Biography
Harry Collentz was a defendant in the Sacramento criminal-syndicalism prosecution arising from the organizing campaigns of the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial Union. The prosecution followed the California agricultural strikes of 1933 and the arrests of union organizers and supporters in 1934. Harry Collentz was acquitted on April 1, 1935, when the jury returned its verdicts. Eight other defendants were convicted; their convictions were reversed on appeal in September 1937.
A Sacramento dispatch dated February 1 in the Daily Worker of February 2, 1935, page 1, individually names Harry Collentz among five defendants bailed out that day by the International Labor Defense because they were ill from their treatment in custody. The other four named defendants were Nora Conklin, Lorine Norman, Pat Chambers, Martin Wilson. This establishes an interim bail release on February 1, 1935, within the Sacramento prosecution; it is not the final disposition or proof of uninterrupted custody. The source prints Lorine Norman as Lorrine on page 1 and Loraine in the page 4 collective appeal.
Daily Worker, August 23, 1934, page 1: The Sacramento dispatch individually lists this defendant among seventeen facing six criminal-syndicalism counts. It describes the Sacramento prisoners collectively as crowded fourteen to a cell, with no beds or blankets for two weeks and a hole in the floor for a toilet. The stated six-to-eighty-four-year range was potential exposure if convicted, not an imposed sentence. The account’s unnamed Chinese detainee is not identified with any named defendant.
Page 2 names this defendant on a six-person self-defense committee in the Sacramento prosecution of twenty-four workers for vagrancy and criminal syndicalism before Judge William J. Carraghar. It reports three weeks in crowded cement-floor confinement, denial of beds, blankets and adequate food, and total bail of $96,000, without assigning individual bail. Weekly shaving restrictions and alleged judicial taunts are attributed to the newspaper. This is an early trial stage, not the later 1935 verdict or a full custody total. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n193-sect-one-aug-13-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
A Sacramento defense statement dated February 27, 1935, printed in the Daily Worker on March 5, included this defendant among fourteen signers. The statement defended the International Labor Defense and its conduct of the trial and bail campaign against factional criticism. It also named Luther Mincy and John Fisher as acquitted about a week before the statement. Its allegations about other defendants’ cooperation with police are partisan claims, not independently established facts. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n055-NAT-mar-05-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=3
Daily Worker, February 2, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, August 13, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The complete Sacramento roster on PDF pages 17–18 individually names this defendant among seventeen indicted for criminal syndicalism during the 1934 strike crackdown. Printed variants include Lorent Norman, W. H. Huffine and Harry J. Collentz. The threatened six-to-eighty-four-year range is exposure, not an imposed sentence or actual service. This corroborates the existing Sacramento prosecution; no new arrest, personal prison admission, release day or verdict is inferred from the roster.
Individually identified in the Sacramento defendants’ caption. PDF page 19 reports the actual November 26 trial opening, distinct from earlier postponed dates. Eighty-four years was potential aggregate exposure, not the later sentence. No new physical custody endpoint supplied.
