Biography
Joseph Laundy was an Industrial Workers of the World and Communist Labor Party organizer arrested in Portland on November 11, 1919. Convicted under Oregon criminal-syndicalism law in 1920, he secured appeal bond that August. His conviction was reversed in 1922 because the prosecution tried him for two offenses under an indictment charging one. The exact beginning of his penitentiary confinement remains unresolved.
1920s custody review: State v. Laundy, 103 Or.443, pages477 and484-485, describes the warrantless arrest at the Portland meeting on November 11, 1919. The Oregonian, August 31, 1920, page9, reports that Laundy secured freedom on appeal bond approved August30. Release is recorded at August1920 month precision pending a discharge record, replacing a misleading continuous-custody endpoint in1922; the inherited1919 initial-detention year is not treated as a proven penitentiary admission day. The Oregonian March2,1922 page8 reports that the warden refused his attempted February28 admission after the Supreme Court reversal. That later episode is not a two-year continuous prison stay. The conviction occurred in1920, not1919. No identifiable portrait has been established.
The Morning Oregonian, August 31, 1920, page 9 reports $2,000 appeal bonds for Laundy and Karl W. Oster furnished and approved the preceding day, August 30. Its headline says they secured freedom; the body describes the bonds to obtain release, not an executed prison gate record. Laundy’s two-year sentence is explicit in the original. His existing month-level release date has not been promoted to an exact discharge day.
White describes the early1920 Portland trial, with former Wobbly A.E.Allen as a prosecution witness and George Vanderveer leading the defense. The two-year prison sentence was imposed; the existing appeal-bond release is preserved.
