Sam Darcy
Biography
Sam Darcy, also known as Samuel Adams Darcy and Samuel Dardeck, was a Communist Party organizer, editor and lecturer. Born in Ukraine in 1905, he grew up in New York and helped organize the city's unemployed workers. He later headed the party's California district, worked with waterfront organizers during the 1934 San Francisco strike and ran for governor that year. He was arrested with forty-five other workers in Long Beach in 1932 for attempting to lecture on the economic crisis; he defended himself and the defendants were acquitted. In September 1939, Philadelphia authorities arrested him for extradition to California on a perjury indictment concerning his 1934 voter registration. He was taken into county-prison custody on November 2. In the subsequent California prosecution he spent six weeks in jail in 1941 before being released on five years' probation that September. He died on November 8, 2005.
Howard Kimeldorf interview with Sam Darcy, May 10, 1986, transcript page 29: In this retrospective oral history, Darcy recalls that San Francisco ship scalers assessed themselves fifty cents a week to support his defense when he was brought back for trial. The passage supplies no reliable calendar day or new charge, so it supplements his defense history without creating another prosecution or custody interval. Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/darcy-sam/darcy-interview.pdf
The February 21 Sacramento trial report describes Darcy reading a Western Worker editorial opposing individual terror and discussing self-defense, after Fred Kirkwood identified the confiscated paper. His appearance in this account does not establish another arrest or custody episode. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n046-Nat-feb-22-1935-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
Pages 1–2 report Elks official Michael Shannon personally attacking his Communist electoral candidacy during those hearings. This is contemporary political-defense context, with no new personal arrest or jail sentence established by this account. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n302-Nat-dec-19-DW-LOC.pdf
The San Francisco column reports that on September 17 the judge placed Darcy on five years of probation after the jury found him guilty in the voter-registration case. It recounts his return from Pennsylvania and appeals, and attributes the disposition to labor and public protests. The column incorrectly dates his gubernatorial candidacy to 1935; the separately established 1934 date is retained. Five years of probation is not five years in prison; this account supplies no replacement for his independently documented six weeks actually jailed.
Daily Worker, December 19, 1934; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
