Skip to content

Joe Horsky

Era:1920s
State:Ohio
Support
Joe Horsky

Biography

Joe Horsky was a railroad worker sympathetic to the miners, imprisoned in Cadiz, Ohio, for violating an injunction against mine-strike picketing. The Daily Worker reports a twenty-day sentence imposed by Judge Benson W. Hough on May 8, 1928 and actual commencement of jail service by the May 12 dispatch. The body first includes him in a collective March 13 arrest statement, but then explicitly says he was not with the pickets and was picked up later. His individual arrest date remains unresolved. The International Labor Defense defended the four workers, and the newspaper criticized their imprisonment as discrimination against Save-the-Union supporters while supporters of John L. Lewis received suspended sentences. The dispatch says they began serving “yesterday,” suggesting May 11, but later calls a May 11 mass meeting the day before prison entry, suggesting May 12. Admission is retained at May precision because the source conflicts. Twenty days is the imposed term; actual completion and final release are unverified. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n115-NY-may-16-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2; portrait caption: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n115-NY-may-16-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1

Case

Charges: Violation of injunction against mine-strike mass picketing
Sentenced: May 8, 1928
Incarcerated: May 1928
Sentence: Twenty-day nominal jail sentence; actual entry in May 1928. The May 12 dispatch and its mass-meeting chronology disagree between May 11 and May 12, so no precise intake day or completed twenty-day duration is asserted. Release unknown. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n115-NY-may-16-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
Judge: Benson W. Hough