Biography
Charles Guynn was an organizer and national secretary of the National Miners’ Union. Police arrested him with two other organizers at an antiwar demonstration in Martins Ferry on August 1, 1929. They were convicted on November 20, 1929 under Ohio’s criminal-syndicalism law for their speeches and distribution of a handbill. Guynn was imprisoned in the Ohio State Penitentiary before the International Labor Defense secured release on bail pending appeal. All three were out on appeal bail by January 2, 1930. The Ohio Court of Appeals later reversed their convictions and remanded the case for a new trial, finding that the handbill did not advocate action prohibited by the criminal-syndicalism statute. During the 1933 Carbon County, Utah, coal strike, he was arrested after speaking at a mass meeting and taken to the county jail at Price. He was later convicted of riot and received an indeterminate sentence of one day to two years. He continued organizing his defense, including a speaking tour announced in August 1934. On September 7, 1935, the Utah Supreme Court set aside the conviction and ordered a new trial because a juror had concealed his service as a deputy sheriff during the strike and his hostility to the union.
The Daily Worker of June2,1930 reports that Andrews and Guynn, recently freed of Ohio criminal-syndicalism charges, were scheduled speakers at a June1 defense meeting at Pittsburgh’s Labor Lyceum,35MillerStreet.
The Daily Worker of August 31, 1933, pages 1–2, reported that armed posses were searching for National Miners Union official Charles Guynn in the Spring Canyon strike area while Paul Crouch and his wife were already held incommunicado. This distinguishes Guynn's status at the time of that report from the later Utah arrest and prosecution already recorded. A manhunt is not treated as an additional completed arrest, and it supplies no precise admission or release day.
Daily Worker, April 11, 1934: Page 5 reports arrest with Charles Wetherbee during the 1933 Carbon County strike, bail after an initial arrest, rearrest on a rioting charge, and a February 19 conviction followed by pursuit of a new trial. It quotes Rae Guynn describing workers’ attendance at the trials and says she herself was arrested at home after the strike. These are additional contemporary details of the existing Utah case, with no exact physical release or served duration supplied. The article’s April 1934 pursuit of a new trial does not replace the separately documented September 1935 appellate ruling. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n087-apr-11-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
The October 3, 1933 Daily Worker places him among the named Helper, Utah mine-strike defendants facing criminal-syndicalism and riot proceedings. It specifies two riot accusations against Paul Crouch and identifies Harry G. Metos and Irvin Goodman as defense lawyers. The announced Thursday hearing was prospective; it establishes no new conviction, intake or discharge. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n237-oct-03-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
Page 3 reports that the Carbon County court denied a new trial in Guynn’s Utah miners’ strike riot prosecution and that the ILD planned an appeal to the Utah Supreme Court. The body specifies an imposed term of one day to two years, although the opening summarizes two years. A separate criminal-syndicalism count from the same strike arrest was still awaiting trial. His proposed August 7 speaking tour is prospective and does not establish a discharge day. These are stages of the existing Utah case; the nominal term is not time served. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n186-aug-04-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 4 prints his signed history of the Gallup coal struggle, identifying his arrival as a union organizer in 1933 and describing the thirteen-week strike, martial law, stockade confinement of organizers and workers’ refusal to resume work until all prisoners were freed. This is his retrospective organizing account; the arrests he individually names are Roberts, Benjamin and Kaplan, so no personal Guynn detention in Gallup is invented. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n113-NAT-may-11-1935-DW-Q.pdf
The December10,1929 St.Clairsville dispatch reports denial of a new trial and imposition that day of five years and a $2,500 fine in the Martins Ferry criminal-syndicalism case. This contemporary wording differs from the later November1930 report’s one-to-ten-year/$5,000 characterization. Both accounts concern the same prosecution; neither nominal term is actual completed service. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n238-NY-dec-11-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The November 21, 1929 dispatch reports actual release on $2,000 bond each following the November 20 Martins Ferry criminal-syndicalism conviction. The referenced ten years is exposure before sentence, not completed service. This is the existing August First prosecution. Daily Worker, November 22, 1929, original PDF page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-nat/v06-n222-NAT-nov-22-1929-DW-Q.pdf#page=1
Bill Dunne's June 1930 Labor Defender account reports that Guynn and metal-workers organizer Tom Johnson were released on bail before the Ohio State Penitentiary fire while appealing five-to-ten-year criminal-syndicalism sentences. It places Guynn in a fifth-tier cell with three other prisoners who died in the fire. Guynn himself survived because he had been bailed out. No precise bail-release day or completed custody duration is supplied. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1930/v05n06-jun-1930-LD.pdf#page=14
The October 27, 1932 Daily Worker reports Guynn prosecuted in Denver after testifying about police brutality in the Washington Park anti-segregation demonstration trial. It describes his work for Federated Press and Judge Luxford increasing a fourteen-day vagrancy sentence to ninety days at the October 24 hearing. The April 29, 1932 Denver conference report identifies Charles Guynn as the Trade Union Unity League representative speaking on beet-workers organization and solidarity with Colorado miners, corroborating the existing labor organizers regional activity. The identity linkage rests on the full name, union role and contemporary regional reporting; no second Guynn biography or completed ninety-day custody period is invented. Corroborating source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n102-sect-two-May-Day-apr-29-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2 . Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n257-NY-oct-27-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
Bill Dunne reports that Guynn's Ohio penitentiary cell on the fifth tier had held three other prisoners who later burned to death in the prison fire. Guynn and Tom Johnson had already been released on appeal bail before the fire; Guynn is not counted among its fatalities. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1930/v05n06-jun-1930-LD.pdf#page=14
The Daily Worker, November 13, 1930, page 1 reports a one-to-ten-year sentence and $5,000 fine in the Martins Ferry prosecution. The report says Guynn and Johnson served six weeks in the Ohio State Penitentiary before appeal bail. This is a reported duration, not an independently established exact 42-day total; actual endpoints remain unverified. The newspaper’s forecast of a retrial is not evidence of a completed new trial or another custody episode.
Separate 1933 Gallup detention
The November 27, 1933 Western Worker, page 3, reports Charles Guynn, the National Miners Union representative, held in the military stockade during the Gallup, New Mexico coal strike. It describes his arrest in a miner’s home after a union committee meeting outside the state line, but gives no exact arrest or release day. This is geographically distinct from the already recorded 1933 Carbon County, Utah custody. The article says attorney Clarence Lynch was jailed again while seeking Guynn’s release; seeking habeas relief is not evidence that Guynn was actually released.
Contemporary report before appeal bail; sentence descriptions differ
The December 27, 1929 Daily Worker, page 2, reports that Lil Andrews, Charles Guynn and Tom Johnson were still behind bars while the International Labor Defense sought $5,000 cash bail for each. This article calls their criminal-syndicalism terms five years, whereas the later November 13, 1930 report used for the stored sentence describes one to ten years and a $5,000 fine. These are differing source descriptions, not grounds to silently replace the sentence. The December article has no separate event dateline and supplies neither a precise first jail-admission day nor an actual release day. It is compatible with the independently reported release on appeal bail by January 2, 1930; that bound is not converted into an exact release date.
November 20, 1929 verdict, before sentencing
The November 23, 1929 Daily Worker names Charles Guynn, Lillian (Lil) Andrews and Tom Johnson in the Martins Ferry criminal-syndicalism prosecution. Its Pittsburgh dispatch is dated Friday, November 22, and the continuation reports that a jury found the three guilty on Wednesday after eleven minutes of deliberation. Together those dates identify the verdict as November 20, 1929; the newspaper’s publication day is not substituted for the event day.
The report says the defendants faced ten-year sentences and $5,000 fines. That is prospective sentencing exposure, not proof that those punishments had already been imposed or actually served. This source establishes neither an initial physical admission nor an executed release or measured custody total. No sentence, case-conviction narrative, custody endpoint, numerical counter or date-precision field is changed.
The separately documented appeal bail, later reversal and remand for a new trial remain in the existing biography and source notes. Adding this contemporaneous verdict day does not erase those later outcomes or resolve the differing sentence descriptions in earlier reviewed sources.
Daily Worker, November 23, 1929, original pages 1 and 3, Miners’ Union Fights Verdict.
A December 10 sentencing report and differing nominal terms
The December 11, 1929 Daily Worker carries a St. Clairsville dispatch dated December 10 saying the court refused a new-trial request that day in the Martins Ferry prosecution. The continuation says that in overruling the motion the court passed sentences. Read together, these passages place the reported sentencing action on December 10, 1929; this is not a prison-admission or release day. It reports five years in prison and a $2,500 fine for Johnson and Guynn. The article separately identifies Special Prosecuting Attorney Walker, giving no first name. Its newspaper characterization of his remarks remains attributed, not a new criminal finding. The earlier November 20 verdict is a different event, and the later reversal and remand remain recorded. The reported terms and $2,500 amount differ from the later one-to-ten-year and $5,000 account already preserved in this profile. The existing attributed sentence text is not silently replaced, no imposed term is treated as time served, and no custody endpoint, counter or bail continuity is inferred.
Daily Worker, December 11, 1929, original pages 1, 3. Contemporary allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
The December 1929 Young Worker names the special prosecutor in the Martins Ferry criminal-syndicalism trial as W. J. Walker, supplying initials missing from the case field. Its article reports five-to-ten-year terms and dates the trial and guilty verdict to November 20. Other contemporary reports already preserved here distinguish that verdict from later sentencing and give differing nominal terms. This source is not used to replace the later sentencing date, resolve those term discrepancies, calculate service or supply a physical custody endpoint.
The report of the National Miners Union board identifies Guynn as twenty-seven, a coal miner for fourteen years, and the son of a Lansing, Ohio miner known as Dad Guynn who had worked underground for more than fifty years. It says his mother had been among fifty-one miners’ wives jailed in St. Clairsville during the 1927 strike but gives no name for her. Guynn had organized in Illinois, Ohio, the anthracite, West Virginia and Pennsylvania and was chosen acting national secretary-treasurer while free on Ohio appeal bond. These biographical details do not establish an exact birth date or a new custody period.
Daily Worker, April 11, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
An earlier reported release on bond
The November 22, 1929 Daily Worker, in a St. Clairsville dispatch dated November 21, reports that Tom Johnson, Charles Guynn and Lil Andrews had already been released on $2,000 bond each. The same report places their conviction on the previous day, November 20, and describes ten-year sentences as a penalty they faced, not an imposed or served term. It names Attorney Walker as the special prosecutor and Attorney Land as the defense lawyer seeking a new trial. This is an earlier completed bail-release report before the later December sentencing and renewed-custody reports already documented here. November 21 is a report-date upper bound, not an exact prison-gate release day. It does not establish uninterrupted custody from August 1 through January 2, nor uninterrupted freedom after this earlier bail release. The precise admission, any readmission and the relationship between successive custody reports remain unquantified. No second case, new custody endpoints, additional time credit or change to the later appeal outcome is inferred.
Daily Worker, November 22, 1929, original page 1. The account is attributed to the contemporary newspaper.
The St. Clairsville December 10 dispatch reports denial of a new trial after the November 20 convictions arising from the August 1 Martins Ferry antiwar arrests. The continuation on page 3 reports sentencing that day: Johnson and Guynn to five years and $2,500 fines, and Lillian Andrews to an indeterminate term. This differs from the later November 13, 1930 report used in the existing case (one to ten years and $5,000); both reports remain attributed rather than replacing one with an unsupported reconciliation. No actual five-year service, precise prison admission or release is established by this issue.
Daily Worker, August 4, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, May 11, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The Helper dispatch reports his arrest after a miners’ mass-meeting speech and confinement at the Price county jail, amid armed mine-guard terror. It announces September 15 trials on riot accusations and attributes threats against the prisoners to jailers. The coming trial is not a completed conviction or release, and no exact Guynn arrest day or measured total is supplied.
A November 21, 1933 dispatch reports that militia arrested Guynn immediately after he entered Gallup to assist the coal strike. It names Henry Sumid and Joe Bartole as arrested with him and calls for their release. This supplies individual custody evidence beyond his later retrospective organizing account. Daily Worker, November22,1933.
