Biography
Otto H. Wangerin was a railroad machinist and left-wing Socialist — later a charter member of the Communist Party — who resisted the draft during World War I and was sentenced to fifteen years at the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, where he helped lead a struggle among the inmates to observe May Day. After his release he ran Chicago's Modern Bookstore for decades.
Otto H. Wangerin was a conscientious objector from Minnesota imprisoned during World War I. Court-martialed for refusing military service, he was held at Fort Leavenworth. Sentenced to 15 years in prison. (Documented in the Swarthmore College Peace Collection's World War I Conscientious Objectors database.) Archival note: did not register for draft?; interviewed by Bd. at Leavenworth; charged with disobedience of orders; sentenced to 15 years in prison; named on Judge Advocate General's card file entitled CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTOR: "Held, that accused is a political objector and not a conscientious objector. …
