Biography
Pat Devine was born in Motherwell, Scotland, in 1898 and became a Communist and trade-union organizer. After emigrating to the United States, he worked in the Sacco and Vanzetti defense campaign and became acting secretary of the National Textile Workers’ Union. Police arrested him during the Lawrence textile strike in February 1931, and he was held for deportation before obtaining bail. Federal authorities arrested him again in May on a charge of obtaining a passport under false pretenses. On May 28, 1931, he was sentenced to one year and one day in the federal penitentiary at Atlanta. After leaving Atlanta, he was held at Ellis Island for deportation to Scotland. He later organized unemployed workers in Britain, worked for the Communist Party of Ireland and contributed to the Irish Democrat. Devine died in London on July 22, 1973.
In an Ellis Island interview excerpt published in the Daily Worker of December 30, 1931, page 4, Devine said he had served seven months at the Atlanta federal penitentiary before being immediately detained for deportation. He described prison overcrowding, food economies, a meningitis outbreak and disciplinary punishment for alleged inciting to riot and boisterous conduct. The article says he was due to leave on the S.S. Ascania on Saturday for Liverpool and Scotland. That sailing was prospective, not verified departure or freedom, and seven months refers to Atlanta service rather than his total US custody including immigration detention.
The Daily Worker of March 5, 1931, pages 2–3, reports Berkman, Devine and William Murdoch/Murdock still in East Boston immigration detention after the Lawrence strike arrests. It prints their statements urging continued union organization. It also quotes Commissioner Anna C. M. Tillinghast’s response to ACLU professor Colston E. Warne concerning incommunicado detention without bail and intervention at the mayor/police/citizens committee request to remove the organizers. No actual deportation or later release is established by this report.
The Daily Worker of May 18, 1931, page 1, reports Devine actually released from Federal Detention Headquarters on Saturday, May 16, on $2,000 bond furnished by the New York ILD. A Monday federal-court hearing remained prospective. The report says he had been arrested in Boston about a week earlier on the passport charge and transferred to New York. This is an intermediate bail release before the later May 28 sentence; approximate arrest wording is not converted to an exact day or continuous custody total.
The Daily Worker of May 20, 1931, page 2, reports his release on $2,000 bond as Monday and schedules a federal hearing for Monday, May 25. The May 18 issue instead described the actual bond release as Saturday, May 16. Both contemporary accounts concern an intermediate release before the May 28 sentence; this conflict remains explicit and is not resolved by silently changing an endpoint or calculating continuous custody. The earlier $20,000 immigration bond is distinct from this $2,000 passport-case bond.
The Daily Worker of May 29, 1931, page 1, reports that Judge Colman (as printed) sentenced Devine the previous day, May 28, to one year and one day at Atlanta on the passport charge, with Isaac Shorr defending him. It reports a threatened deportation after service and a five-year threat if he returned. Those threats are not additional imposed sentences or verified deportation dates, and the nominal year-and-day term is not equated with actual served time.
The May 7, 1931 Daily Worker cites the rearrest of National Textile Workers Union secretary Pat Devine in its account of the Paterson textile murder prosecution. The five defendants in the adjacent case are not all named, so Devine is not automatically assigned their charge or counted as one of them. No new arrest day, prison endpoint or completed term is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n110-NY-may-07-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The March 21, 1932 Daily Worker retrospectively names textile organizers Murdoch and Pat Devine as actually deported to Scotland. It contrasts these completed removals with other pending immigration cases and says illegal-entry technical grounds were used despite publicity about radical leadership. No exact departure, physical jail discharge or complete duration follows from this retrospective statement. Murdoch is attached to the Lawrence Murdock record without an automatic merger of the separate William Murdoch profile. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n068-NY-mar-21-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=4
The February 27 Lawrence dispatch names this organizer among strike leaders beaten and jailed during the union-headquarters raid as Mayor Landers and the Citizens Committee sought a return-to-work vote. It reports total bail over $100,000 while mass picketing continued. This is contemporaneous strike repression, not a new custody episode separate from the existing February 26 arrest. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n052-NY-sect-one-feb-28-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
The August 2 Pittsburgh dispatch individually names this organizer among those arrested in the previous day’s antiwar demonstrations. Its continuation reports the ILD had already bailed out the arrested workers. This establishes actual arrest and later liberty by the report, without choosing August 2 as the exact personal gate-release day or assigning a one-day total. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n127-NY-aug-03-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5 Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v06-n127-NY-aug-03-1929-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
An International Labor Defense interview in the January 1932 Labor Defender, page 5, meets Patrick (Pat) Devine in the Ellis Island deportation pen after his release from Atlanta federal penitentiary. It explicitly reports seven months actually served at Atlanta, distinguished here from the nominal one-year-and-one-day sentence. The seven months describe the Atlanta component, not an exact total including immigration detention. Neither exact release nor deportation day is supplied. Devine describes poor ventilation and no outdoor exercise at the West Street federal detention house; overcrowding and food shortages at Atlanta; and punishment for alleged inciting to riot and boisterous conduct while imprisoned. These prison-condition accounts are attributed to Devine, rather than presented as independently adjudicated findings. The photograph caption says he was deported to Scotland, while the interview narrative occurs before departure; no exact sailing day is inferred.
The March 26 Boston bulletin describes the March 25 East Boston immigration hearing in the deportation cases of Berkman, Devine and Murdoch, identifying all three as National Textile Workers’ Union officials and Lawrence strike leaders. It attributes to the defense concern that officials were preparing sabotage allegations against the union and a possible Essex County conspiracy indictment. These are hearing and defense-warning details; a predicted new indictment is not treated as an accomplished conviction or a newly dated arrest.
The statement by the National Textile Workers Union organizer describes anti-immigrant enforcement during the Lawrence strike. In the continuation on PDF page 3, Devine recounts being shown warrants while confined in the East Boston immigration station. This supports his existing immigration-custody episode; it supplies no new admission, discharge or final deportation day.
