Biography
Herbert Benjamin was a Communist Party organizer and national leader of the Unemployed Councils. New Mexico military authorities arrested him in October 1933 after he tried to speak to striking coal miners in Gallup. A military court sentenced him to one year in prison. Benjamin escaped from the military stockade five days after his arrest, became lost in the desert for 32 hours, and was recaptured. He and other strike leaders were released on November 29 under the agreement ending the strike.
Daily Worker, June 10, 1929, page 1: A June 9 Bethlehem dispatch reports ten speakers and audience members arrested the previous night at an ILD open-air meeting at Mechanic and Hobart Streets as Benjamin spoke. Police and deputies were led by Bethlehem Steel detective Schweitzer. All were taken to Bethlehem jail, heard on disorderly conduct and given $25 or thirty days. They refused payment and appealed; thirty days is the imposed alternative, not a measured completed stay. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n080-NY-jun-10-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
Daily Worker, June 14, 1929, page 4: A June 12 Philadelphia dispatch says the workers arrested at the Saturday Bethlehem ILD open-air meeting were now out on bail, individually naming Benjamin, Rudolph Shoan and Jennie Cooper. This establishes completed bail release by the dispatch, but no exact physical-release day; it updates the separate June 8 case without treating the thirty-day alternative as fully served. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n084-NY-jun-14-1929-DW-LOC.pdf
As a National Unemployment Council organizer, Benjamin helped advance cooperation with the Workers Alliance of America. The Daily Worker reported his March 3, 1935 address to the Washington unemployment convention and the unanimous adoption of a resolution seeking joint activity, presenting the development as a step toward a united unemployment movement. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n055-NAT-mar-05-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=1
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
Page 1’s November 7 Gallup dispatch reports him due to be transferred to Santa Fe that day after a military court imposed one year for speaking at a meeting supporting the Workers’ Unemployment Insurance Bill. It reports eighteen unnamed miners held in the military stockade and six hospitalized after alleged militia abuse, warning of a potential massacre. The announced transfer is prospective and the one year is imposed, not completed service. The Unemployed Councils protested and demanded his release and removal of troops. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n268-nov-08-1933-DW-LOC.pdf
An August 31 Philadelphia account reports his actual arrest for entering the 15th and Snyder police station to ask for a copy of the charge against Irving Lazar, arrested at a Workers Party meeting at 13th and Reed. The report prints Tuesday, August 27, although that calendar day was Monday; August 1928 month precision is retained. This is separate from Bethlehem in 1929 and Gallup in 1933. No individual release or full custody total is supplied. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n208-NY-sep-01-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Page 8's United Press Washington dispatch dated October 24 reports the Workers Alliance delegation's higher-WPA-wage protest. David Lasser and organization secretary Herbert Benjamin were arrested when police broke up their parade outside WPA headquarters, and were released on $25 bond each on parading-without-a-permit charges. John Kelly, a Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania organizer, was released on $10 bond. All three struggled when removed from the march. Lasser subsequently reached presidential secretary Marvin McIntyre; a Tuesday court appearance and possible Civil Liberties Union representation were still prospective, not a completed trial. This Washington 1936 arrest is distinct from Gallup, Bethlehem and Philadelphia. Source: https://newspapers.swco.ttu.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.12255/13954/The_Big_Spring_Daily_Herald__1936-10-25.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=3
The November 3, 1936 New Masses report describes Lasser and Benjamin leading a four-hundred-person Workers Alliance delegation to Washington seeking equitable WPA wage scales. It reports their arrest for parading without a permit after unsuccessful attempts to see President Roosevelt, and WPA assistant administrator Aubrey Williams expressing regret while blaming metropolitan police. This corroborates the existing October 24 arrest and adds the delegation’s purpose; the issue supplies no individual conviction, release or completed custody duration. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1936/v21n06-nov-03-1936-NM.pdf#page=14
The January 31 Washington report says House Ways and Means chairman Robert L. Doughton summoned police to remove Benjamin ten minutes into his criticism of the Wagner-Lewis social-security bill. Benjamin was held under temporary arrest for half an hour and released after the committee recessed. This brief detention during testimony is distinct from his longer political imprisonments; it is not recorded as a multi-day term. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n028-Nat-feb-01-1935-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Daily Worker, June 10, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, June 14, 1929; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Carl Geiser’s account describes military-stockade detention during the Gallup strike, an unsuccessful escape and thirty-two hours lost in the desert, recapture, eight days on bread and water, self-defense at court-martial, a one-year sentence announced five days later and transfer to Gallup jail where he and Kaplan were beaten. Page 15 reports their refusal of one-year banishment and the miners’ successful demand for unconditional release. No uninterrupted total is inferred across escape and recapture.
Daily Worker, May 11, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, November 8, 1933; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Big Spring Daily Herald, October 25, 1936; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
