Biography
Olin B. Anderson, a press agent for the IWW from Kalispell, Montana, was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Chicago, sentenced to five years in prison and fined $30,000. He served in Leavenworth Penitentiary from September 7, 1918, to June 30, 1922. Anderson joined the IWW in 1917 and was hired as a press agent during the Fortina River drivers strike in Montana. After his arrest in Chicago, Anderson awaited trial in the Cook County (Illinois) Jail, where he suffered a physical breakdown and contracted tuberculosis. After serving approximately four years at Leavenworth, Anderson petitioned for release. His spirit and health broken, Anderson wrote: "bitter experience and grim facts have brought a shocking disillusionment and convinced me of the utter futility of a continued sacrifice and suffering, shut away from life, liberty and love for what I once held dear as an ideal." Anderson was paroled on June 30, 1922. According to an FBI report on his post-prison activities, Anderson never regained good health. His tuberculosis worsened, and, in 1924, he was committed to the Montana State Hospital for the Insane. Local authorities informed the FBI that he was "far gone with tuberculosis" and would die very soon. The FBI's reaction to Anderson's condition was blunt: "As this disposes of this IWW probably permanently, the matter will be considered closed."
