Biography
Tom Canipe was a North Carolina textile worker prosecuted after the September 1934 general textile strike in Burlington. His father had also worked in the mills. After Canipe was blacklisted, his wife supported their family through hosiery work. He was sentenced to two years in the mill-dynamiting case on December 4, 1934. The North Carolina Supreme Court affirmed his conviction on November 20, 1935. He was out on an appeal bond in December 1935.
The Daily Worker of February 2, 1935, page 4, reports the International Labor Defense's entry into the Burlington mill-dynamiting case and its plans for a North Carolina Supreme Court appeal by March. Anna Damon announced the defense after an investigation by ILD attorneys. The stated grounds were conviction against the weight of the evidence, allegedly fabricated confessions and judicial prejudice. The article names all seven defendants, including Tom Canipe, and reports sentencing on December 4, 1934. These are the defense organization's contemporary allegations and plans; the report does not itself establish a successful appeal or any new custody endpoint.
The Daily Worker of February 12, 1935, page 5, reports that Canipe was blacklisted after the textile strike and that his wife's thirteen-dollar weekly hosiery-mill wage supported the couple and their baby. It identifies his father as a mill worker and places his birth in North Carolina. These details supplement the existing prosecution without adding an inferred custody date or period.
The Daily Worker of November 27, 1935, page 2, names Canipe among the five Burlington defendants whose convictions remained standing and reports that the League for Southern Labor requested unconditional gubernatorial pardons and offered the United Textile Workers' Francis Gorman cooperation. Pages 2 and 4 discuss plans to carry the defense to the United States Supreme Court. These are reported defense efforts, not a pardon, a completed federal appeal or an actual prison-admission date.
W. T. Couch, in The Carolina Magazine, December 1935, printed pages 21-25 (PDF pages 101-105), describes his investigation of the Burlington dynamite prosecution. He reports a trial from November 28 to December 4, 1934, attacks the inconclusive track evidence and the selection of 15-18 additional talesmen by deputy John Leath at the prosecution's request, and identifies four Uniontown, Pennsylvania investigators: S. E. Howard, D. P. Stewart, K. R. Delph and J. R. (Randy) Jones. He says they kept prosecution witnesses Charlie McCullom, H. F. Pruitt and Jerry Furlough together in one Alamance Hotel room from the Monday before trial through its conclusion. Couch alleges compromised testimony and possible prejudice; he expressly says he did not establish who committed the dynamiting. His March 1935 request to Frances Perkins was referred to Textile Labor Relations Board chairman Walter P. Stacy, from whom he had received no answer. A note dated December 19 reports four defendants on bond, Blaylock still jailed for inability to obtain bond, Overman serving a separate post-trial offense and Kimrey at liberty on a suspended sentence. The defense sought new material evidence for a new trial and contemplated a federal constitutional appeal; these were efforts, not established outcomes. Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/Carolina_magazine_%28serial%29_%28IA_carolinamagazine65univ%29.pdf
The February 15, 1935 Daily Worker identifies the Burlington defense committee secretary-organizer as T. J. Canipe, an International Labor Defense branch organizer and United Textile Workers member. It describes a joint campaign for six textile defendants and a collective sentence total of fifty-seven years; that total is not Canipe's individual sentence or time served. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n040-Nat-feb-15-1935-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
A March 22 Burlington dispatch described the appeal of six textile-strike defendants arrested in September 1934 and convicted that December. The defense challenged the legality of the grand jury, alleged jury selection by hand, and the trial judge’s handling of defense testimony and speeches. The report is appellate context, not proof of additional measured time served. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n071-NAT-mar-23-1935-DW-Q.pdf#page=3
The editorial names him among the five Burlington textile defendants whose convictions were upheld and who were ordered to surrender December 2, 1935. This issue calls the men out on bail, whereas a later account specifically says Blalock could not obtain bond. The collective wording is preserved as a discrepancy and the surrender order is not recorded as an accomplished readmission. The matching Burlington prosecution identifies the existing defendants despite shortened names and spelling variants. Labor Defender, December 1935, original PDF page 3. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1935/v11n12-dec-1935-orig-LD.pdf#page=3
Daily Worker, May 31, 1935, page 3: The May 30 Raleigh report names the six Burlington textile-strike defendants appealing convictions over the E. M. Holt Plaid Mill dynamiting during the September 1934 strike. It reports this defendant's nominal term as two years and an appeal hearing scheduled for August 27 before the North Carolina Supreme Court. Printed Florence Blaylock and J. F. Haraway are roster variants of the established Burlington identities. John L. Anderson, identified as Piedmont Textile Council president when arrested, was then addressing union locals in Pennsylvania, New York and New England. The announced appeal is prospective and the reported terms are not complete actual service. These date-specific figures do not silently overwrite different terms in later court-based records. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n130-NAT-may-31-1935-DW-Q.pdf
Labor Defender, February 1935, PDF page 20: The Burlington report individually names the seven textile defendants and alleges beatings and drugging in jail before a jury excluding union members. It identifies Anderson as Piedmont Textile Council president with an imposed eight-to-ten-year hard-labor term. The accusations of planted dynamite and abuse are the defense magazine’s claims; the collective 27-year total is not allocated as individual time served. No new physical release date is supplied. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1935/v11n02-feb-1935-orig-LD.pdf#page=20
Labor Defender, March 1935, PDF page 8: Printed T. J. Canipe, age 22, he is described among the three union men initially accused after helping a friend’s mired car near the powder house, with $1,000 bonds. PDF 9 prints a two-year imposed sentence. This supplements the existing Tom Canipe identity and case without a new arrest or inferred birth date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1935/v11n03-mar-1935-orig-LD.pdf#page=8
Walter S. Pickard’s April 30, 1935 account says the Workers Defense Committee obtained bond for the Burlington textile defendants and that the ILD was assisting their appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court. This is the correspondent’s collective description at that date, not an individual release day; it is retained alongside the later court-based distinctions about who could obtain bond. The report identifies the alleged mill incidents as the September 14, 1934 E. M. Holt Plaid Mill explosion and dynamite found the next day at the Holt and Stevens mills. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1935/v15n05-apr-30-1935-NM.pdf#page=15
November 1935 custody-status evidence
A Burlington report datelined November 22 in the November 23, 1935 Daily Worker (pp. 1-2) names this defendant among the textile-strike defendants whose convictions had been affirmed and expressly states that all defendants except Florence Blaylock were out on bail. This is contemporary evidence of bail status by November 22, rather than proof that the imposed hard-labor sentence had begun. It gives no exact bail-release day or later prison-admission day. The stronger court-based November 20, 1935 appellate decision date already recorded here is preserved: the newspaper's relative yesterday wording is not substituted for it.
Source: Daily Worker, national edition, volume 12 number 283, November 23, 1935. Political allegations and editorial commentary are attributed to the newspaper.
Daily Worker, February 2, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, February 12, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, November 27, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Daily Worker, May 31, 1935; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
The Daily Worker of April 6, 1936, page 6, reported that Tom Canipe, identified as one of the Burlington textile workers prosecuted in the dynamite case following the September 1934 strike, was serving on a North Carolina chain gang. The Prisoners Relief column relayed his request for magazines and gave his address as Camp 512, Whittier, North Carolina. This later report of actual confinement follows the December 1935 appeal-bond reports already recorded here; it does not give the date he returned to custody or his complete actual service.
Anna Mae Johnson’s Burlington account identifies six textile workers convicted the preceding December of conspiracy to dynamite the E. M. Holt Plaid Mill. It describes exclusion of union sympathizers from the jury, company-paid Pennsylvania detectives and witnesses hoping to share a $1,000 reward; more than one hundred defense witnesses reportedly risked or lost jobs. The North Carolina Supreme Court appeal was pending. Its sentence table/captions are retained with the source; this report does not establish continuous confinement or override later appeal outcomes.
