Biography
Lawrence Emery was from Sacramento. Lawrence Emery was convicted of violating the California Criminal Syndicalism Act because of his role in the Imperial Valley farmer workers strike. He was sentenced to three to forty-two years in prison and served in San Quentin from June 1930 to February 1933. Emery was an organizer for the Marine Transport Workers Industrial Union and a member of the Communist Party. In early 1930, Emery traveled to Imperial Valley as an organizer for the Trade Union Unity League and began organizing a farm worker strike. The 1930 strike was not successful. Among the demands pushed by the union were an eight-hour work day, abolition of child labor, equal pay for equal work and an end to race segregation among the employees. Because of the strike activities, Emeiy, along with thirty-two others, was indicted under the California Criminal Syndicalism Act. Eventually, eight defendants stood trial and were convicted. The judge presiding at the trial was extremely hostile to the defendants. In a letter to the parole board the judge wrote: "The Court considers the defendants... a decided menace and detriment to society and civilization."
The Daily Worker of December22,1932,page3, identified Emery as an imprisoned national committee member of the Marine Workers Industrial Union and reported that its enlarged committee session sent greetings to him in San Quentin and James Kennedy in Baltimore city jail.
The El Centro trial report lists the Imperial Valley defendants in custody in the criminal-syndicalism prosecution and describes $40,000 bonds. It identifies them by surname or shortened spelling. The June 14 report says the jury was still deliberating June 13; the forty-two-year figure is possible exposure at that point, not a verdict or served duration. Daily Worker, June 11, 1930, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n140-NY-jun-11-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The April 11, 1932 Imperial Valley defense account distinguishes parole terms from physical freedom. It explicitly says Sklar remained in Folsom while immigration arrangements blocked release; projected eighteen-month consequences were not completed service. Horiuchi’s proposed removal to Japan, Herrera’s to Colombia and Emery’s announced February 18, 1933 freedom were future plans, not accomplished events. The source prints Tsuji/T. Horiuchi and Terrera/Herrera; the existing cohort identities are retained. Its proposed reduction of parole terms from fourteen to five years is not five years actually imprisoned. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n086-NY-apr-11-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The September 8, 1930 Laisve, page 5, reproduces an International Labor Defense political-prisoner directory. Its row prints Lawrence Emery, a term of 3–42 years, the year 1930 in the sentencing-year column, and confinement or correspondence location San Quentin, California. This is an attributed historical directory entry; printed years and nominal terms are not exact intake dates or measured time served, and mailing boxes do not independently identify a prison. The directory contains stale or conflicting chronology, so this row does not override independently established conviction, death or release facts. Source: https://www.spauda2.org/laisve/archive/1930/1930-09-08-LAISVE.pdf#page=5
The March 11 Fresno dispatch published March 12, 1931 reports a fifty-person labor delegation attending the Fourth State District Court of Appeals the previous day to demand release of the Imperial Valley prisoners. It describes the eight organizers as in California state prisons and says an appellate decision was expected in twenty days. The account supplies advocacy and pending appeal, not an accomplished release or new sentence. Its collective three-to-forty-two and two-to-twenty-eight-year terms are reported nominal ranges, not time actually served; spelling and chronology discrepancies do not override independently recorded individual facts. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n062-NY-mar-12-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Labor Defender, August 1932, printed page 149 (PDF page 10): Martin Bank's Palm-Treed Paradise names Sklar, Oscar Erikson, Lawrence Emory, Tetsuji Horiuchi and Danny Roxas in the Imperial Valley criminal-syndicalism defense and gives a collective three-to-forty-two-year term. It places these five at Folsom and Eduardo Herra and Braulio Orosco at San Quentin under two-to-twenty-eight-year terms. These printed location and spelling variants are preserved as a contemporary collective account; conflicting individual prison evidence is not silently overwritten. Nominal ranges do not state actual service, and no precise admission, parole or discharge day is given. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1932/v08n08-aug-1932-LD.pdf
Printed pages 172-173 (PDF 12-13), Frank Spector's California's Parole Racket, distinguishes the announced July 18, 1932 release from continued custody because of employment-approval and immigration barriers. It describes revised terms of two years in prison plus eighteen months parole for Erickson, Roxas, Sklar and Horiuchi, and thirty months prison plus one year parole for Emery. The editor's later update expressly reports Erickson and Roxas actually released, Horiuchi sailing for the USSR on August 17 after permission for voluntary departure, and Sklar's physical release still awaited despite a regular-parole agreement; Emery's release was still sought. These are separate individual outcomes, not a collective July 18 discharge. The article's June 1931 and aggregate forty-two-year wording conflicts with earlier case chronologies and is not used to overwrite independently documented initial sentencing. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1932/v08n09-sep-1932-LD.pdf
The December 2 report names these marine unionists among those actually arrested at San Pedro in the strike and organizing crackdown. It reports vagrancy and incitement allegations and $2,000 bond for each of the seven. The group total is not an individual fine; exact arrest and physical release days and complete duration remain unknown. Daily Worker, December 2, 1929, original PDF page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n230-NY-dec-02-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
Contemporary source and custody limits
The March 6, 1933 Western Worker, page 1, prints a portrait explicitly identified as Lawrence Emery. Its caption dates his release from San Quentin to February 18; the adjacent San Francisco report, datelined February 21, says he came out on parole that day. The issue therefore contains an internal release-day discrepancy, and the existing February 21 case date has not been replaced by the caption date. The article reports two years and seven months actually served, separately from the imposed three-to-forty-two-year sentence. This live February 1933 parole report contradicts the erroneous 1931 death year removed from this profile; this source does not establish his correct birth or death date.
Projected parole is not confirmation of physical release
The Western Worker of February 20, 1933, page 1, carries a February 11 dispatch announcing that Emery would be paroled on February 18, conditional on arranging employment in New York. The report is prospective, not an account of his actual departure from San Quentin. It does not establish February 18 as the release day and does not replace the currently stored February 21 date. His initial prison admission and birth date are not established by this dispatch.
Separate 1929 marine-worker arrests, not fourteen years served
A Los Angeles dispatch dated December 10 in the December 11, 1929 Daily Worker names Lawrence Emery, a seaman, and Frank Waldron, a longshoreman, as Marine Workers League speakers arrested at a San Pedro open-air meeting. It also says the two had been arrested a week earlier on Tuesday at a San Bernardino meeting with five other workers and were facing a criminal-syndicalism trial. This documents earlier legal proceedings than Emery’s already recorded 1930 Imperial Valley imprisonment. The threatened fourteen-year punishment is not an imposed sentence or completed service. The report does not establish personal jail admission, physical release, detention duration or continuity between the two arrests. No new imprisonment case or custody counter is inferred. The initialled or variant identity of the co-defendant is not silently merged into another profile.
Daily Worker, December 11, 1929, original pages 2. Contemporary allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
In a prisoner’s letter published on printed page 96, Emery wrote from San Quentin after learning of International Labor Defense organizational secretary A. Jakira’s death. He identified himself with the Imperial Valley prisoners and recalled Jakira’s defense work. The letter documents his prison correspondence and solidarity with the defense movement; the publication date is not used as a new arrest, admission or release date.
The November 1932 Labor Defender article One More to Free, pages 213–214, identifies Lawrence Emery as the last Imperial Valley defendant still imprisoned at San Quentin. Its continuation names Judge Thompson as presiding at the Imperial Valley trial and attributes to him a letter urging the Prison Board to impose the maximum penalty. The article’s February 18, 1933 release forecast is not proof of executed parole and does not replace the separately sourced release chronology. No duration or endpoint changes are made.
Labor Defender, November 1932, PDF pages 13-14 (printed 213-214).
The December 10 Los Angeles dispatch reports two separate arrests with Frank Waldron: one a week ago Tuesday at San Bernardino with five other workers on criminal-syndicalism charges, and a later arrest while addressing a Marine Workers League open-air meeting at San Pedro. The first relative date corresponds to December 3; the second day is unspecified. The threatened fourteen-year punishment is not a sentence served. These are separate from Emery’s 1930 Imperial Valley prosecution. Waldron’s possible identity as Francis Xavier Waldron/Eugene Dennis remains unresolved and is not asserted here.
The review reports his completed release from San Quentin, describing him as the last Imperial Valley prisoner freed. This corroborates the existing release without a new event or date derived from the review’s layout.
The Behind the Bars directory on printed page 4 lists this prisoner under San Quentin State Prison, California, with three to forty-two years, 1930. This is an attributed historical directory entry: the year and nominal term do not establish an intake day, uninterrupted imprisonment, completed service or physical release.
Labor Defender, August 1932; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Labor Defender, September 1932; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
In a May 29, 1934 Daily Worker interview, Lawrence Emery, identified as International Labor Defense assistant national secretary, says he was arrested in Imperial Valley in April 1930 while organizing agricultural workers. This supplies the arrest month for the existing criminal-syndicalism case; it does not date a new admission to San Quentin. The interview retrospectively describes three years in prison followed by a year on parole, recently completed. That rounded account does not replace the earlier report of two years and seven months actually served or resolve the February 18 caption versus February 21 dispatch release-day discrepancy discussed above.
Named as a signer of the Imperial Valley prisoners’ greeting, datelined San Francisco November 6, from confinement following agricultural organizing. The accompanying text places the group in San Quentin and Folsom without assigning every individual prison. Its group-wide forty-two-year wording is not substituted for individual sentences or actual served totals.
