Biography
Joseph Shoemaker was born in Philadelphia on February 24, 1888. He worked as an actor in Brooklyn and later lived in Bennington, Vermont, where he was active in the Socialist Party. He moved to Tampa in May 1935 and founded the Modern Democrats, campaigning for public ownership of utilities and jobs for the unemployed. Police arrested and briefly detained him during a political meeting on November 30, 1935. After his release, police and Ku Klux Klan members abducted him and two fellow organizers, beat them and applied hot tar to their bodies. Shoemaker was found injured the next morning and taken to Centro Español Hospital. He died there on December 9, 1935.
Daily Worker, December 24, 1935: Pages 1–2 report that the Tampa Central Trades and Labor Assembly demanded a grand-jury investigation of the November 30 police detention, abduction and flogging of Shoemaker, E. F. Poulnot and Sam C. Rogers. The paper says they were taken to the woods in official police cars and that public pressure secured the release of two additional arrested organizers, whose names are not given. It reports arrests of six city policemen and two alleged Klansmen in the murder investigation. These are reported investigative and defense developments, not proof of convictions of the attackers or a new detention of the victims. The Sam C./D. initial conflict is not resolved here. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n309-NY-dec-24-DW-Q.pdf
Crossen’s review recalls the November 30, 1935 Modern Democrats meeting arrest, police interrogation under Investigate Communists and transfer by police car into the fatal torture attack on Shoemaker and assaults on Poulnot and Rogers. It describes Shoemaker surviving nine days after the attack. This is retrospective detail in the existing Tampa cases, not another arrest or nine days in police custody. New Masses, August 11, 1936, original PDF page 22. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1936/v20n07-aug-11-1936-NM.pdf#page=22
The Tampa trial report describes defense counsel seeking a retrial for five convicted police kidnappers, attempting to call presiding Judge Robert T. Dewell as a witness. Dewell had taken the motion under advisement. A possible later sentence was prospective, not an accomplished retrial or a new detention of the victims. Daily Worker, July 14, 1936, original PDF page 6. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n168-NY-jul-14-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=6
Page 2's March 31 Tampa dispatch reports Judge Robert T. Dewell granted a change of venue for the police-klansmen's kidnapping prosecution to Bartow, Polk County. State attorney Rex Farrior did not oppose it; trial was set for April 13, and the newspaper criticized the danger of Klan influence and barriers to bringing witnesses. It distinguishes this from the Shoemaker murder prosecution. These are developments in prosecution of the assailants in the established Shoemaker-Rogers-Poulnot attack, not a new custody case for the victims or a verdict on the accused. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n079-Late-Morning-Ed-apr-01-1936-DW-Q.pdf
Pages 1 and 8 report six Tampa policemen held without bail on first-degree murder charges following the November 30 kidnapping and flogging attack in which Shoemaker died. The December 19 dispatch says police raided a private house without a warrant, took six labor organizers to the station, then handed them to a masked mob; it alleges police cars transported the victims and that a Daily Worker investigation helped force action. These attributed allegations and arrests concern prosecution of the assailants, not a new case against the victims or proof that the accused had been convicted. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n306-NY-dec-20-DW-Q.pdf
Page 2's April 22 Bartow dispatch describes Sam Rogers's testimony in the trial of seven former Tampa policemen over the flogging attack. It says prosecutor J. Rex Farrior objected to defense lawyer Pat Whitaker's questions about whether Rogers had beaten labor organizers. Rogers repeatedly said he, Shoemaker and Poulnot were Democrats rather than Communists; the newspaper criticized the implication that political affiliation could justify police violence. It reports difficulty funding witnesses' travel to Bartow and says Poulnot obtained money for Shoemaker's widow. No verdict is reported, and no additional victim custody case is created. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n098-NY-apr-23-1936-DW-Q.pdf
Contemporary December 1935 report and limits
The December 3, 1935 Daily Worker (p. 3), in a Tampa report datelined December 2, names Joseph A. Shoemaker, Sam G. Rogers and E. F. Poulnot as organizers attacked after police nominally released them to vigilantes. It reports Shoemaker and Rogers hospitalized and Poulnot treated at home; three other unnamed organizers remained detained. Its Sunday-night wording points to December 1 and conflicts with the stronger independently established November 30 arrest/release chronology recorded here. The paper also prints Rogers's middle initial G rather than the D used in the established profile. These are source discrepancies, not grounds to overwrite the current dates/name, extend police detention through hospitalization, or substitute a later death date as release.
Source: Daily Worker, national edition, volume 12 number 291, December 3, 1935. Allegations and editorial characterizations are attributed to the paper.
While living in Bennington, Shoemaker established the Handee clothes-hanger factory and belonged to the local Socialist Party chapter. A reproduced contemporary newspaper caption identifies the November 30, 1935 police-raid location as the home of Adolphus M. Herald at 307 East Palm Avenue in Tampa. This is a historical meeting location.
Daily Worker, December 24, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The May 15 Bartow dispatch reports Judge Dewell again recessed without deciding the defense demand for acquittal in the Poulnot kidnapping trial of former Tampa police officials. It describes repeated evidentiary arguments and warns that expense could deter trial of still-untried indictments for Rogers’s kidnapping and Shoemaker’s murder. This is the alleged abductors’ prosecution, not a new arrest, acquittal or release of the victim.
Page 3 reports indictments against five policemen accused of sending the three Tampa labor organizers from police custody into a masked mob, where they were beaten, tarred and feathered; Shoemaker subsequently died. Printed E. F. Peulnot is retained as a spelling variant. This is prosecution of the alleged attackers, not a new arrest of the victims.
Daily Worker, April 1, 1936; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, December 20, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, April 23, 1936; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Page1 reports December24 grand-jury indictments of six policemen and two OrlandoKlansmen concerning the November30 detention, abduction and flogging of Shoemaker,Poulnot and Rogers. It disputes the official release-and-mob account and says police cars carried the victims to the woods. Indictments are not convictions; this is follow-up evidence in the existing November30 episode, not another arrest of the victims.
The April 26 Bartow dispatch in the April 27, 1936 Daily Worker reports a dispute over the police defendants’ attempt to obtain secret grand-jury testimony by Eugene F. Poulnot and Dr. Sam Rogers. Their lawyer Pat Whitaker obtained a State Supreme Court writ seeking the transcripts after State Attorney Rex Farrior argued that the normal procedure for access had to be followed and Judge Robert T. Dewell ruled against Whitaker. The newspaper describes statements by State Attorney Rex Farrior concerning remaining untried indictments, distinguishing the Poulnot false-imprisonment and flogging prosecution from the separate Rogers kidnapping and Joseph Shoemaker murder cases. This is a procedural report about prosecution of the alleged attackers, with a future court appearance anticipated; it is not another arrest, custody interval, verdict or release of the victims.
Sidney Hertzberg’s April 11, 1936 Socialist Call report says the prospective jury list for the transferred Bartow trials of the alleged Tampa attackers had been drawn and Judge Dewell would not publish it. Assistant State Attorney Huntley had questioned twenty-four Orange County witnesses, including Fred Bass. The paper reports plans to strengthen prosecution counsel and add defense lawyers Luke C. Johnson and E. A. Borsage; its claims about legal fees, business funding and the defendants’ bail are contemporary allegations. The continuation distinguishes the police defendants from victims Eugene F. Poulnot, Sam D. Rogers and Joseph Shoemaker. These are procedural and defense-financing reports concerning the attackers, not another detention or a new release date for the victims.
Socialist Call, April 11, 1936, PDF page 1, continued on PDF page 3.
Contemporary report, February 1936
The Socialist Call of February 22, 1936 reported that Manuel Mendez, a stenographer in the Tampa police department, had been indicted during the preceding week as an accessory to Joseph Shoemaker’s murder. It said the same charge had been brought against Police Chief R. G. Tittsworth on January 23 and that eight of the eleven men indicted were city police officers. The article announced an intended speaking tour by surviving victims printed as S. J. Rogers and E. C. Poulnot. These are attributed contemporary prosecution and planned-tour reports, not new confinement or release dates for Shoemaker.
