Biography
Sam K. Davis was arrested on September 13, 1935 after addressing Minneapolis City Hall on behalf of unemployed workers and members of American Federation of Labor Federal Local 574 seeking larger relief appropriations. Convicted under the Minneapolis disorderly-conduct ordinance, he received ninety days. A May 18, 1936 report states that the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the ordinance and ordered him to begin serving. The order is not proof of a particular prison-admission day or completed ninety-day term. The newspaper's claim that the ordinance was used only against strikes and demonstrations is attributed. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n120-NY-May-19-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=5
The May 8, 1934 Daily Worker reports a 50-day workhouse sentence imposed in the Minneapolis CWA demonstration prosecution. The report dates the demonstration April 6, the sentencing Friday (May 4), and the ILD stay until May 14 while a new trial was sought. It names Judge Clyde R. White. A stayed nominal sentence is not itself proof of the amount served. The source spells Arvo Halberg for Gus Hall, Leo Tuuri, Arthur Hazelton, George Payne and Sam K. Daviss; these name forms are preserved within the established identities. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n110-may-08-1934-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
Page 2 names the Minneapolis ILD secretary among eleven workers arrested April 2, 1934 after the CWA demonstration. Judge Clyde R. White denied a new trial on May 25 and sent the defendants to the workhouse. Terms ranging from ninety days are given collectively, not Davis’s individual term. This precedes his separately recorded September 1935 arrest.
Printed as Sam K. Daviss, the Minneapolis ILD secretary is individually assigned fifty days in the CWA prosecution, stayed until May 14. This belongs to the 1934 case; the existing April 2 versus April 6 arrest accounts remain attributed, and later May 25 commitment evidence is retained.