports that Warnick and Decker accepted bail supplied through the Non-Partisan Labor Defense. In its partisan dispute over the Sacramento defense it says Sam Darcy expressly allowed defendants to accept bail from any source without changing their political positions. This supplies a report of pretrial bail, separate from later verdicts and state-prison custody; it gives no exact physical release date or duration. The paper's attacks on rival political organizations are retained as attributed claims, not judicial findings.
Daily Worker, August 23, 1934, page 1: The Sacramento dispatch individually lists this defendant among seventeen facing six criminal-syndicalism counts. It describes the Sacramento prisoners collectively as crowded fourteen to a cell, with no beds or blankets for two weeks and a hole in the floor for a toilet. The stated six-to-eighty-four-year range was potential exposure if convicted, not an imposed sentence. The account’s unnamed Chinese detainee is not identified with any named defendant.
Daily Worker, May 12, 1936, page 5: The paper prints Lorene Norman with Caroline Decker and Nora Conklin as applicants for parole at Tehachapi, with a hearing planned for May 15 after service of the minimum. This is a reported parole application, not proof of a granted parole or executed release. Norman’s earlier bail history is not replaced by this later confinement report. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n114-NY-May-12-1936-DW-Q.pdf
The August 1935 Labor Defender identifies her actual one-to-fourteen-year sentence and confinement at Tehachapi, distinct from the six-to-eighty-four-year potential sentencing exposure reported before conviction. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1935/v11n08-aug-1935-orig-LD.pdf#page=5
Page 2 names this defendant on a six-person self-defense committee in the Sacramento prosecution of twenty-four workers for vagrancy and criminal syndicalism before Judge William J. Carraghar. It reports three weeks in crowded cement-floor confinement, denial of beds, blankets and adequate food, and total bail of $96,000, without assigning individual bail. Weekly shaving restrictions and alleged judicial taunts are attributed to the newspaper. This is an early trial stage, not the later 1935 verdict or a full custody total. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n193-sect-one-aug-13-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
A February 21, 1935 Sacramento trial dispatch reported medical affidavits describing serious illness attributed to bad food and treatment during seven months of confinement. It expressly said these three defendants were then out on bail. The rounded interval is not an exact completed total and does not establish uninterrupted custody or a new release day. This source prints Lorene Norman for the existing Lorine Norman. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n046-Nat-feb-22-1935-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
A Sacramento defense statement dated February 27, 1935, printed in the Daily Worker on March 5, included this defendant among fourteen signers. The statement defended the International Labor Defense and its conduct of the trial and bail campaign against factional criticism. It also named Luther Mincy and John Fisher as acquitted about a week before the statement. Its allegations about other defendants’ cooperation with police are partisan claims, not independently established facts. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n055-NAT-mar-05-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=3
The same statement expressly acknowledged that Decker had accepted bail arranged through Herbert Solow with International Labor Defense authorization. This evidence cautions against assuming she remained continuously in physical custody merely because the collective trial continued. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n055-NAT-mar-05-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=3
The May 20, 1936 Daily Worker reports in a San Francisco dispatch dated May 19 that the California Board of Prison Terms and Paroles fixed Caroline Decker's term at five years, following the original indeterminate one-to-fourteen-year sentence. This administrative fixing of the term is distinct from the original sentencing date and from completed time served or a granted release. The May 21 editorial corroborates the terms but its relative 'yesterday' wording differs from the earlier dated dispatch, so no original sentencing field is replaced. Sources: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n121-NY-May-20-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=1 and https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n122-NY-May-21-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=8
Page 1 individually names this organizer among the Sacramento prisoners facing a prospective grand-jury criminal-syndicalism proceeding. The issue prints inconsistent collective totals of twenty-eight and thirty-one prisoners, and reports $4,000 cash bail each in one dispatch. It prints Albert Hogarty in the dispatch and Hogardy in the editorial; the Sacramento organizer context identifies the existing Hougardy record. No new arrest date, completed indictment, conviction or actual service is inferred from the pending proceeding. The separate San Francisco city hunger strike and county work strike are not individually attributed to the Sacramento defendants. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n190-aug-09-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
The Tehachapi report identifies her among prisoners denied delivery of the Guild Reporter on the ground that it was a Communist publication. It prints prison numbers 57616 for Conklin, 57817 for Decker and 56266 for Todd. The newspaper’s characterization of the underlying cases does not replace the separately established Sacramento and ballot-petition prosecutions. Daily Worker, January 14, 1936, original PDF page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n012-NY-jan-14-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=1
Solow’s August 1935 pamphlet says the Non-Partisan Labor Defense raised a combined $6,400 bail for Caroline Decker and Jack Warnick after approximately six months in Sacramento County Jail. The appendix reproduces a December 18 letter attributed to Decker criticizing the delay in securing bail; the pamphlet’s factional allegations against Communist Party and ILD officials are not adopted as independent findings. Juror McIntire’s affidavit, reproduced on page 25, says he lacked a conviction beyond reasonable doubt of Decker’s guilt and agreed under a jury compromise. The rounded six-month account does not establish exact admission or discharge days. Source: https://dai.mun.ca/PDFs/radical/UnionSmashinginSacramento.pdf#page=4
The prisoner letter coauthored by Donald Bigham and Martin Wilson recalls this defendant’s earlier life: attended school in the Georgia peach belt and contemplated medicine. It identifies all six as young workers drawn to California agricultural labor and union organizing, then held in Sacramento in the1934criminal-syndicalism prosecution. The letter is undated, so its publication on March 12, 1935 is not treated as proof of renewed or uninterrupted custody overriding independently established bail gaps. Its four-to-fifty-six-year exposure is possible punishment, not an imposed sentence. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1935/v14n11-mar-12-1935-NM.pdf#page=22
Page 1's August 17 Sacramento dispatch names Chambers, Decker, Conklin and Warnick Hougardy among seventeen indicted the previous day for criminal syndicalism after the general-strike crackdown. The printed Warnick form is preserved for the Hougardy member of the established cohort. This is the existing prosecution's indictment stage, not another conviction or completed custody term. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n198-aug-18-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 3's Sacramento trial report individually names this defendant raising jury-selection issues: Decker asked about support for Scottsboro freedom, while Hougardy challenged exclusion of Black workers and farmers. Attorney Leo Gallagher sought a mistrial and action over alleged prosecutor-juror contacts and threats. Judge Dal M. Lemmon denied the defense motions; jury selection was still unfinished. The allegations remain attributed and the later verdict is not backdated to this procedural report. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n302-Nat-dec-19-DW-LOC.pdf
PDF page 12 names Decker, a Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union leader, among three Sacramento defendants conducting their own defense while Leo Gallagher represented the others. The jury-selection allegations and ongoing mass-defense campaign add context, not another arrest or a January conviction. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1935/v11n01-jan-1935-orig-LD.pdf
Labor Defender, February 1936, PDF page 9: Rose Chernin identifies her as 23 at the Tehachapi visit and describes agricultural organizing, censorship of reading, daily labor, 6 a.m. rising and evening cell locking. The reported one-to-fourteen-year imposed range is not actual service. The interview continues on PDF 26. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1936/v12-%5B10%5Dn02-feb-1936-orig-LD.pdf#page=9
Chester Arthur recalls meeting Decker at Lincoln Steffens’s Carmel home before her Tehachapi imprisonment. He reproduces Steffens’s humorous appeal to Governor James Rolph and others for a typewriter to assist her agricultural organizing; the continuation on PDF page 20 says contributions exceeded the machine’s price, while none came from Rolph. This is an attributed recollection of support for her organizing, not another arrest or proof of a new prison intake. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1936/v12-%5B10%5Dn10-oct-1936-orig-LD.pdf#page=8
Contemporary custody source
The January 14, 1936 Daily Worker, Page1 identifies Caroline Decker as Tehachapi prisoner 57817 in a report that prison authorities had barred the newspaper Guild Reporter. This confirms ongoing confinement, not a new admission or release date.
In her account dated August 10, 1934 from Sacramento City Jail, Caroline Decker names Caroline Decker among the jailed defendants and describes prison classes, including trade unionism taught by this defendant. She reports the July 20 raid, vagrancy holds, escalating bail, and a July 30 attempt by five defendants to obtain release which the district attorney blocked; leaving their cells was not an actual release. Formal criminal-syndicalism warrants followed July 31, with $3,000 bail. The account supplies no final discharge or total days served. She places her own arrest with Pat Chambers and Albert Hougardy at the Workers’ Center at 11:45 a.m. on July 20.
At sentencing, Decker challenged the impartiality of juror Mrs. Rose, whom she said had been seen speaking with a prosecution-connected detective. She argued that the evidence concerned organizing agricultural workers, farmers and students for better conditions and that economic strikes were lawful. These are her contemporary statements, not findings about juror misconduct.
Daily Worker, February 16, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The issue prints an open letter signed by Pat Chambers, Caroline Decker and Albert Hougardy to the California Conference of Agricultural Workers in Stockton on June 6. They write from behind prison bars after their criminal-syndicalism convictions and propose nine measures for statewide organizing, union democracy, cooperation with independent unions and repeal of the law. This documents joint political writing during the existing imprisonment, without another admission or release.
Daily Worker, August 13, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The complete Sacramento roster on PDF pages 17–18 individually names this defendant among seventeen indicted for criminal syndicalism during the 1934 strike crackdown. Printed variants include Lorent Norman, W. H. Huffine and Harry J. Collentz. The threatened six-to-eighty-four-year range is exposure, not an imposed sentence or actual service. This corroborates the existing Sacramento prosecution; no new arrest, personal prison admission, release day or verdict is inferred from the roster.
The October 24 Sacramento dispatch printed in the Daily Worker of October 26, 1934, page 1, names Martin Wilson, Pat Chambers, Caroline Decker and Al Hougardy among eighteen criminal-syndicalism defendants currently jailed awaiting the announced November 8 trial. Their letter demands investigation of corporate, police and judicial involvement in California anti-labor repression. The threatened or scheduled trial is not treated as a completed proceeding or a new custody episode.
The June 4 editorial individually names the seven Sacramento labor organizers, including Caroline Decker, as then imprisoned at San Quentin or Tehachapi for agricultural-strike organizing, while advocating repeal of criminal syndicalism and their release. This is contemporary confirmation and defense context for the existing case, not a new conviction or physical custody endpoint. A separate June 2 Los Angeles report on page 3 individually identifies Decker and Conklin at Tehachapi and attributes to prison visitors complaints of unfit food, cells lacking toilet facilities and denial of relief between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. These are attributed institutional-condition reports, not a new medical diagnosis.
Nat Davis’s page 7 review of agricultural organizing names Chambers, Decker and Hougardy as imprisoned criminal-syndicalism defendants whose letter greeted the June 6–7 Stockton conference. It summarizes their proposals for a statewide organizing campaign, democratic locals, low dues, united action and a campaign against vigilantism and the syndicalism law. These are attributed political and labor-organizing proposals from existing prisoners, without new sentences or measured custody totals.
Daily Worker, August 9, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Individually identified in the Sacramento defendants’ caption. PDF page 19 reports the actual November 26 trial opening, distinct from earlier postponed dates. Eighty-four years was potential aggregate exposure, not the later sentence. No new physical custody endpoint supplied.
Daily Worker, August 18, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, December 19, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Labor Defender, January 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The Sacramento dispatch dated March24 in the March25,1935 Daily Worker describes Caroline Decker's cross-examination in the ongoing criminal-syndicalism trial before Judge Dal M. Lemmon. It identifies a Special Prosecutor with the printed spelling “Neil MsAllister”; that source spelling is retained here without normalizing the surname or filling the structured prosecutor field. The report says the judge ended further defense testimony and sought to limit closing arguments, which were due to begin Monday, March25. These are attributed trial-procedure reports; no new conviction, sentence, physical custody endpoint or measured duration follows.
The editorial says the three women were then confined at Tehachapi after more than a year, with a May 15 prison-board meeting scheduled to fix individual service within one-to-fourteen-year sentences. The board’s earlier terms for five male co-defendants are separate. A future parole-board hearing is not an actual release or a final term for these women.
Jamieson records a prison-issued call by Pat Chambers and Caroline Decker urging agricultural and cannery workers to unite and join the American Federation of Labor. He cites Rural Worker, volume I, number 1, August 1935, page 3. This 1935 statement is distinct from their later June 1936 Stockton conference letter and supplies labor-organizing context during their existing criminal-syndicalism imprisonment.
Stuart Jamieson, Labor Unionism in American Agriculture, Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin 836 (1946), physical pages 144–145, printed pages ten lower; SHA256 ad6e201117c1a456cf2f4ff4fe09fa567bab099a1e919a7a3150ca82ed37960e
