Biography
Thomas Burans, also recorded as Burns, was a laborer living in Ronan. He was convicted of sedition for urging a draft registrant not to enlist and criticizing the persecution of the Industrial Workers of the World. He entered Deer Lodge on May 25, 1918, and was paroled on June 8, 1919. He was returned for a parole violation on November 15, 1919, and died at Warm Springs in 1926.
The original Montana State Prison intake form lists an age of 62, birth in Minnesota, and occupation as laborer and miner. It records actual receipt at Deer Lodge on 1918-05-25 and sentencing on 1918-05-25 in the state sedition case. The admission is distinguished from an earlier arrest, and the printed sentence is distinguished from actual service; no physical discharge is supplied. It includes named frontal and profile photographs. Source: https://clcowgill.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/a-m.pdf#page=4
The original Montana State Prison descriptive intake form records the sentence date as 1918-05-25 and records the plea/trial response as: Did not plead guilty; stood trial. This sentencing entry is separate from receipt at the penitentiary.
