Biography
W. E. Spear was the Seattle district secretary-treasurer of an IWW industrial union organization. On April 22, 1920, Seattle's police Red Squad raided the organization's office in the Globe Building, seizing records said to include a directory of roughly twelve thousand members, and arrested Spear, his assistant Ed Burns, and the office stenographer Alicia Rosenbaum. Contemporary reports said the prisoners were held incommunicado for investigation on open charges. The defendants were brought toward trial in June 1920 under Washington's criminal-syndicalism and criminal-anarchy repression; the case against Spear was dismissed on January 24, 1921 on the prosecution's motion. No prison sentence is documented, and his actual pretrial custody span is uncertain because the records do not state whether or when he obtained bail. His full first and middle names are not established.
