Biography
James Cronin was an Industrial Workers of the World organizer sent to the Scottsbluff area of Nebraska in October 1919 to investigate the arrests of about fifteen members of Agricultural Workers Industrial Union No. 400. Officials arrested Cronin on the same criminal-syndicalism charge shortly after he arrived. His surviving account places him in the area by October 2, and an IWW report published October 18 announced his arrest, but the precise arrest day, disposition, and release date remain unrecorded.
In his Scotts Bluff letter dated October 25, 1919, Cronin describes going to the city jail as a visitor on October 3, then narrates a later preliminary hearing, questioning by a federal official on October 10, and the group's October 14 hearing. The county attorney characterized union delegates as agents of an organization teaching workers to throw up the sponge. The report is evidence of the criminal-syndicalism prosecution and its anti-union rationale; the October 3 visit is not Cronin's own admission date, and the account does not establish an exact personal custody admission or discharge.
