Biography
Kaspar Bauer was a socialist speaker and organizer in San Diego. He joined the 1912 campaign against restrictions on street speaking and was arrested in the opening February protest. Hartwell S. Shippey’s contemporary account names Bauer among the protesters who spent the first night in the city jail. Bauer was subsequently released on bail and prosecuted for conspiracy to violate the ordinance. He was acquitted in August 1912. In a letter published in the International Socialist Review in September 1913, he defended his role in the campaign against claims that his acquittal resulted from informing on fellow defendants.
Contemporary San Diego prosecution roster
The roster identifies Kaspar Bauer as a kelp manufacturer, socialist speaker and organizer. It is a report of his participation in the same street-speaking prosecution, not a new prison episode. The collective February 7 arrest statement is recorded as an attributed date lead only; the existing month-precision custody fields, separately documented bail gap and eventual acquittal remain unchanged.
The July 29 dispatch describes proceedings under way since July 13 and a clerk’s reading on July 15, with jury selection completed July 19; a later update on page 2 names six convicted defendants and says the other eight were acquitted. Its generalized descriptions of long confinement and unnamed people held for three or four months are not assigned as this person’s actual duration. The statement of fourteen defendants is accompanied by thirteen printed roster names and a J. W. Wright case caption; no missing fourteenth identity is invented. All original case dates, verdict fields, custody totals and timestamps are preserved. The collective February 7 date remains source-attributed because individual records can disagree.
Solidarity, volume 3 number 33, whole number 137, August 10, 1912, original pages 2–3.
