Biography
Oscar Erickson was an IWW officer and a leader of the Imperial Valley farm workers strike. Oscar Erickson received a three- to forty-two-year prison sentence for violating the California Criminal Syndicalism Act and served in San Quentin. He was national secretary of the Agricultural Workers Industrial League. (See also the entry for Lawrence Emery.)
Western Worker, July 15, 1932, page 2: The Imperial Valley defense report announced parole for July 18, 1932, and discussed deportation conditions for Sklar and Horiuchi. It demanded Sklar’s release on his own recognizance and permission for Horiuchi to choose voluntary departure. This is a prospective announcement; it does not override separately documented later physical release or departure dates. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/westernworker/1932/v1n14-jul-15-1932.pdf
The El Centro trial report lists the Imperial Valley defendants in custody in the criminal-syndicalism prosecution and describes $40,000 bonds. It identifies them by surname or shortened spelling. The June 14 report says the jury was still deliberating June 13; the forty-two-year figure is possible exposure at that point, not a verdict or served duration. Daily Worker, June 11, 1930, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n140-NY-jun-11-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The December 31, 1932 Daily Worker book-committee and defense reporting supplies this contemporary context: The committee describes Oscar Ericson, the Imperial Valley prisoner, as now freed. The source supplies a latest bound for release, rather than an exact discharge day or verification of an entire nominal sentence. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n313-NY-dec-31-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The March 11 Fresno dispatch published March 12, 1931 reports a fifty-person labor delegation attending the Fourth State District Court of Appeals the previous day to demand release of the Imperial Valley prisoners. It describes the eight organizers as in California state prisons and says an appellate decision was expected in twenty days. The account supplies advocacy and pending appeal, not an accomplished release or new sentence. Its collective three-to-forty-two and two-to-twenty-eight-year terms are reported nominal ranges, not time actually served; spelling and chronology discrepancies do not override independently recorded individual facts. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n062-NY-mar-12-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Labor Defender, August 1932, printed page 149 (PDF page 10): Martin Bank's Palm-Treed Paradise names Sklar, Oscar Erikson, Lawrence Emory, Tetsuji Horiuchi and Danny Roxas in the Imperial Valley criminal-syndicalism defense and gives a collective three-to-forty-two-year term. It places these five at Folsom and Eduardo Herra and Braulio Orosco at San Quentin under two-to-twenty-eight-year terms. These printed location and spelling variants are preserved as a contemporary collective account; conflicting individual prison evidence is not silently overwritten. The account says parole officials refused to release Erickson and Roxas because the proposed jobs did not satisfy the board; a refusal is not actual release. Nominal ranges do not state actual service, and no precise admission, parole or discharge day is given. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1932/v08n08-aug-1932-LD.pdf
Printed pages 172-173 (PDF 12-13), Frank Spector's California's Parole Racket, distinguishes the announced July 18, 1932 release from continued custody because of employment-approval and immigration barriers. It describes revised terms of two years in prison plus eighteen months parole for Erickson, Roxas, Sklar and Horiuchi, and thirty months prison plus one year parole for Emery. The editor's later update expressly reports Erickson and Roxas actually released, Horiuchi sailing for the USSR on August 17 after permission for voluntary departure, and Sklar's physical release still awaited despite a regular-parole agreement; Emery's release was still sought. These are separate individual outcomes, not a collective July 18 discharge. The article's June 1931 and aggregate forty-two-year wording conflicts with earlier case chronologies and is not used to overwrite independently documented initial sentencing. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1932/v08n09-sep-1932-LD.pdf
A signed San Quentin letter and the Imperial Valley charge
A signed letter printed in this issue identifies Oscar Erickson as an Imperial Valley defendant already in San Quentin for the California criminal-syndicalism prosecution. The body describes an imposed three-to-forty-two-year term, despite the headline’s different forty-three-year wording. Neither number is actual time served. This supports correcting the inherited Espionage Act/Sedition Act charge label to the California criminal-syndicalism offense already described in his biography. The collective April 14 roundup and later reduction from eleven defendants’ $40,000 bail to $15,000 do not independently date Erickson’s individual admission or discharge. The printed correspondence address is “Box 48686”; it is not automatically installed as an inmate register number. His inherited twelve-month value and era are not independently validated or changed.
Daily Worker, July 11, 1930, original pages 1. Accounts and allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
A letter published on printed page 96 is signed Oscar Erickson, number 48686, San Quentin. Writing for six imprisoned militants, he confirmed that they had received the five-dollar monthly allowances and described using their time outside prison work for study. The signature establishes a historical prison correspondence number and location, not a federal BOP number or an exact custody endpoint.
The newspaper reports that the Imperial Valley defendant had actually been paroled from San Quentin and was working as an ILD bookkeeper in Buffalo. California authorities ordered him to report back to New York; New York parole authorities regarded the Buffalo employment as within his rights, and William L. Patterson protested. This establishes liberty on parole by publication, beyond a mere earlier parole announcement, but supplies no individual physical release day or proof of a return to prison. It does not turn reporting restrictions into new imprisonment.
The Behind the Bars directory on printed page 4 lists this prisoner under San Quentin State Prison, California, with three to forty-two years, 1930. 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.
Labor Defender, August 1932; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Labor Defender, September 1932; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Named as a signer of the Imperial Valley prisoners’ greeting, datelined San Francisco November 6, from confinement following agricultural organizing. The accompanying text places the group in San Quentin and Folsom without assigning every individual prison. Its group-wide forty-two-year wording is not substituted for individual sentences or actual served totals.
The Fort Bragg local history describes the young IWW organizer Oscar Erickson as arrested under criminal-syndicalism law. It reports two local trials without a convicting jury, followed by an Imperial Valley conviction with other agricultural organizers. Its rounded account says three years in San Quentin. This retrospective statement is retained as an attributed recollection; it does not replace contemporary evidence of actual1932 release or establish a new intake or discharge date.
Leo Mattson,ed., Neljakymmenta vuotta: Kuvauksia ja muistelmia Amerikan suomalaisen tyovaenliikkeen toimintataipaleelta1906-1946(1946); source SHA256 578848740b9c75b6bd0cca39e531fc8511660bfb595cd97f3858cdae218789df; physical PDF page117,printed118.
