Biography
Joe Bartol was a Gallup coal miner and president of the Southwestern mine's union local. During the 1933 strike the National Guard confined him in a military stockade, released him after three days and arrested him again after he began organizing food relief. He remained in the stockade until the strike ended. Bartol later became an International Labor Defense secretary and helped bring National Miners Union locals into the United Mine Workers of America. After the April 1935 confrontation in Gallup, he was imprisoned in the New Mexico State Penitentiary at Santa Fe under $7,500 murder bail. He was acquitted in the October trial but remained detained on the separate charge of aiding a prisoner to escape. His wife Julia campaigned for the prisoners' defense.
The April 20, 1935 Daily Worker named Joe Bartol among the Gallup defendants facing first-degree murder proceedings in Santa Fe after the early-April confrontation at the courthouse. The April 19 report described a preliminary hearing, with forty-five defendants appearing and three unavailable through wounds or illness. The report establishes charges and hearing participation, but does not individually establish continued physical detention for every person in its roster. No complete term or exact arrest date is established. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n095-NAT-apr-20-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=1
Page 1’s May 10 Santa Fe dispatch individually identifies this Gallup defendant as $7,500 murder bail; president of UMWA Local 1721, formerly the Southwestern National Miners Union local, and state unemployment delegate. It describes fourteen workers held in the state penitentiary death-house area awaiting trial, ten on first-degree murder accusations and four on escape accusations. Pretrial placement in that area does not mean a death sentence was imposed. Bail set does not establish bail posting; later dispositions in the existing record remain distinct. Page 8 calls for trade-union defense. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n113-NAT-may-11-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Page 1 reports actual release on bond on Wednesday, May 22. The individually specified amount is $7,500. Pallares is separately described as under deportation proceedings. The four named escape-charge defendants include an unexpanded “Mrs. Avitia”; her given name is not assumed. This bond release is a custody endpoint, not acquittal or termination of proceedings. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n125-NAT-may-25-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Philip Stevenson's biographical account on page 5 dates his immigration from what was then Austria to 1912, his first work to a hemlock lumber camp near St. Mary's, Pennsylvania, his move to Pittsburgh-area mining to 1918 and an honorable Army discharge to 1921. It names his wife as Julia Crowley before marriage and explains his role in securing food for the 1933 strike. The two military-stockade detentions and 1935 murder-bail case are already separately represented. The article argues he was absent from the April 4 shootings; that remains the author's defense claim. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n132-NAT-jun-03-DW-Q.pdf
The September 24 prison appeal prints John Bartol among ten Gallup signatories claiming confinement since April 4. The existing Joe Bartol record separately documents release on May 22. The name difference and intervening bond release prevent treating the collective wording as an uninterrupted individual April-to-September interval; no new case or altered release is inferred. Daily Worker, October 1, 1935, original PDF page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n235-NAT-oct-01-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=2
Page 8 individually names this defendant among seven acquitted of murdering Sheriff M. R. Carmichael in the Gallup case. The same report explicitly says all seven were immediately remanded to jail for inability to furnish $2,000 bond on the separate accusation of aiding and abetting a prisoner’s escape. Acquittal of murder therefore is not entered as physical release. Printed Augustine Cavillo, Gregory Correa and Rafael Gomez are retained as contemporary roster variants of the matched existing defendants; the report supplies no individual actual discharge or completed service. Source: https://newspapers.swco.ttu.edu/bitstreams/34268242-ac0d-472e-8d03-7eb5b704a2c0/download
The October 20 Santa Fe dispatch explicitly says this Gallup defendant remained held on the charge of aiding a prisoner to escape after the murder acquittal. This report establishes continuing detention, not a completed release. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n253-NAT-oct-21-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=1
The October 17 Aztec dispatch says the judge released Barini/Bartol and Gonzales on their own recognizance while riot charges remained, on condition they not return to Gallup. This is a reported conditional disposition, not unrestricted freedom. It conflicts with the separately recorded October 20 report that they remained held on the escape accusation; no exact physical discharge field or continuous total is changed from these inconsistent contemporary accounts. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n250-NAT-oct-18-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=3
Daily Worker, April 25, 1935, pages 1–2: The April 24 Santa Fe report individually lists this Gallup defendant among ten bound over after the preliminary murder hearing, among six held under an aggregate $45,000 bail; no individual allocation is supplied here. It reports murder accusations dismissed against thirty-eight of the original forty-eight and four other defendants retained under $500 bail on prisoner-escape accusations. Its overlapping reference to the ten as held for assisting escape is preserved as the report's wording, without replacing the later individualized charging and trial history. The paper alleges deputy gunfire killed the sheriff and miners; that account is attributed. Continued detention, not a final imposed sentence or exact discharge, is established. Three unnamed released defendants reportedly were immediately seized for deportation; those unnamed transfers are not assigned to this person. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n099-NAT-apr-25-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Contemporary Gallup defense account
Described as married with a twelve-year-old son, president of the Gallup UMWA local and financial secretary of the local ILD branch. His wife Julia was an eyewitness to the May 2 abduction of Minor and Levinson. The group containing this name is described as held on $7,500 murder bond. The pamphlet says all ten also faced aiding-escape allegations with an additional $1,000 bond. The printed roster actually contains nine names despite referring to ten defendants and “these four” before listing only three in the first group. No missing individual is supplied by inference. These early bail conditions are distinct from later post-trial bonds; neither the bail amount nor the advocacy account establishes a release or time served.
Louis Colman, Night Riders in Gallup (1935), pages 3, 11–12.
Daily Worker, May 11, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, May 25, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, April 25, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
