Biography
Fred Burback was an unemployed Milwaukee worker and father of six children. After he became ill, the city stopped the relief provided to his family, including milk for his children. The Unemployed Council brought his case to a demonstration at the Fond du Lac Avenue relief station on July 27, 1932. Police beat Burback behind locked doors and arrested him, and other demonstrators came to his aid. He was later convicted of perjury in the relief case and imprisoned at the Milwaukee House of Correction. Governor Philip La Follette granted a pardon on December 17, 1932, commuting his two-year sentence to two months and ordering his release. The International Labor Defense campaigned on his behalf.
The November 8, 1932 Daily Worker, page 3, prints the name Fred Burach in the same Milwaukee relief-protest cohort as Joe Hawkins and reports Burach's two-year sentence by Judge George Shaughnessy. The matching locality, cohort and two-year sentence connect this spelling to Fred Burback. This adds the reported judge without treating the sentence as time actually served. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n267-NY-nov-08-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The July 29 Milwaukee dispatch on page 3 prints the surname Burbach and identifies him as the father of six, still held in hospital in serious condition after the relief-station repression, with an X-ray examination mentioned. The same city, incident and unusual family detail connect this spelling to Fred Burback. Three other named defendants were released that morning; their releases are not assigned to him. This documents his condition during the original relief-protest episode, without changing the later perjury conviction, October institution admission or pardon chronology. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n181-NY-jul-30-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The July 28 dispatch describes his seizure at the Milwaukee Fondulac and Fourteenth Street relief station the preceding day, confinement behind a locked door and beating by police, rescue by other workers and subsequent police arrest. It distinguishes this coercive sequence from an imposed judicial term. No precise final discharge or complete duration is established. Daily Worker, July 29, 1932, original PDF page 3. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n180-NY-jul-29-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
Page2’s Milwaukee comparison with ex-detective Ralph Hostetler prints the militant worker’s name as Burbach and gives two years. For Hawkins the figure may aggregate the two one-to-three-year maximums recorded elsewhere; the paper does not establish actual time served. This is attributed contemporary sentencing evidence, not a new arrest.
