Biography
Tomas Martinez was prosecuted under United States wartime statutes of the World War I era (chiefly the Espionage Act, the Sedition Act, or the Selective Service Act). Recorded offense: Espionage Act (Title I), Section 3. Sentence: 2 years; $500 fine. Sentenced June 1, 1918. This case is documented in the 1921 U.S. Senate hearing "Amnesty and Pardon for Political Prisoners" (digitized by the Internet Archive).
From Kenyon Zimmer's Red Scare Deportees index (kenyonzimmer.com, compiled from INS deportation case files): Martínez participated in the Mexican Revolution beginning in 1910, then joined the IWW in Sonora and organized miners in Cananea. In 1914 he was expelled from Sonora as a supposed Huerta supporter, prompting a strike of 2,500–3,000 miners until he was allowed to return.
From 1915 to 1918 he was active in IWW and Partido Liberal Mexicano circles in Arizona and Los Angeles and wrote extensively for the IWW paper El Rebelde. Arrested in Miami, Arizona, in March 1918, he was sentenced under the Espionage Act to two years in Leavenworth and a $500 fine. He contracted tuberculosis in prison, and a botched appendicitis operation caused septicemia. After release he requested permission to depart for a country other than Mexico, fearing execution for his revolutionary past, but the request was denied. Deported in 1921, he was reportedly near death when sent across the border.
He never recovered and died in Guadalajara October 23, 1921. Fellow activists buried him beneath a headstone reading: ¡Nunca olvidamos! (“We never forget!”)
1920s remaining-entry review: The 1921 Senate Amnesty and Pardon hearing, printed page 87 (PDF page 93), individually lists Tomas Martinez in Arizona and reports him out at expiration February 7, 1920. June 1, 1918 is explicitly in the sentencing column, not an admission column. The full table page was visually checked. The former calculated June 1920 release and sentencing-as-admission are corrected; later immigration detention is not equated with freedom.
