Biography
Tony Stafford was an Italian-born union coal miner. Tony Stafford was imprisoned at the West Virginia penitentiary in Moundsville for his part in the 1920 West Virginia miners' strike and, after serving years, was deported to Italy in July 1925 — his family left behind on ILD relief. The Labor Defender told his story as a warning of what deportation added to the class-war prisoner's sentence.
The July 1927 Labor Defender editorial accompanying his wife's letter confirms that Stafford was actually deported to Italy in July 1925 after Moundsville imprisonment. This establishes completed removal rather than merely a pending ship departure, but does not establish the sailing day or the length of the additional immigration confinement. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1927/v02n07-jul-1927-LD.pdf#page=14
The July 18, 1925 Daily Worker reports Stafford physically on Ellis Island awaiting a ship, after five years in the Moundsville penitentiary and a transfer through Pittsburgh county jail. His wife, who was supporting four children, attributed the prosecution to employer hostility toward union officials. These claims remain attributed. The account documents additional actual immigration detention but not a completed deportation on that publication date; no exact transfer or sailing day is invented.
The February 26, 1924 Daily Worker political-prisoner roster individually prints Toney Stafford with historical prisoner number 12126. The entry appears under Moundsville, West Virginia. This is a contemporary institutional identifier, not a federal BOP register number. No admission or release date, individual sentence length, actual duration, organizational membership or present status is inferred.
