Biography
Sylvan Pollack was a labor organizer arrested during July 1930 raids associated with the Pennsylvania anthracite strike and charged with sedition. The Daily Worker of July 8 describes police raids on labor and Communist offices in Scranton following a miners’ meeting in Dunmore. Pollack was district secretary of the International Labor Defense, arrested at its office on July2 and released on July6 on $1,000 bail. His surname also appears as Pollock in the article.
The July 26, 1930 Militant reports him with four other Scranton sedition defendants still jailed for a fall grand jury. It describes Tash’s Dunmore-speech arrest and the following raid on the union and ILD offices, with fingerprinting and ten hours before charges. This conflicts with earlier July bail releases already documented in his case. Those earlier dates are preserved, while the full custody total remains uncertain; the vague later report does not prove a rearrest or twenty years actually served. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/1930/28jul1930.pdf#page=8
The July 3 dispatch describes the July 2 Scranton sedition raid and $1,000 bail and recalls an earlier Sunday Pittston meeting arrest. Five July defendants are not all individually named in this report. The Sunday arrests of Slinger, Little and Pollack were followed by release before the July raid; those earlier detentions are distinct from the sedition rearrests. Tash and Frankfeld are not assumed to share identical arrest circumstances. Daily Worker, July 4, 1930, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n160-NY-jul-04-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The July 3 report explicitly names this organizer among those arrested at or in connection with the Pittston miners’ meeting on Sunday, June 29, 1930. Pollack was detained when seeking bail for the others. Slinger, Little and Pollack were released before the July 2 raid. Precise physical release for the other named men is not supplied. This is distinct from the later Scranton sedition case. Daily Worker, July 4, 1930, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n160-NY-jul-04-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The July 4 Scranton dispatch describes Pollack and the other Wednesday raid defendants held under $1,000 bail while detailing destruction of labor offices. This is an attributed point-in-time report within his existing July 2 prosecution; later independently reported July 6 bail release remains separate. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n161-NY-jul-05-1930-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
A proposed federal prosecution, not a completed federal disposition
The July 10 Scranton dispatch names Sylvan Pollock, John and Joseph Lash, Dan Slinger and John Little in a proposed effort to turn their prosecution into a federal case. The report says district attorney J. J. Owens was consulting assistant U.S. district attorney A. A. Vosberg (also printed Vosburg) and a Justice Department agent identified only as Hickey. These are reported consultations, not proof of a federal indictment, conviction, sentence or the assignment of a formal prosecutor in an executed proceeding. Its “last Friday” arrest wording conflicts with the more specific July 2 arrests and July 3 or July 6 bail departures preserved from the July 8 issue. No new arrest date, readmission, continuous detention or numerical duration is inferred. Sylvan Pollack is matched through the existing Scranton organizing and co-defendant context; the printed Pollock variant is already cross-referenced in Pollack’s biography and is not newly installed as an alias.
Daily Worker, July 11, 1930, original pages 3. Accounts and allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
