Biography
Theodore Dreiser was the novelist who wrote Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, and chairman of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners. In November 1931 he led the committee's investigation of violence and repression in the Kentucky coalfields. A Harlan County grand jury indicted him and other delegates for criminal syndicalism after their meetings in support of jailed miners. Attorney John W. Davis agreed to defend the committee members against extradition to Kentucky. Dreiser was never brought to trial in the case.
The December 16, 1932 Daily Worker reports Dreiser returned from California after a Thomas Mooney freedom rally and mentions plans surrounding a Jennie Gerhardt film adaptation and work on The Stoic. This documents literary and defense activity; proposed work is not a completed publication or a new custody episode. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n300-NY-dec-16-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Labor Defender, August 1932, printed pages 143 and 157 (PDF pages 4 and 21): Dreiser's signed America—And War argues that US finance and industrial interests, Japan's actions in China and anti-Soviet war planning threatened another world war. This documents a contemporary published political essay, whose causal and political claims remain the author's analysis. It does not establish another arrest or custody episode. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1932/v08n08-aug-1932-LD.pdf
Page 1 reports Harlan authorities ordering Dreiser arrested on a formal adultery accusation involving fellow investigator Marie Pergain. It quotes prosecutor Walter B. Smith and Judge D. C. Jones linking their hostility to the committee's exposure of mining conditions; Dreiser denied the charge. An arrest order and accusation do not establish completed arrest or imprisonment. This adds an earlier, more specific allegation to the existing separate immorality-charge record, not another duplicate case. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n271-NY-nov-11-1931-DW-LOC.pdf
The issue reports criminal-syndicalism indictments following the committee’s five-day coalfield investigation and quotes prosecutor W. A. Brock’s plan to seek extradition. It names ten defendants despite inconsistent introductory counts and describes the threatened punishment in the headline and body. Neither a threatened term nor planned extradition proves an actual arrest, imprisonment or trial. The existing record that Dreiser was not brought to trial is preserved.
The issue announces a November 29 public report by the coalfield investigating committee and says it would describe both the criminal-syndicalism indictments and an effort to discredit Dreiser through an immorality charge. A separate notice describes his filmed statement at the Embassy News Reel Theatre condemning the jailing of miners for union membership and reading the Daily Worker. The charge is reported as a defense allegation, without details supporting arrest, conviction or confinement. The prospective public meeting is not proof it occurred.
Labor Defender, August 1932; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, November 11, 1931; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Gannes’s page 4 account discusses the committee’s November 7 Straight Creek and November 8 Wallens Creek free-speech meetings and the criminal-syndicalism indictments. Its allegation that the separate sex charge was prepared to discredit Dreiser remains attributed; no prison term is inferred.
