Biography
John Sanders, also reported as John Saunders, was an unemployed-workers' activist prosecuted after the June 1, 1934 relief demonstration in Los Angeles. Judge Arthur Crum sentenced him during the prosecutions arising from that demonstration. The International Labor Defense secured property bail, and Sanders was out on $4,500 bail by September 27. He was subsequently confined at Lincoln Heights Jail with James G. McShann, Harold Hendricks and Joseph Toth. In July 1935 a defense delegation found the prisoners in dark isolation cells, and jail officials blocked letters, packages and relief checks sent through the organization.
A letter signed Agnes Hendricks in the January 1936 Labor Defender, page 19 (PDF page 20), names Sanders, James McShann and Harold Hendricks in Lincoln Heights Jail. It alleges that a jailer tore up their letter to the defense organization, threatened solitary confinement for further such correspondence, limited them to one family letter weekly mailed on Monday, and threatened transfer and separation at Central Station if complaints continued. These are reported restrictions and threats, not proof that the threatened transfers occurred.
The Daily Worker of November 27, 1935, page 4, names John Sanders among three political prisoners then serving sentences at Lincoln Heights Jail and describes repeated International Labor Defense delegations to the Los Angeles City Council protesting their treatment. The article reports eight other prisoners' deaths following beatings since July 1 and demands the removal of Captain Shand and Police Chief James E. Davis. The collective fatalities are context for the conditions campaign; they are not attributed as injuries or deaths of the three named living prisoners, and no exact custody endpoints are supplied.
Page 2’s August 12 Los Angeles report connects the June 1 unemployed demonstration prosecution to Judge Arthur Crum and reports twenty-one months. McShann’s counts included inciting to riot, meeting without permit and battery; Hendricks was reported ill with tuberculosis. Gallagher and Grover Johnson filed notice of appeal. These are imposed or prospective sentences, not completed time served, and do not erase the separately documented bail interruption. The article gives no exact physical release or final total. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n193-sect-one-aug-13-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 3’s September 27 report on the June 1 Los Angeles relief demonstration identifies this defendant as actually out on $4,500 bail; the ILD had to supply $18,000 property security. All five convictions were under ILD appeal. Bail set is distinguished from bail actually posted; the report gives no exact physical release date or completed total. Tinnery is retained as a printed variant of the existing Tennry record through the identical incident, judge and co-defendants. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n233-sep-28-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Contemporary November 1935 custody report
A Los Angeles report datelined November 26 in the November 27, 1935 Daily Worker (p. 4) explicitly lists John Sanders with Harold Hendricks and James McShann as prisoners then serving sentences at Lincoln Heights Jail. This corroborates confinement by late November 1935 but does not date his admission or release. His earlier bail episode is not merged into an assumed continuous custody span.
Source: Daily Worker, national edition, volume 12 number 286, November 27, 1935. Political allegations and commentary are attributed to the paper.
Contemporary August 1935 prison letter
The August 23, 1935 Daily Worker, page 2, reports that Harold Hendricks, James McShann, Joseph Toth and John Sanders signed a letter to the International Labor Defense smuggled from Lincoln Heights Jail that week. It says they remained deprived of mail while serving sentences for organizing unemployed workers in Los Angeles. The article specifically describes Captain John L. Shand refusing Hendricks’s letter to his wife and returning defense literature and newsletters.
The four are described collectively as serving eighteen to twenty-four months; this source does not allocate an individual term. It corroborates actual confinement during August 1935, not a new admission day, uninterrupted custody since any earlier arrest, or a release date. Its political characterizations and treatment allegations are attributed to the paper and prisoners.
Daily Worker, August 23, 1935, page 2, Los Angeles Political Prisoner Denied Right to Mail Letters.
Labor Defender, January 1936; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, November 27, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, August 13, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, September 28, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
