Biography
Cliff Saylors was a textile worker and Southern organizer for the International Labor Defense during the Gastonia strike cases. After the December 1929 ILD conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, authorities issued a warrant accusing him of the murder of Gastonia police chief Orville Aderholt. Saylors was arrested and jailed on January 7, 1930. The state dropped the murder charge for lack of evidence on January 13, minutes after his lawyers obtained a writ of habeas corpus, and he was released at 8 p.m. A separate perjury charge remained pending.
The January 18, 1930 Militant, printing C. D. Saylors, describes the Aderholt murder accusation and a $10,000 cash-bail requirement when he appeared for his perjury proceedings. It connects the perjury allegation to his identification of alleged September kidnappers and describes a repudiated coerced confession by striker Robert Allen. Its undated present-tense jail account may be stale: the separately documented January 13 physical release is retained without extending imprisonment to the publication day or inventing a rearrest. Source: https://www.themilitant.com/1930/0303/MIL0303.pdf#page=2
The September 14, 1929 Daily Worker prints C. D. Saylor/Saylors among eight unionists jailed after the North Charlotte raid and identifies him at right in the kidnapping photograph. It reports conspiracy and sedition accusations, with habeas pending. The relationship of this September jail episode to his separately recorded, undated eleven-day detention described in October testimony is unresolved, so the reports are not counted as two additive numerical terms. The arrest timing within September 12–13 remains qualified. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n163-NY-sep-14-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
Pages 1 and 3 print C. E. Saylors, recall kidnapping and near-fatal attack with Ben Wells and C. M. Lell, and quote Saylors urging circulation of the Daily Worker among southern textile workers. He describes thirty-two years in the mills and organizing despite threats to share Ella May's fate. These are biographical and political-violence details, not a new exact arrest or completed prison term. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n213-NY-nov-12-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
A separate November 1929 perjury detention
The Charlotte dispatch dated December 1 in the December 2, 1929 Daily Worker names C. D. Saylors, an International Labor Defense organizer in the Gastonia campaign, as having been arrested on a perjury allegation after identifying men whom he accused of participating in the union-office raid and kidnapping of organizers. It reports his completed release on $500 bond on Saturday, November 30, with trial still prospective in January. His accusations against the alleged kidnappers are reported as his testimony and the newspaper's account, not independent criminal findings.
This earlier release precedes the separately recorded January 7–13, 1930 murder-accusation detention. The existing January case, its six-day figure and its disposition are not replaced. The November article does not independently establish the earlier arrest or initial jail-admission day, and no duration is calculated backward from the bail release.
An earlier reported eleven-day detention
The Charlotte trial report dated October 11 in the October 12, 1929 Daily Worker identifies C. D. Saylors as a Gastonia labor-defense witness and reports his testimony that he had been kept in jail eleven days without a warrant or charge. It separately recounts an arrest with seven others on an overthrow-of-government accusation that was dropped for lack of evidence. The article does not explicitly equate that accusation with the entire eleven-day interval, or identify an intake or release day. The eleven days describe reported actual detention without process, not a nominal sentence or a proven complete lifetime total. This evidence predates his separately recorded November 1929 perjury detention and January 1930 murder-accusation detention; neither later case is overwritten, merged or dated backward from this testimony.
Daily Worker, October 12, 1929, original pages 1, 3. Accounts and allegations are attributed to the newspaper and reported witnesses.
The Southern conference account says a warrant accusing Cliff Saylors in the Aderholt murder was issued the day after the December 8, 1929 Charlotte conference. Warrant issuance is distinguished from actual arrest and does not replace the separately documented January 1930 arrest. The conference photograph identifies Saylors in the left inset.
Printed C. D. Saylors, the Gastonia worker faced a new murder/conspiracy warrant after identifying Carpenter and Bulwinkle among the mob that flogged Ben Wells. The report links a perjury accusation to that testimony. Issuance of the warrant does not establish a completed December arrest or replace the independently documented January 7, 1930 arrest.
Daily Worker, November 12, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The International Labor Defense statement printed on December 17, 1929 dates the reported kidnapping and flogging of Wells, Saylors and Lell to the night of September 9, 1929. The joint Gastonia organizer cohort and the statement's C. D. Saylors identify the extralegal attack already described here. The statement alleges mill interests were using the later Aderholt murder accusation to divert attention from the attackers; that is its attributed account. The September 9 event is not assigned to any existing jail case or equated with the separately reported eleven-day detention. No duration, overnight detention, prison-admission date or new actual arrest follows from the later murder accusation. All three existing jail cases and their numerical storage remain unchanged.
