Leo Gallagher

Leo Gallagher was an International Labor Defense attorney punished while defending six unemployed leaders prosecuted after the Los Angeles June 1 demonstration. Page 3’s July 16 dispatch says Judge Arthur Crum imposed twenty-five days in jail or a $50 fine for contempt after Gallagher insisted on questioning a detective and disputed prosecutor William Christnson’s claim that his questions had already been answered. Execution was announced for July 20 or later if the underlying trial continued. The article does not establish that Gallagher served the jail alternative. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n172-jul-19-1934-DW-LOC.pdf

Pages 1–2 describe Gallagher’s challenge to prosecutor Neil B. McAllister’s proposed injunction against Communist advocacy in Sacramento. He sought notice to oppose the application and denied party endorsement of sabotage or individual terror. This documents legal-defense activity, not a new personal arrest or custody endpoint. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n204-aug-25-1934-DW-LOC.pdf

The July 11 issue individually captions his portrait as the ILD attorney and Communist candidate for Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court. It supplies an identified likeness and political candidacy, without establishing another personal arrest or service of the later contempt alternative. Daily Worker, July 11, 1934, page 3. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n165-jul-11-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3

Labor Defender, March 1934, PDF page 9: In his first-person account of defending the Reichstag defendants, Gallagher says German authorities arrested and held him first in the German Secret Police prison and later at Berlin Polizei Presidium before expelling him as an enemy of the state. His account supplies no exact intake, discharge or duration; this foreign detention is retained as biographical context for the existing US attorney profile, not a new US custody case. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1934/v10n03-mar-1934-orig-LD.pdf#page=9

Sender Garlin's Daily Worker interview of August 14, 1933, page 6, reports Gallagher's planned August 15 sailing to join the Reichstag defendants' defense and an international investigation of Nazi camps. It says he was fired from Southwestern Law School, where he had taught since 1923, after defending the six Mooney runners. It also recalls Los Angeles Red Squad officers seizing and severely beating him as he protested the John Reed Club raid before the City Council. In another grand-jury appearance about police involvement in tarring and feathering a Long Beach worker, the foreman threatened Gallagher with similar treatment; a threat is not an actual tarring. The reported police assault precedes his separate 1934 contempt case; no exact detention or assault day is printed. The paper also reports 69,213 votes in his municipal-judge challenge to Clarke, despite inability to campaign while working on Mooney's defense. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v10-n194-aug-14-1933-DW-LOC.pdf

Revolt, October 1932, pages 5-6, reports that Southwestern University's law school dismissed Gallagher after ten years teaching corporation law because he defended the six Olympic Mooney demonstrators. It attributes opposition to his retention to the Better America Federation, Merchants and Manufacturers Association, Daughters of the American Revolution leaders and Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, while reporting support from students, alumni and President Schumacher. This is an attributed academic-repression account, not another personal imprisonment. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/student-outlook/v01n01-oct-1932-revolt.pdf

Page 3 individually identifies ILD attorney Gallagher arrested at the Los Angeles Russian Revolution anniversary meeting with Jose Arispe, John Owens and two unnamed Japanese workers. This is a distinct 1929 political-meeting arrest, separate from his later contempt and City Council incidents. No individual charge, exact physical endpoints or completed term is printed. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n213-NY-nov-12-1929-DW-LOC.pdf

Pages 1 and 5 identify Gallagher representing five of the seven remaining Los Angeles unemployment-demonstration defendants before Judge Wood. Horiuchi and Kreitzberg represented themselves. Threats to arrest note-takers and threatened contempt for Kiosz do not establish another arrest or imposed term for the attorney. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n221-NAT-sep-13-1930-DW-LOC.pdf

The July 23 Western Worker’s July 11 Los Angeles report says attorney Gallagher received twenty-five days or50 dollars for contempt while defending six June 1 unemployed-demonstration defendants. It says AlanFrankel received the same alternative in another court Monday while defending three handbill distributors at San Pedro. A later July 20 hearing before Judge Arthur Crum was prospective. A fine-or-jail alternative is not proof of jail admission or twenty-five completed days. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/westernworker/1934/v3-n27-31-jul-1934.pdf#page=13

The October 1936 issue reports 66,179 primary-election votes for Gallagher’s candidacy for Los Angeles County Superior Court judge on the platform Defend Democracy, Defeat Reaction and Humanize the Courts. It identifies him as International Labor Defense chief counsel on the West Coast and names the Mooney, Dimitroff and Sacramento defenses. This is electoral and professional biography, not a new detention. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1936/v12-%5B10%5Dn10-oct-1936-orig-LD.pdf#page=4

Daily Worker, February 23, 1934: Pages 1 and 6 report Gallagher returning from Germany on February 22 after observing the Reichstag-fire trial. The paper says he had written retainers from Dimitroff and his family but was refused personal consultation, and prints his account of courtroom restrictions and alleged mistreatment of defendants. This is contemporary professional biography and attributed defense reporting, not a new personal imprisonment or a United States case for the German defendants. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n047-feb-23-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=6