Biography
Joe Murphy was the Communist Party section organizer in Washington County, Pennsylvania, for about six months before police raided a National Miners Union committee meeting in Canonsburg. The November 20 dispatch reports that police arrested him for vagrancy, questioned him for half an hour about Communism and the union and sentenced him to two months in the Blawnox workhouse. The report says Friday but does not establish an unambiguous exact arrest or physical admission day. This record is qualified by role because the existing 1919 Joe Murphy criminal-anarchy defendant cannot be linked to this organizer from this source alone. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n281-NY-nov-23-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The November 27, 1931 Daily Worker describes the Canonsburg National Miners Union headquarters raid and reports Joe Murphy sentenced to sixty days at Blawnox Workhouse for vagrancy. Two other workers received five-day gambling punishments over raffle tickets. This corroborates Murphy’s existing Washington County organizer case; it is not proof that sixty days had been served, and the unnamed men are not identified by guesswork. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n285-NY-nov-27-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
The November 24, 1931 Daily Worker lists Joe Murphy among the miners-strike prisoners then confined at Blawnox. The place, movement and reporting date corroborate the existing Washington County organizer case reported the previous day; no second arrest or independently measured custody interval is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n282-NY-nov-24-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
