Biography
William Nelson was from St. Maries, Idaho. William Nelson received a two- to ten-year prison sentence for violating the state's Criminal Syndicalism Act by issuing membership cards for the IWW and distributing its literature. Nelson was secretary of the IWW local in St. Maries.
The March 1920 One Big Union Monthly roster, printed as NELSON , W. N., reports: Arrested St. Maries, Idaho, December , 1917 , criminal syndicalism . Convicted and sentenced to from 2 to 10 years . Boise state penitentiary . The roster is a contemporary labor-defense account. Its indictment, bail and imposed-term information is kept distinct from actual admission/release and complete time served; no missing gate date is inferred. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/one-big-union-monthly/v02n03-mar-1920_One%20Big%20Union.pdf#page=16
White dates Nelson’s St. Maries criminal-syndicalism conviction to April 2, 1918 and documents actual Idaho imprisonment. He also reports Nelson escaping with Fred Morgan and Joe Martin in July 1920 and being recaptured. The interrupted custody is not represented as a continuous measured term.
Ahmed White, Under the Iron Heel (University of California Press, 2022), physical PDF pages [125, 206] (printed page = physical minus 11); source193 SHA256 7c24fb0ba336fcbf379fb9720f70dcdbf754d796a50dee77b39e38e0f9bd2868.
