Biography
Max Bedacht was individually named among Communist leaders prosecuted in connection with the 1922 Bridgman convention raid in the March 27, 1931 Daily Worker. A March 26 Detroit dispatch reports Judge White granting an immediate-trial motion and setting aside a prior separate-trials order. The ILD opposed the renewed proceedings as an attack on militant labor. The reported potential ten-year punishment was not an accomplished sentence, and no individual physical custody endpoints or complete duration are supplied. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n075-NY-mar-27-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The official House Clerk returns for the November 4, 1930 congressional election list Max Bedacht as a candidate for New Yorks19th Congressional District as a Communist. This corroborates electoral activity rather than a fresh arrest or custody endpoint. Source: https://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/1930election.pdf#page=17
Named among the ten Communist defendants who surrendered at St. Joseph, Michigan, in the 1922 Bridgman convention prosecution. A companion report says four had furnished bail and the remaining six were temporarily free on recognizance, without identifying which individual had which status. No individual continuous jail interval, conviction or sentence is inferred.
The dictionary records Bedacht’s death in July 1972, immigration to New York in 1908, Communist Party leadership, service as general secretary of the International Workers Order and editorship of New Order. It reports a Munich birth in 1885, whereas NYU’s catalogue of his autobiographical typescript identifies him as 1883–1972. The conflicting birth years remain unresolved; only the source-supported death month is added to the dated fields.
Jacob Rader Marcus and Judith M. Daniels, The Concise Dictionary of American Jewish Biography, printed page38 (PDF44). NYU Special Collections, Max Bedacht Autobiographical Typescript, TAM.072.
