Biography
Horace Bryan was an Arkansas relief-workers' organizer and United Mine Workers member from Greenwood. He was jailed twice during the February 1935 Fort Smith relief strike and sentenced by Judge Gallagher to six months and a $500 fine for anarchy. The charge was dismissed on appeal. In September he was jailed in Little Rock on a vagrancy charge while addressing relief workers. Fort Smith police arrested him again on October 12 and held him for three days before releasing him. Bryan defended his right to organize WPA workers and refused police demands that he promise to stay out of Fort Smith.
A February 21 Fort Smith report identified Bryan as the Arkansas Unemployment Council state organizer and reported his anarchy conviction, six-month sentence and $500 fine. It discussed the prosecution in the context of the relief-workers strike. Six months was an imposed term, not newly measured actual service. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n046-Nat-feb-22-1935-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
A Fort Smith dispatch, printing his surname as “Bruan,” identified the Commonwealth College graduate as recently convicted of anarchy and facing a further barratry trial. The contemporary spelling is retained as a source variant rather than a separate person. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n049-Nat-feb-26-1935-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The February 18, 1935 Fort Smith dispatch prints Horace Bryant for the Arkansas Unemployment Council state organizer held on an anarchy charge after leading the FERA wage-cut strike. His organizing role, place and prosecution identify the existing Horace Bryan case. Raymond Koch replaced him and was also arrested, but the report says Koch and the other prisoners were released while Bryan remained held. No new arrest day or completed duration is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n044-Nat-feb-20-1935-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
Page 3’s June 3 Fort Smith dispatch reports that their circuit-court appeals were to be heard that month, after March sentences arising from organizing FERA workers against a thirty-to-twenty-cent hourly pay cut on a two-day week. It gives Bryan six months and $500 for anarchy, and Williams three months and $100 for barratry or inciting dissension. City Judge James A. Gallaher and prosecutor Harrell Harper are named. Bryan was held incommunicado, denied friends and counsel, and defended himself. The announced appeal hearing is not a decision or a new arrest; imposed terms do not replace independently documented actual service. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n133-NAT-jun-04-DW-Q.pdf
The Daily Worker of March 4, 1935, page 3, reports that Commonwealth College director Koch appealed for $2,000 cash bond for Bryan's anarchy appeal because the state refused to accept a property bond. It corroborates the six-month sentence and $500 fine for assisting Sebastian County FERA strikers. The appeal is a pending procedural stage, not proof of a new arrest, physical release or appellate outcome. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n054-NAT-mar-04-1935-DW-Q.pdf
The article reports nearly three days held incommunicado in Fort Smith, denial of bail and a $10,000 civil suit against Mike Gordon. It calls this four arrests statewide in recent months; the January 20 account calls it the third Fort Smith arrest in October 1935. Statewide and local totals need not conflict. Neither issue independently resolves the existing exact October intake date or the contradictory earlier-in-month storage placeholder for discharge. Daily Worker, January 14, 1936, original PDF page 6. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n012-NY-jan-14-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=6
In his signed SebastianCounty jail letter Bryan identifies himself as UnemployedCouncil organizer and strike-committee chairman. He dates the anarchy trial before JudgeGallagher to February 15, 1935 and the deferred sentencing to February 19, and says he was rearrested February 18 on a second barratry accusation after refusing to leave the county. The bail figures in separate clauses vary and are retained as reported procedural stages rather than conflated. He individually names ClaudeC.Williams, ReverendReed and ILD GeorgeEdwards among those held after police broke up a prayer before the planned hunger march. The imposed six months is not a completed service total. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1935/v14n11-mar-12-1935-NM.pdf#page=22; https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1935/v14n11-mar-12-1935-NM.pdf#page=24
