T. Luesse
Biography
Theodore Luesse, later known as Jim Moore, organized unemployed workers in Indianapolis during the Great Depression. He joined the Communist Party USA in 1930 and led protests against evictions and inadequate relief. In May 1931 he was sentenced to one year at the Indiana State Penal Farm and a $500 fine for resisting the eviction of a Black family. He entered the farm at Putnamville on May 25. After his prison term ended, officials kept him confined to work off the fine at a dollar a day. He ran for governor on the Communist ticket while imprisoned in 1932 and was released in March 1933. Luesse later settled in California, where he continued union, civil-rights, antiwar and housing activism and distributed the Communist press into his final years.
The Daily Worker of May 20, 1931, page 4, recalls the arrest of Luesse, chairman of the state unemployment insurance committee, in its account of the May 2–4 Indiana hunger march and the dispersal of the state-house demonstration to Military Park. It provides no exact individual arrest day or disposition. This early-May report is retained alongside the separately documented later penal-farm sentence; no unverified new custody endpoint or continuous total is inferred.
The February 22, 1933 Greencastle dispatch describes a 300-day Indiana State Farm sentence from the eviction struggle and predicts release around March 14. It reports an original $500 fine worked off at a dollar a day and remission of $150 under public pressure. The March 14 date was a prediction and conflicts with the separately documented actual March 3 release; the report is not used to replace that endpoint or calculate a new service total. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v010-n046-NY-feb-23-1933-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The May 7, 1931 Daily Worker identifies Theodore Luesse, secretary of the state unemployment-insurance committee, among three delegates arrested after the May 4 Indianapolis conference of 182 delegates and demonstrations at Military Park and the state house. It reports $5,000 bonds, without saying they were posted. This arrest report is distinguished from the later May 25 penal-farm admission; no continuous or additional numerical service is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n110-NY-may-07-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The September 29, 1931 Indianapolis defense report describes Luesse as sentenced to two years for unemployed organizing and calls for his release. This differs from the one-year term plus a $500 fine described by other sources. The contemporary wording is attributed rather than substituted for the better documented penal-farm sequence, and no two-year completed term is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n235-NY-sep-30-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The April 16, 1932 Indianapolis report published April 20 describes Luesse as still serving at the penal farm since the preceding May and advertises an April25release protest. This corroborates the existing May1931episode without a new arrest, actual release or numerical duration. The proposed meeting is not treated as an accomplished event. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n094-NY-apr-20-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The National Hunger March preparation account names Ted Luesse as the imprisoned Indianapolis jobless leader and says delegates would demand that Governor Leslie release him. This corroborates his ongoing political defense campaign; the future demand supplies no new discharge, remission or actual duration.
The review reports unconditional release in Indiana and describes a three-year chain-gang sentence, after delegations visited the state police captain at Marion. This conflicts with the existing one-year penal-farm sentence plus a $500 fine worked off after the term; the annual review’s shorthand is retained as a discrepancy and does not replace that better specified chronology or establish three actual years.
The Indianapolis report announces an International Labor Defense public trial, Luesse versus the capitalist state, for June 28 to demand the release of Theo. Luesse, a jailed leader of Indiana’s unemployed. The proposed audience-as-jury event is a defense demonstration, not an actual acquittal or release, and does not supply a new detention interval.
