Biography
Jack Spanner’s July 1931 report identifies Charles Samuel Offutt, also printed Offut, as an Oklahoma City laborer arrested for vagrancy during police chief John Watt’s campaign against unemployed residents. He was about to start a night-watchman job at the Biltmore Hotel and showed police fourteen dollars in cash and a bankbook with 161 dollars. Unable to post the twenty-dollar bail wholly in cash, he was jailed for a reported twenty-three hours before police court. The judge imposed a nineteen-dollar fine, then offered remission if he found work or left town within twenty-four hours. After accepting that alternative he found the promised job had been given away because his detention made him miss it. The article attributes to Governor William Murray the allegation that police used vagrancy arrests against people who had voted against the city administration; that political motive is a contemporary allegation, not an independently adjudicated finding. Exact arrest and discharge dates are not supplied. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1931/v07n02-jul-1931-New-Masses.pdf#page=30
