Biography
Edward Childs was a Newark, New Jersey worker arrested when police raided an unemployed-workers meeting at 93 Mercer Street on February 11, 1930. He was one of nine defendants indicted under New Jersey's 1918 sedition law. The prosecutions proceeded before Judge Walter Van Riper, with prosecutor Fisch relying on police testimony about the workers' speeches. The International Labor Defense supported the defendants and challenged the court's refusal to hear witnesses who would not swear religious oaths.
The February 11 Newark dispatch identifies these workers among nine arrested at the unemployed meeting, 93 Mercer Street. Rosen had previously been out on bail after an earlier leaflet arrest, so earlier and current detention are not treated as one uninterrupted period. No exact discharge or completed total is supplied. Daily Worker, February 12, 1930, original PDF page 3. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n292-NY-feb-12-1930-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The September 10 Newark dispatch announces a September 14 joint ILD, ACLU and American Association for the Advancement of Atheism protest against exclusion of defense witnesses on religious-belief grounds. It recalls the earlier S. D. Levin and D. W. Graham trials and names Dave Rausen, John Pado, Joseph Lepshivicius, Morris Langer, Edward Childs and Albert Heder for trials planned that month. It describes the earlier proceedings as last May, while the existing Graham account records a June 10 conviction; the source wording is preserved without replacing the independently recorded conviction chronology. Neither the protest nor a scheduled trial establishes a new physical custody endpoint.
