Biography
Alexander Horr was listed in the National Civil Liberties Bureau's March 1919 compilation "War-Time Prosecutions and Mob Violence" among people convicted and jailed under World War I–era free-speech statutes — chiefly the Espionage Act, the Sedition Act, draft-obstruction charges, or wartime state and local laws. Per that record, on February 28, 1917 in San Francisco, California, he was sentenced: Socialist, 6 months for disorderly conduct in connection with Scott Nearing meeting. The NCLB — the direct predecessor of the American Civil Liberties Union — compiled these cases from April 1, 1917 to March 1, 1919 as a public record of the wartime suppression of free speech, a free press, and peaceful assembly.
Cook’s contemporary letter reports Horr’s arrest for disturbing the peace at Post and Fillmore streets on December 22, 1908, after he refused to stop a street speech. It describes overnight confinement in a dark, cold cell and further confinement after police abuse. Horr demanded a jury; Cook says the criminal case was dismissed for lack of evidence the morning after Goldman’s January 14 arrest. He separately describes immigration officials taking Horr into custody and holding him almost a week before supporters raised $1,000 bail; a deportation decision remained pending on January 23. A later editorial reports local-court discharge, without establishing a final federal immigration disposition. These events are separate from Horr’s 1917 disorderly-conduct case. Source: American Journal of Eugenics, volume II, nos. 10–11, January–February 1909, Cassius V. Cook’s January 22–23 letter, printed pages 250–251, and subsequent editorial, page 263.
