Biography
Jack Warnick 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. Jack Warnick 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.
The Daily Worker of February 16, 1935, page 5, reports that Warnick and Decker accepted bail supplied through the Non-Partisan Labor Defense. In its partisan dispute over the Sacramento defense it says Sam Darcy expressly allowed defendants to accept bail from any source without changing their political positions. This supplies a report of pretrial bail, separate from later verdicts and state-prison custody; it gives no exact physical release date or duration. The paper's attacks on rival political organizations are retained as attributed claims, not judicial findings.
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.
After his Sacramento acquittal, Warnick faced a separate deportation arrest. An October 22, 1935 San Francisco dispatch reports him already bailed out of Angel Island Prison, with attorney Austin Lewis and defense organizations opposing deportation. It also reports his dismissal from a WPA job. The bail release is distinct from the earlier Sacramento prosecution; the report supplies no exact detention dates or ultimate immigration disposition. Source: https://themilitant.com/1935/0144/NM0144.pdf#page=1
The December 29, 1934 New Militant identifies Jack Warnick as director of the Sacramento Workers School in its named account of the Sacramento defendants. Its bail and pending-trial descriptions are a contemporary snapshot, separate from later verdicts and prison custody. Source: https://www.themilitant.com/1934/0751/NM0103.pdf#page=1
Solow’s August 1935 pamphlet says the Non-Partisan Labor Defense raised combined $6,400 bail for Warnick and Caroline Decker after approximately six months in Sacramento County Jail. It identifies his teaching room as one place from which economics and public-speaking material was seized. It also quotes Warnick defending Norman Mini against informer allegations from their acquaintance in jail. These are attributed contemporary defense accounts and do not establish another custody episode or exact physical release day. Source: https://dai.mun.ca/PDFs/radical/UnionSmashinginSacramento.pdf#page=4
The prisoner letter coauthored by Donald Bigham and Martin Wilson recalls this defendant’s earlier life: attended college in Washington and hoped to become a chemist. It identifies all six as young workers drawn to California agricultural labor and union organizing, then held in Sacramento in the1934criminal-syndicalism prosecution. The letter is undated, so its publication on March 12, 1935 is not treated as proof of renewed or uninterrupted custody overriding independently established bail gaps. Its four-to-fifty-six-year exposure is possible punishment, not an imposed sentence. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1935/v14n11-mar-12-1935-NM.pdf#page=22
In her account dated August 10, 1934 from Sacramento City Jail, Caroline Decker names Jack Warnick among the jailed defendants and describes prison classes, including public speaking taught by this defendant. She reports the July 20 raid, vagrancy holds, escalating bail, and a July 30 attempt by five defendants to obtain release which the district attorney blocked; leaving their cells was not an actual release. Formal criminal-syndicalism warrants followed July 31, with $3,000 bail. The account supplies no final discharge or total days served.
Daily Worker, February 16, 1935; 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.
The Labor Department issued a deportation warrant directing return to Canada, which the ACLU planned to contest through habeas corpus. The report individually dates his immigration arrest to October 3, 1935, and says he was at liberty on a $1,000 ACLU bail bond. It identifies his wife as Caroline Decker and distinguishes his acquittal in the Sacramento criminal-syndicalism case. The deportation warrant is not an executed removal; the exact earlier bail-release day remains unknown.
