Biography
Simon W. "Si" Gerson was a journalist, electoral organizer, and longtime political-action director of the Communist Party USA. Born on January 23, 1909, he worked as a reporter and editor for the Daily Worker and later the Daily World. He managed Communist election campaigns, advocated proportional representation and ballot access for minor parties, and repeatedly ran for public office in New York.
FBI agents arrested Gerson and sixteen other New York Communist Party officials on June 20, 1951, under the Smith Act. He remained in custody while contesting bail set at between $10,000 and $20,000, and was released by June 29 after roughly ten calendar days.
The government later invalidated the Civil Rights Congress bond that had secured his release, and Judge Sylvester Ryan cancelled those bonds and ordered the defendants apprehended unless they furnished replacement bail privately. Available reporting indicates Gerson had obtained acceptable replacement bail by the weekend of July 28-29, 1951, when he was no longer among the defendants reported as still jailed. Whether he was physically returned to custody during the intervening dispute has not been established, so no second detention is recorded.
Gerson went to trial with the other defendants in 1952. On September 30, 1952, Federal Judge Edward J. Dimock DIRECTED VERDICTS OF ACQUITTAL for Gerson and Isidore Begun because the government had presented insufficient evidence against them. He was never convicted and served no sentence.
An earlier version of this record stated that he was convicted in the 1952 second-string Foley Square Smith Act trial and sentenced in January 1953 to three years. Neither the conviction nor the sentence happened.
Gerson remained active as a journalist, Communist Party political strategist, and ballot-access advocate for decades. He died in Brooklyn on December 26, 2004, at the age of ninety-five.
Earlier antiwar-demonstration arrest reported in 1928
The March 3, 1928 Daily Worker, page 7, quotes Gerson describing his arrest for marching in a Young Workers League demonstration in front of Brooklyn Navy Yard against the invasion of Nicaragua. He also refers to the resulting conviction roughly two weeks before the college disciplinary action. The source supplies no exact arrest or conviction day, jail admission, sentence or actual release. It documents an earlier, separate prosecution; none of the 1951 Smith Act custody dates is changed and no unsupported imprisonment counter or precise 1928 case date is added.
