Biography
John Schmies was a Communist candidate for mayor of Detroit and secretary of the Trade Union Unity League. The December 11, 1931 Daily Worker carried a Detroit dispatch dated December 10 demanding his immediate release while he was serving a sixty-day sentence for leading the November 25 demonstration. The report attributes the police attack on the demonstration to Mayor Frank Murphy’s administration. It establishes actual imprisonment, but not the exact admission, sentencing or discharge day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n297-NY-dec-11-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The December 28 Detroit report published December 31 explicitly says Schmies was out on bail pending appeal from a sixty-day sentence, with the appeal scheduled for January 13. Dismissals for twelve other defendants are not automatically his dismissal. The sixty days remains imposed punishment, without proof of full service or an exact physical release day. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n314-NY-dec-31-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
Sources
The November 25 Detroit bulletin names Schmies among thirty-one arrested at the unemployment demonstrations in Grand Circus Park and at City Hall, after tear gas, clubbing and mounted-police charges. No new individual discharge day is supplied.
