Biography
Max Cichon was a German-born American farmer near Elkhorn, Wisconsin, who organized against farm foreclosures during the Depression. Before farming, he worked as a sailor and carpenter and was a wrestler. He belonged to the Farmers Union, Farm Holiday movement and Milk Pool. On December 6, 1932, sheriff’s deputies evicted him from a farm sold at foreclosure that August. Cichon and his wife Virginia resisted with a rifle and shotgun while deputies used gunfire and tear gas. After surrendering, he was taken to Walworth County Jail and charged with assault with intent to kill; Virginia was also jailed. After their release, the couple continued their work against foreclosures and the treatment of unemployed families. Cichon was jailed again in early 1935. Later that year a federal court sentenced him to three months for contempt after he advised another farmer to remove property subject to a bankruptcy proceeding. The sentence was upheld on March 20, 1936. On April 1, 1937, a county judge ordered him jailed for thirty days after he presented a petition seeking the return of foreclosed farms. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed that contempt order on February 15, 1938.
Ben Field's Wisconsin relief report in the Daily Worker of May 3, 1935, page 5, describes Virginia Cichon working as a Chicago waitress after the couple's release and later leaving that job to manage the farm and children while Max was jailed again. It recounts Max and Virginia helping Tom Long's family resist loss of relief and compulsory low-paid farm labor, and organizing a successful delegation to the Elkhorn relief office. The generalized rearrest reference supplies no new exact custody dates or separately identifiable prosecution. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n106-NAT-may-03-1935-DW-Q.pdf
The December 6 report describes the farmer jailed after resisting foreclosure eviction with his family and surrendering to the sheriff’s armed posse. The United Farmers League and ILD were arranging defense. His wife and children were reported hospitalized, not independently proven jailed. No exact arrest, statutory charge or physical discharge is supplied. Daily Worker, December 7, 1932, original PDF page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n292-NY-dec-07-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The December 7, 1932 Daily Worker reports the Cichon family's resistance to farm foreclosure at Elkhorn, Wisconsin: the sheriff's men fired hundreds of machine-gun rounds before Max surrendered to protect his family. It places him in jail and his wife and children, ill, in hospital, and reports the United Farmers League and ILD arranging legal defense. It calls the sheriff Max's brother. The account supports his existing foreclosure-resistance case and does not independently establish Virginia's admission or a different custody start date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n292-NY-dec-07-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
