Biography
Ira R. Meade represented the Communist Party’s Iowa section at a Des Moines WPA wage convention in December 1935. William Simons’s page 6 report says Meade had been freed in court the preceding week from a disturbance-of-the-peace charge for leading an unemployed-workers committee to relief authorities. The source does not distinguish an acquittal from dismissal, establish a physical jail admission or release, or give exact court and arrest dates. This prosecution record remains under review because actual imprisonment is not established by the report. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n309-NY-dec-24-DW-Q.pdf
Page 2’s August 7 Des Moines dispatch names James Porter, John Nordquist and Ira Meade as jailed relief-strike leaders who had started a hunger strike. It reports $5,000 bail each, refusal of reduction by County Attorney Carl Burkman, and an indictment three weeks earlier on criminal-syndicalism charges based on police and city/relief-official testimony. The organizing demands included a twenty-four-hour week and endorsement of the Workers Unemployment Insurance Bill. The indictment interval is not a measured total custody term; the actual discharge and full service remain unknown. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n189-aug-08-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 2’s August 12 Des Moines dispatch says the three relief-strike leaders were recovering in Broadlawns Hospital after a ten-day hunger strike ended Friday, August 10. A workers’ delegation urged them to stop for their health after a courthouse demonstration. They remained held on $5,000 bail each for criminal syndicalism. The possible ten-year minimum and $5,000 fine were exposure, not sentences. It identifies Nordquist as militant rank-and-file worker and Meade as state secretary of the Unemployed Council. Hospital care does not establish release from custody; ten days measures the hunger strike, not total confinement. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n193-sect-one-aug-13-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 2’s August 24 Des Moines dispatch explicitly reports James Porter, Ira Meade and John Nordquist free without bail pending trial in the fall. Seventeen AFL locals demanded release or reduced bail, which had stood at $5,000 each; State Federation president J. C. Lewis supported release and repeal of criminal syndicalism. The article places the relief strike and arrests early in June, unlike reports dating subsequent indictment activity. This confirms actual release by August 24, without identifying the physical discharge day or supplying complete custody duration. The proposed fall trial remained future. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n204-aug-25-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Pages 2-3 identify Ira Meade as a former workers' mayoral candidate actually confined in Polk County jail with John Nordquist and Porter for leading the Des Moines relief strike, charged with criminal syndicalism and held under $5,000 bail. The August 10 report says the three began an eleventh hunger-strike day; the conference elected the jailed Meade its state chairman and Theda Allen temporary chair until he could be released. The Des Moines, Communist/unemployed leadership and personal-name context connects this to Ira R. Meade, distinct from his December 1935 disturbance-of-peace prosecution. No exact arrest day or release is established. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n192-aug-11-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 2’s August 15 Des Moines dispatch already reports the three relief-strike leaders free pending the criminal-syndicalism trial scheduled for September, after a ten-day hunger strike and nationwide protests including the Iowa State Federation of Labor. This narrows the existing release-by-August-24 reporting bound to release by August 15, without inventing a precise discharge day. Its rounded month of custody is not treated as a complete measured duration. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n196-aug-16-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Contemporary original newspaper source; individual page evidence retained in review audit 351. Exact individual custody dates and duration are not inferred from relative dates or collective claims.
Daily Worker, August 8, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, August 13, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, August 25, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.