Biography
Frank Spector was a Russian Jewish immigrant who arrived in 1913. International Labor Defense district organizer; Imperial Valley agricultural strike organizer. Prior 1930 California Criminal Syndicalism conviction (3-42 years San Quentin). Smith Act / Yates defendant; 5 years; reversed.
The Daily Worker of September 10, 1930 reports that Judge Wood dismissed Spector and Carl Sklar from a separate retrial arising from the April 26 unemployed demonstration, while their Imperial Valley criminal-syndicalism convictions remained in force.
The Daily Worker of May 29, 1931, page 1, datelined San Francisco May28, reports the appellate court’s previous-day ruling wholly overruling Spector’s Imperial Valley conviction. It separately reports reversal of two of three counts for six defendants and says Orosco and Herrera were excluded. This is the reported May27 appellate ruling, not physical release; his later documented July14 release is preserved.
The January 14, 1930 issue also identifies him among six Los Angeles workers held for deportation following a Communist Party headquarters raid associated with Young Communist League leaflets against U.S. intervention in Nicaragua. The report does not establish an executed deportation or individual custody endpoints. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n267-NY-jan-14-1930-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The June 15, 1933 Daily Worker describes thirteen months actually spent in San Quentin following the Imperial Valley prosecution. This corroborates the already recorded thirteen-month episode and is not added as a second duration or converted into exact days. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v010-n143-NY-jun-15-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The Imperial Valley report says he was held on $15,000 bail pending criminal-syndicalism trial. The headline says eighty-seven arrested; the trial and threatened maximum are not actual completed sentences. Daily Worker, May 24, 1930, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n379-NY-may-24-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The El Centro trial report lists the Imperial Valley defendants in custody in the criminal-syndicalism prosecution and describes $40,000 bonds. It identifies them by surname or shortened spelling. The June 14 report says the jury was still deliberating June 13; the forty-two-year figure is possible exposure at that point, not a verdict or served duration. Daily Worker, June 11, 1930, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n140-NY-jun-11-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The September 8, 1931 Boston report published September 12 describes Spector speaking before two thousand at International Youth Day after release from San Quentin and carrying a message from Tom Mooney. This supports his already recorded Imperial Valley release and subsequent defense work; it does not replace the verified July 14 exit or add another numerical term. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n220-NY-sep-12-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
The September 29, 1931 Indianapolis report describes five hundred workers greeting Spector after his San Quentin release. It also recalls completed Chicago South Side and Milwaukee appearances, while later Kansas City and Denver stops were still planned. Its original forty-two-year and reduced fourteen-year maximum punishments are not actual service; his separately verified thirteen months and July 14 release remain unchanged. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n235-NY-sep-30-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The April 20, 1932 Daily Worker reports that Spector and supporters held an outdoor Scottsboro-defense meeting after William Pickens denied him a response inside Calvary Baptist Church in San Diego on April 13. The paper alleges that Pickens called police and the outdoor meeting was attacked. This is attributed contemporary political reporting, without evidence in this issue that Spector was arrested in that incident. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n094-NY-apr-20-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
Page 3 reports Frank Spector and L. Mabille among seven Communist workers arrested at a Los Angeles open-air meeting on the night before the twelfth-anniversary celebration of the Russian Revolution. Spector and Mabille were each fined $50 or ten days; four unnamed Japanese defendants were fined $25 or five days. These alternative punishments do not prove jail service. This November 1929 episode precedes his distinct 1930 prosecutions. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-nat/v06-n234-NAT-dec-06-1929-DW-Q.pdf
The Los Angeles report names Spector and Sol Erenberg as already arrested before the newly described headquarters raid. It supplies no exact personal custody dates or total, and is not merged with his other prosecutions. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n247-NY-oct-18-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The September 8, 1930 Laisve, page 5, reproduces an International Labor Defense political-prisoner directory. Its row prints Frank Spector, a term of 3–42 years, the year 1930 in the sentencing-year column, and confinement or correspondence location San Quentin, California. This is an attributed historical directory entry; printed years and nominal terms are not exact intake dates or measured time served, and mailing boxes do not independently identify a prison. The directory contains stale or conflicting chronology, so this row does not override independently established conviction, death or release facts. Source: https://www.spauda2.org/laisve/archive/1930/1930-09-08-LAISVE.pdf#page=5
The July 21 Union Square Scottsboro demonstration report identifies Spector as a former Imperial Valley prisoner among the speakers, alongside Ruby Bates and other defense activists. This confirms post-prison public activity as of the report, without supplying a new custody endpoint or altering the established release chronology. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n175-NY-jul-22-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
Frank Spector, New York state secretary of International Labor Defense, was arrested with state organizational secretary Samuel Dlugin at a Brazilian Consulate demonstration in New York on Friday, June 19, 1936. The protest demanded investigation of the Brazilian police killing of American anti-fascist Victor Allan Barron. The June 24 report says both appeared in First District Court on June 23 charged with disorderly conduct, obstructing traffic and failure to disperse a street meeting. Police surrounded the meeting and violently pulled Spector from the platform. Their trial was postponed to June 30, when they intended to represent themselves; this planned trial does not establish its outcome. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n151-NY-jun-24-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=4
The June 1936 Brazilian Consulate arrest is recorded as a separate case from the earlier California and Los Angeles prosecutions. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n151-NY-jun-24-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=4
In his signed printed pages 172-173 parole article, Spector says all three criminal-syndicalism counts against him were reversed while two counts were reversed for seven fellow Imperial Valley organizers. He alleges prosecution witnesses failed to identify him and describes parole officer Ed Whyte refusing jobs for Erickson and Roxas to avoid a repeat of Spector's post-release organizing. This is retrospective case and defense evidence, without another imprisonment or proof that a judicial reversal itself was the gate-release day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1932/v08n09-sep-1932-LD.pdf
The August 2 Los Angeles account places his actual arrest at the previous day’s Plaza antiwar demonstration and describes an initial criminal-syndicalism accusation changed to a misdemeanor. The reference to Georgia concerns the local receiving station, not a transfer to the state of Georgia. No actual discharge or complete term is printed. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n129-NY-aug-06-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
Yushi Yamazaki (2020), printed p. 95, reproduces Spector's Labor Defender account of the April 14, 1930 Imperial Valley meeting raid: workers spoke in multiple languages before Sheriff Gillette's armed force searched 108 participants, chained them in groups and took them by truck to El Centro jail. This is an attributed eyewitness/defense description of the existing prosecution, not a new individual case or measured service. Source: https://dl.ndl.go.jp/view/prepareDownload?contentNo=1&itemId=info%3Andljp%2Fpid%2F11638381
Pages 1 and 5 report the Los Angeles unemployment-demonstration retrial before Judge Wood. Sklar's county-jail letter describes challenges to class/race exclusion in the jury, the judge dispensing with a stenographer and threatening note-takers, and actual dismissal of Sklar and Spector from this separate prosecution. Horiuchi was expressly retained despite the same reported forty-two-year Imperial Valley term; that aggregate characterization does not replace differing documented sentence ranges or become time served. Horiuchi and Kreitzberg obtained self-representation; Kiosz faced a threatened contempt penalty for smiling, not an imposed new term. The remaining seven included Horiuchi, A. Yamaguchi, Hoxie, Rose Becker, Kiosz, Joe Holub and Kreitzberg. July disagreement and Martin's acquittal precede this retrial; exact personal custody endpoints remain unknown. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n221-NAT-sep-13-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The December 2 report names these marine unionists among those actually arrested at San Pedro in the strike and organizing crackdown. It reports vagrancy and incitement allegations and $2,000 bond for each of the seven. The group total is not an individual fine; exact arrest and physical release days and complete duration remain unknown. Daily Worker, December 2, 1929, original PDF page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n230-NY-dec-02-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
Former Imperial Valley prisoner at December 1935 conference
The account of the Sunday, December 8, 1935 conference for recognition of political prisoners identifies Frank Spector as a former political prisoner from the Imperial Valley case and says he addressed the conference on behalf of the national International Labor Defense office. This corroborates his earlier imprisonment and establishes that he was able to attend this public conference by December 8, but does not state his original arrest, admission or physical release day. The earlier Imperial Valley episode must not be confused with his later 1951 Smith Act case.
Daily Worker, December 11, 1935, original PDF page 4, Conference Maps Fight For Political Prisoners.
Separate earlier Imperial Valley imprisonment
The December 11 conference report explicitly identifies Frank Spector as a former political prisoner and one of the workers imprisoned in the Imperial Valley case. This earlier episode is now recorded separately from his 1951 Smith Act case, which is unchanged. His public conference appearance by December 8, 1935 is not an exact physical release date, and the source supplies no admission date or actual completed duration. The existing biography identifies the earlier case as1930, but no January1 admission or other endpoint is inferred from that year. No sentence length or statutory charge is newly inferred from this report.
Actual release from San Quentin in 1931
The August 6, 1931 Daily Worker reports that Frank Spector, one of the Imperial Valley prisoners, had been released from San Quentin on July 14 and immediately began addressing defense meetings. This supplies July 14, 1931 as the actual release day for his earlier Imperial Valley imprisonment. Admission and total completed duration remain unknown. This release is separate from the later Smith Act case.
Daily Worker, August 6, 1931, PDF page 3, Workers Greet Frank Spector in Big Meets.
A September 1931 contemporary report states that Spector actually served thirteen months following his conviction for criminal syndicalism arising from preparations for the California agricultural workers strike in spring 1930. This documents his earlier Imperial Valley confinement in months. His separately verified July 14, 1931 release is preserved; no admission day or exact number of days is inferred.
An earlier Los Angeles fine-or-jail report does not prove service
The December 6, 1929 Daily Worker reports that Frank Spector and a defendant printed only as L. Mabille were fined fifty dollars or ten days after arrests at an open-air meeting on the night before the Twelfth Anniversary celebration in Los Angeles. Four unnamed Japanese workers received different alternatives. The article does not say whether Spector paid the fine or actually served the alternative jail term. This earlier legal proceeding is distinct from his later Imperial Valley and Smith Act prosecutions, but it is not used to create a measured imprisonment, impose a ten-day counter or invent an arrest, admission or release day. No unproved identity association between the initialled co-defendant and an existing full-name profile is installed.
Daily Worker, December 6, 1929, original pages 3. Contemporary allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
A San Bernardino worker’s letter recalls that after the prosecutor responsible for the Yucaipa children’s-camp raid barred an ILD meeting, Spector attempted an open-air meeting and was arrested with six others before they spoke. This is a separately described San Bernardino speech arrest, not a new date for the later Imperial Valley conviction or the April 26 Los Angeles demonstration. The retrospective letter supplies no exact arrest day, charge, imprisonment period or outcome.
The August 18 Los Angeles dispatch identifies Sklar, the prisoner printed as Tsuji Horiuchi, and Spector as Imperial Valley defendants brought back to Los Angeles jail for a retrial arising from the April 26 unemployment demonstration and a trial concerning Paris Commune meetings. It reports Sklar was ill and frequently in the prison hospital and quotes the three prisoners’ request for the Daily Worker and their collective defense greetings. The printed three-to-forty-two-year wording is not substituted for differing individual sentence records. This documents a Los Angeles custody phase and pending proceedings; neither an exact transfer day nor an actual release is given.
Daily Worker, December 6, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The Behind the Bars directory on printed page 4 lists this prisoner under San Quentin State Prison, California, with three to forty-two years, 1930. This is an attributed historical directory entry: the year and nominal term do not establish an intake day, uninterrupted imprisonment, completed service or physical release. The calendar advertisement on PDF page 21 names Spector as author of The Story of the Imperial Valley; this is authorship context, not another custody event.
Labor Defender, September 1932; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Page 4’s pamphlet excerpt identifies Spector and fellow Imperial Valley organizers as imprisoned after organizing Mexican agricultural workers and criticizes church silence. This corroborates the existing case’s labor-organizing context, without new individual custody dates or sentence calculation.
Daily Worker, September 13, 1930; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The June 22, 1936 Daily Worker reports that Frank Spector and Sam Dlugin were arrested at the Brazilian Consulate protest on the preceding Friday, June 19, and taken to the Second Precinct, then Tombs Court. This supplies actual police-station confinement for the already recorded arrest. The report says they were paroled into their ILD attorney’s custody pending Tuesday’s hearing; it establishes a completed court-parole observation by publication, without separately dating physical discharge or measuring the full detention. The attorney is printed Fanny Horward in the court paragraph and Fannie Horwitz in the witness notice; neither spelling is substituted for a judge. The subsequently reported June 23 appearance and June 30 postponement remain separate from an accomplished verdict.
Page3 advertises Spector as recently freed from SanQuentin and scheduled to speak August30 nearWashington. This corroborates liberty before the event,not a new exact discharge date or further custody.
Named as a signer of the Imperial Valley prisoners’ greeting, datelined San Francisco November 6, from confinement following agricultural organizing. The accompanying text places the group in San Quentin and Folsom without assigning every individual prison. Its group-wide forty-two-year wording is not substituted for individual sentences or actual served totals.
