Biography
John Squires was a Nebraska farmer and Farm Holiday organizer prosecuted with Ella Reeve Bloor after the June 1934 Loup City confrontation. A June 1935 report individually named him among those arrested and described the lower-court convictions and pending appeal. By September 1935, another report explicitly placed him in prison with Bloor and other farmer defendants. The precise beginning and end of his sentence-service custody remain unknown.
Page 3 discusses the Nebraska Supreme Court appeal heard June 5 concerning the June 14, 1934 Loup City confrontation. It names Bloor, Harry MacDonald, Portius Sell, John Squires, Carl Wicklund and Floyd Booth, and separately confirms Booth’s wife was arrested. The account says the lower-court prosecution shifted from riot to unlawful assembly when evidence showed deputies initiated violence; no new Supreme Court result is reported. It identifies Sell, the wounded son on crutches, separately from his hospitalized father Bert Sell. The newspaper criticizes the Booths’ later political loyalty, but this editorial judgment does not undo the fact of their arrests or create another prosecution. No exact jail term served is inferred from the appeal campaign. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n153-NAT-jun-27-DW-Q.pdf
Page 2's September 20 Loup City dispatch reports the seven defendants' district-court appeal hearing had begun the previous day, following their June 29 convictions arising from a poultry-strike solidarity meeting. The newspaper lists unlawful assembly, inciting to riot, resisting an officer, disturbing the peace, and assault and battery as the prosecution's charges collectively, without assigning every count to each person. Defense attorneys challenged the jury selection; the appeal result was still pending. It calls Booth's wife Loretta, a contemporary spelling retained here without changing the profile's identity or treating her as a separate person. This article dates the initial meeting June 13, differing from other accounts' June 14; no existing exact date is overwritten. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n227-sep-21-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Rowley identifies Squires as a Loup City farmer appearing in the June 26, 1934 criminal docket, receiving an initial 20-day/$25 sentence and later 30-day/$100 district-court penalty. The male defendants subsequently served at Loup City after unsuccessful appeal; exact individual endpoints are not supplied. Pages 28,30,34,36. Source: https://history.nebraska.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/doc_publications_NH1966LoupCity.pdf
Sources and evidence limits
The June 27, 1935 primary article explicitly says John Squires was arrested after the June 14, 1934 confrontation; it says no arrests occurred on the day of the confrontation. It describes the lower-court convictions as unlawful assembly rather than riot. The September 30 feature individually names him among farmers then in prison with Bloor. September is therefore evidence of actual confinement, not an exact surrender day. The 1934 arrest and 1935 sentence-service detention are not treated as one continuously served interval. His individual release and completed duration are not given.
- Daily Worker, June 27, 1935, original page 3, Mass Protest Will Save Loup City Defendants
- Daily Worker, September 30, 1935, original page 5, Mother Bloor prison feature
Birth and death dates are unverified. No race or organizational affiliation is inferred. Historical detention does not imply present custody.
Daily Worker, June 27, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, September 21, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.