Biography
Louis Harris was a member of the National Textile Workers Union charged with first-degree murder during the 1931 Paterson silk strike. Mill owner Max Urban died in March after a February 18 fight outside his shop. The strikers had initially been released on bail, but police rearrested five of them after Urban’s death and held them without bail in Passaic County Jail. Harris was a father of one; the International Labor Defense maintained that he had been working in another shop when the fight occurred. Bart and Harris were released on May 21, 1931, on $3,500 bail each. The union and the International Labor Defense campaigned to have the charges dropped.
The Daily Worker of May 18, 1931, page 1, reports the Paterson five’s expected Saturday bail release was revoked after a leaflet called workers to greet them at the jail. It says Judge Harlan (as printed) had previously fixed $3,500 for each of four men and $1,000 for the woman, and a renewed motion was to be argued Monday. The article prints Hart where other reports name Bart. Revoked/anticipated bail is not an actual release and does not replace later documented release dates; the Harlan/Harley judge spelling is preserved as source variance.
The March 23, 1931 Daily Worker, page 1, gives an earlier procedural stage of the Paterson silk-strike case: the five workers had been released on $1,000 bond each and were rearrested after Max Urban’s death, then held without bail for investigation. Its March 22 dispatch calls murder charges a likelihood rather than a completed indictment. It prints Albert Katzhuk for Katzenbuch. The article’s Saturday-night death chronology differs from the later defense account of midnight March 20 and a March 21 rearrest; that variance is retained without changing the existing arrest fields. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n071-NY-mar-23-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The April 8, 1931 report identifies these Paterson silk workers among five imprisoned on a murder accusation after an altercation involving a barber and union activists. The appeal for defense funds explicitly places the five in prison. No individual final judgment, exact discharge or complete duration is supplied. Daily Worker, April 8, 1931, original PDF page 2. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n085-NY-apr-08-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The May 1931 defense account on printed page 90 says Max Urban died at midnight March 20 and that the five textile defendants were rearrested at 3 a.m. the following morning, March 21, on first-degree murder charges and held without bail. It attributes the earlier confrontation to a February 18 strike dispute over a wage cut and changing two twelve-hour shifts into three eight-hour shifts. It cites a newspaper report of an autopsy finding meningitis. The defense’s account and alibis are attributed claims, not independent judicial findings. The article describes Harris as twenty-six with one child and says he was working at another shop when the confrontation occurred.
The March 26 Paterson defense appeal individually lists Helen Garshonowitz, Benjamin Lieb, Albert Katzhuk, Louis Harris and Louis Bart as the five textile-strike defendants accused in mill owner Max Urban’s death. It announces a March 27 Carpenters Hall meeting with Foster and urges support for the NTWU/ILD defense. The roster variants identify this existing Paterson case; it supplies no verdict, sentence or new physical release. The analogy to Sacco and Vanzetti is advocacy, not a prediction entered as an actual death sentence.
Page 1 reports Louis Bart and Louis Harris actually released yesterday, May 21, on $3,500 bail each, during staggered release of the five Paterson silk-strike murder defendants. The union and ILD continued seeking unconditional release; bail did not dismiss the murder charge.
Al Goldberg’s April 25, 1931 Daily Worker account describes the five Paterson textile-union defendants’ rearrest after Max Urban’s death and says police kept them in small station cells for four days and nights while questioning them. It reports that Judge Joelson refused to have them moved to the county jail. These four days describe a police-station component of the prosecution’s continuing custody, not the complete imprisonment or an imposed four-day sentence. The article supplies no precise station admission or transfer day. Its allegations about police treatment and the prosecution remain attributed to the newspaper; the existing bail gaps and later release dates are not changed.
