Patrick B. “Paddy” Whalen

Patrick B. “Paddy” Whalen was the leader of the Baltimore branch of the National Maritime Union and fought for integrated crews and hiring halls. New Jersey police arrested him and four companions on February 6, 1938 while they were traveling to a union executive committee meeting. They were charged with carrying concealed and dangerous weapons amid union members’ suspicions that the arrest was politically motivated. Authorities later dropped the charges.

The Daily Worker of July30,1936 reports an earlier prosecution: Whalen, a marine engineer and picket captain, was arrested in the May16 waterfront clash with NewYork mounted police. Magistrate AdolphStern reduced the charge to disorderly conduct and on July20 imposed fifteen days, with execution stayed until August3. The report does not establish the eventual time actually served.

The Daily Worker of August 1, 1936, page 3, corrects the venue for the proceeding scheduled for Monday, August 3, to Yorkville Court, East 57th Street, instead of a West Side court. It identifies Pat Whalen as a recent seamen's-strike picket captain and reports supporters' allegation that the prosecution excused a mounted-police attack on the picket line. The article does not prove that the stayed fifteen-day sentence began on August 3 or establish the eventual actual time served.

The August 11, 1936 Daily Worker reports that on the preceding day, August 10, Magistrate Adolph Stern finally reduced Whalen’s May16 picket-line punishment to ten days and that Whalen began serving the term on Welfare Island. Attorney Henry Brickman obtained the further reduction from fifteen days after an earlier sixty-day proposal. This is affirmative admission evidence, superseding the earlier stayed fifteen-day outcome; no discharge day or completed ten-day service is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n192-NY-aug-11-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=4