Biography
John Otis Ellis, identified as J. Otis Ellis in some sources, was an Industrial Workers of the World supporter prosecuted under Idaho’s criminal-syndicalism law. He was arrested in Clearwater County in late July 1917 after a witness alleged that he had advocated cutting logs short unless workers received five dollars a day. He was convicted and sentenced to one to ten years in prison, beginning his prison term in November 1917. Idaho’s attorney general later recorded that his conviction in Clearwater County, before Judge W. W. Woods, was affirmed on appeal.
Sources
- Report of the Attorney General of the State of Idaho for 1921–1922: State v. John Otis Ellis; conviction under the criminal-syndicalism law in Clearwater County, Second Judicial District, Judge W. W. Woods; judgment affirmed.
- American Political Prisoners: Prosecutions Under the Espionage and Sedition Acts, p. 170, note 146: J. Otis Ellis’s prison sentence began in November 1917. This is a separate entry from Joe Doyle, note 145.
- Ahmed White, Under the Iron Heel (2022), p. 98: arrest in late July 1917 and a one-to-ten-year sentence; p. 173 discusses later clemency without establishing an exact release date here.
The arrest and prison-admission dates are known to the month only. Exact release date and a verified portrait remain unestablished.
White includes John Otis Ellis among previously imprisoned Idaho defendants pardoned or paroled around spring 1921. He does not specify which relief mechanism applied to Ellis individually or give a physical-release day; no exact endpoint is inferred.
Ahmed White, Under the Iron Heel (University of California Press, 2022), physical PDF pages [184] (printed page = physical minus 11); source193 SHA256 7c24fb0ba336fcbf379fb9720f70dcdbf754d796a50dee77b39e38e0f9bd2868.
