Biography
Milan Resetar was from Woodlawn, Pennsylvania. Milan Resetar was one of three Communist Party members convicted under the Pennsylvania sedition law in 1928. (See the entry for codefendant Pete Muselin in Chapter 13 for a description of his case.) Resetar began serving his sentence on November 26, 1929 at the Allegheny County Workhouse at Blawnox, Pennsylvania. In an August 1930 letter from prison he described Blawnox as a place of "appalling" "filth," "swarming with bed bugs, roaches, lice and other vermin." By September 1931, Resetar had become very ill, but was denied proper medical attention. According to one report: When he could hardly stand any longer they sent Milan Resetar to the prison infirmary. "Palpitation of the heart, " they called his ailment. Five days later they thrust him out again, back to the grim prison workshop and the bleak prison cell. They said he was "improved." And then the old doctor went off on a vacation and a new doctor took his place. He saw this sick man staggering in anguish. The sweat of death was already on his face. A week after he had been dismissed from the infirmary as healed, they carried him to a bed again. They found his lungs eaten up by tuberculosis, his heart enveloped in a pus sac. The state of Pennsylvania declined Resetar's request to be released from prison and transferred to a hospital. He died in custody on October 18, 1931, after 691 days — one year and eleven months of a five-year sentence.
The Daily Worker of March 13, 1931, page 3, reported that Judge McConnell refused parole to Pete Muselin, Milan Resetar and Tom Zima because they remained Communists and would not repudiate the class struggle. It described an International Labor Defense pardon campaign and a planned Pittsburgh amnesty conference. The article gives December 13, 1929 as their imprisonment date, which conflicts with the separately recorded November 26 admission; this discrepancy is retained without replacing that date. The report does not supply an exact parole-decision day or a new custody episode. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n063-NY-mar-13-1931-DW-LOC.pdf
J. Louis Engdahl’s March 14, 1932 article identifies the Blawnox prisoner as Sam Resetar and attributes his death to tuberculosis, heart disease and conditions in the Allegheny County Workhouse. The shared Blawnox case identifies the existing Milan Resetar record; Sam is retained here as the contemporary printed variant. This retrospective account supplies no new exact death day and does not replace the established October 18, 1931 death or a certified medical determination. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n062-NY-mar-14-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
The September 8, 1930 Laisve, page 5, reproduces an International Labor Defense political-prisoner directory. Its row prints Milan Resetar, a term of 5 years, the year 1929 in the sentencing-year column, and confinement or correspondence location Allegheny County Workhouse, Blawnox, Pennsylvania. 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 August 31 Woodlawn dispatch identifies him as a war veteran, butcher and Croatian Benefit Society secretary and reports that the Superior Court had affirmed the prosecution on April 16, 1928, with a state Supreme Court argument planned for September 24. Its accusations of company-police influence and a prejudiced jury are the newspaper’s defense account. The planned appeal is not a new arrest or physical release; the independently established later prison intake, actual service and final release or death remain unchanged. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n208-NY-sep-01-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The December 2 report gives November 11, 1926 as the arrest at Zima’s birthday party and June 20, 1927 as the trial, with five-year terms and $500 fines in the Woodlawn prosecution. November 29 reports actual commitment to Blawnox on November 26 after Supreme Court review was denied October 28, 1929. The imposed terms are not completed service. Daily Worker, December 2, 1929, original PDF page 4. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n230-NY-dec-02-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
His signed Blawnox letter printed in the August 1930 Labor Defender reported that he and fellow Woodlawn sedition prisoner Zima were in fair physical condition at that time. It also described six-day prison work and disciplinary solitary confinement as general conditions, without establishing an individual solitary term. This earlier report does not contradict the separately documented later illness and death. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1930/v05n08-aug-1930-LD.pdf#page=19
In a letter printed in June 1931, Milan Resetar asks supporters to write to him at Box 56, Blawnox, Pennsylvania, and reports that Communist Party and International Labor Defense papers were not allowed to reach him in prison. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1931/v06n06-jun-1931-LD.pdf#page=15
1920s custody review: Internal consistency correction: the existing October 18, 1931 death-in-custody date had also been copied into the release field. The release copy and released flag are removed; the death date and duration endpoint remain. The earlier explanation claiming death must be stored as release is obsolete. The appellate opinion Commonwealth v. Widovich, 93 Pa. Super. 323 (1928), concerns this prosecution, but is not evidence for an exact sentencing day. No new death or admission date is asserted in this correction.
Contemporary Woodlawn trial chronology and court personnel
Sender Garlin's December 2, 1929 Daily Worker article, “Andrew Mellon, Steel and Sedition,” individually names Milan Resetar, Tom Zima and Pete Muselin as the three Woodlawn defendants arrested on November 11, 1926. It states that their trial opened in Beaver County Court on June 20, 1927 before Judge W. A. McConnel. Its quotation from the court record identifies Mr. Craig as prosecutor conducting the examination of Jones & Laughlin police captain S. G. Mauk. Those court roles are distinguished from the defense and the police witness.
The trial-opening day is not a sentencing or physical-admission date. The article's statement that imprisonment will soon begin is prospective, even though this newspaper issue is dated after the separately stored November 26 admission. It does not independently verify or replace that admission, any release/death endpoint, the stored custody totals, or the inherited year-only sentencing entry. Its June 1927 trial chronology is preserved alongside differing 1928 wording in legacy biographies rather than silently substituting a new sentencing date. The author's allegations about company and jury influence remain attributed to the contemporary report.
A. Jakira’s October 1928 Labor Defender account supplies a precise earlier Woodlawn chronology: verdict June 25,1927; sentencing December 12,1927, before Judge Wm.A.McConnel. Muselin, Resetar and Zima received five years and $500 fines plus costs; Bratich received two-and-a-half years and $200. The report dates Bratich’s appellate discharge April 16,1928. This resolves the prior year-only sentencing placeholder; the sentencing day is not copied into a physical-admission field, and the appellate discharge is not treated as a proven prison-release day. The later separate actual custody of the three whose convictions survived remains unchanged.
Labor Defender, October1928, original PDF page18 (printed214).
A reported Supreme Court refusal, not a new physical-entry record
The Washington dispatch dated November 28 says the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the Woodlawn prosecution yesterday, confirming an earlier October 28 refusal. This dates the newspaper’s reported later judicial action to November 27, 1929; it is not a personal jail-entry record. The original print says the prison term had been set to begin November 25, whereas the existing record separately places physical entry on November 26. The original scheduled date is preserved as such, not substituted for actual admission; the native text’s apparent November 26 reading is not followed over the original image. The five-year terms are imposed sentences, not five actual years served. The continuation describes an earlier attempt to stop the defendants speaking at a November 3 protest meeting through contempt proceedings, but does not independently establish another physical custody span. Existing arrest, sentence, admission, release/death and numerical storage remain unchanged.
Daily Worker, November 29, 1929, original pages 1, 3. Accounts and allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
The Behind the Bars directory on printed page 4 lists this prisoner under Blawnox, Pennsylvania, with five years, 1929. 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.
In his signed Blawnox letter published in the June 1931 Labor Defender, Resetar requested correspondence to Box 56 and reported that prisoners were not receiving Communist Party or International Labor Defense publications. This is a contemporary prisoner account of communication restrictions, not an independently established disciplinary sentence or a new detention. Box56 is a correspondence designation, not a new prison institution or inmate number.
