Biography
George Kaplan was an International Labor Defense organizer jailed during the 1933 Gallup coal strike in New Mexico. A military court sentenced him to six months in Albuquerque under the martial law imposed on the strike. Kaplan and unemployed-workers' organizer Herbert Benjamin were beaten in the Gallup jail; miners demonstrated outside to demand their freedom. Jailers later tried to make the three sentenced organizers agree to leave New Mexico for a year. They refused. Continued strike action secured their unconditional release in November 1933.
Page 4 prints Charles Guynn’s retrospective account of the 1933 Gallup strike: Bob Roberts, Herbert Benjamin and George Kaplan were arrested by the National Guard and tried by Guard officers. This account gives one year for Roberts and Benjamin and six months for Kaplan. The Roberts term conflicts with the existing six-month report and is retained as a source discrepancy, not silently substituted or treated as time actually served. Guynn says miners refused to resume work until all prisoners were freed; individual dates and completed totals are unreported. The described stockade and martial-law conditions concern the 1933 strike, not an additional 1935 case. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n113-NAT-may-11-1935-DW-Q.pdf
The October 27, 1932 Daily Worker identifies George Kaplan as ILD district organizer in the Denver Washington Park anti-segregation prosecution, with a two-hundred-dollar fine and costs upheld and bail denied by Judge Luxford. The February 1, 1935 issue independently identifies its contributor George Kaplan as Denver District Secretary of the International Labor Defense, corroborating the regional role of the existing Gallup-defense organizer. The Denver prosecution is recorded separately from the later Gallup military-court case. No unsupported exact initial arrest, release or completed custody duration is assigned. Corroborating source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n028-Nat-feb-01-1935-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1 . Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n257-NY-oct-27-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
Carl Geiser identifies the ILD organizer among the three Gallup leaders court-martialed in 1933, with six months at Albuquerque imposed. He and Benjamin were beaten in Gallup jail. The continuation reports all three refused banishment and were unconditionally released after miners maintained the strike. The nominal six months are not counted as completed service.
Daily Worker, May 11, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
