Biography
Otto Passow was one of the Bad Axe, Michigan farmers charged with criminal syndicalism during the 1933 farm revolt. The farm revolt of 1933 — the Farmers' Holiday Association and the Communist-led United Farmers' League fighting mortgage foreclosures with penny auctions and picket lines — brought waves of arrests across the Midwest, many under state criminal-syndicalism laws.
Rob Hall’s December 1933 Labor Defender account identifies Passow as one of five farmers arrested at Bad Axe, Michigan and charged with criminal syndicalism for stopping a foreclosure. It quotes his letter thanking the Farmers National Committee for Action for hundreds of letters and telegrams demanding their release. The passage establishes arrest and charge, but gives no conviction, exact admission/discharge day, or completed custody total. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1933/v09n11-dec-1933-lab-def.pdf#page=16
