Biography
George Carter was a National Textile Workers Union defendant in the Gastonia case. Police seized him at gunpoint after the June 7, 1929 raid on the Loray Mill strikers' tent colony in which police chief Orville F. Aderholt was fatally wounded. Carter was held in jail and convicted on October 21 of second-degree murder and felonious assault. He received seventeen to twenty years. Released on bail on December 9, he later disappeared while his appeal was pending. A September 1930 report placed him in hiding in the United States.
January 12 and 13, 1930 Chester dispatches identify the Gastonia defendant as a Trade Union Unity League organizer arrested with Communist section organizer Ray Peltz during Ford-plant organizing. The earlier dispatch reports $10,000 bail; the later says bail was denied and that a headquarters raid also netted Young Communist League organizer J. Holmes. No physical discharge is reported. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v06-n267-NY-jan-14-1930-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The Chester Ford-gate report says Carter and Ray Peltz had been held several days under $10,000 bail after an unemployment speech and were released after $10 fines and costs. The separate Viscose-leaflet sedition prosecution of Peltz and Holmes is not conflated with this earlier episode. Daily Worker, June 11, 1930, page 3. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n140-NY-jun-11-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
Daily Worker, June 14, 1929, page 1: The June 13 bulletin prints H. George Carter among thirteen Gastonia defendants charged with murder in amended complaints; fifty-eight others faced assault with intent to kill. Twenty-four unnamed prisoners had been released, but no strike leader or organizer was among them. These are initial changing accusations, not the October verdict or a release of this named person. Attorney Jimison had first interviewed the prisoners; Major Bulwinkle, the mill company attorney, directed the prosecution. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n084-NY-jun-14-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
Daily Worker, July 22, 1929, page 3: Liston Oak’s July 21 dispatch names this existing Gastonia defendant among possible targets of the prosecution’s effort to narrow the case. The predicted reduction or dismissal of some charges is prospective. Fifteen remained in Gaston County jail and eight others were out on bonds collectively; this does not establish a new individual release or the final October verdict. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n116-NY-jul-22-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
The August 26, 1929 report names this defendant among the sixteen assembled for the Charlotte Gastonia trial before Judge M. V. Barnhill. It distinguishes nine Southern Loray workers from seven organizers and discusses the defense’s planned police-violence evidence. The allegations are attributed defense accounts. Trial appearance is not a new arrest or proof that a previously bailed defendant had been returned to jail; later convictions and individually established bail releases remain separate. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n146-NY-aug-26-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
Daily Worker, December 28, 1929, pages 1–2: The seven convicted Gastonia defendants are individually named among the textile delegation attending the International Labor Defense convention in Pittsburgh. The report describes sentences up to twenty years while placing them in the traveling delegation. These are imposed terms, not actual continuous imprisonment through the convention; no new arrest or exact bail-release day is established. The paper prints the last name Hendricks on page 1 and Hendryx on page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-nat/v06-n253-NAT-dec-28-1929-DW-Q.pdf
Pages 1 and 3 individually name this Gastonia defendant among five still jailed while the ILD sought $20,000 bail. Beal and the man printed Red Hendryx were already out. The proposed Friday Harlem welcome did not itself prove this defendant released, and the later appeal/bail history remains preserved. The source adds a definite pre-release observation rather than uninterrupted custody or another sentence. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n213-NY-nov-12-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
Gastonia prosecution: Asheville jail snapshot
The Gastonia dispatch dated June 21 in the June 22, 1929 Daily Worker explicitly says George Carter was still in the Asheville jail, unlike the other defendants who had been visited at Gastonia. The visitors planned to see him afterward. This documents his location during the existing Gastonia prosecution, not a new detention, a dated transfer, a new admission or a change to the later December bail release.
Daily Worker, June 22, 1929, original PDF pages 1–3 (printed pages 1, 2, 5). Contemporary allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
The Raleigh dispatch dated August 20 reports that the North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed the Gastonia convictions. It individually names Fred Beal, Clarence Miller, Louis McLaughlin, George Carter, William McGinnis, Joseph Harrison and K. Y. Hendricks, and gives 117 years as a collective sentence figure. Its continuation describes the ILD’s criticism of Judge Barnhill’s instructions and a proposed further appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The collective term is not allocated to individual defendants or treated as actual service, and affirmance is not a new physical admission, discharge or exile endpoint. The source’s William McGinnis is matched by the same seven-defendant Gastonia case to the existing W. M. McGinnis record.
J. Louis Engdahl’s account dates the Southern ILD conference in Charlotte to December 8, 1929 and says jailed Gastonia defendant George Carter, prevented from attending, was finally released on bail the following day. This corroborates the already stored December 9 release; it does not start another custody case.
The December 10 Charlotte dispatch reports Carter freed from Mecklenburg County prison on appeal bail on the same day a warrant was issued against C. D. Saylors. This corroborates the existing Gastonia appeal-bail release; it does not independently supply another exact discharge date or new custody.
Daily Worker, June 14, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, July 22, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, December 28, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, November 12, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The November 25, 1929 Daily Worker prints a statement signed by Louis McLaughlin, Joseph Harrison, Clarence Miller, W. M. McGinnis and G. W. Carter, introduced as written in Mecklenburg County Jail before McLaughlin and McGinnis obtained bail. The signers accused former defense lawyers Jimison and Neal of withholding bail funds and defended the International Labor Defense’s support during their imprisonment and appeal. These are the prisoners’ contemporary allegations in a dispute over their legal defense, not judicial findings or a new sentencing or custody endpoint.
Reported birth date: April 10, 1906. LD1929.
