Oscar Coover
American Trotskyist and union organizer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Oscar Coover (October 7, 1887 - May 3, 1950) was an American union organizer and founding member of the Socialist Workers Party.
Biography
Coover was born in Republic, Missouri and worked as a railroad electrician until 1924.[1] In 1919, Coover met Carl Skoglund who convinced him to join the Communist Party.[2] During the Great Railroad Strike of 1922, Coover was the secretary of the Pullman and Great Western R.R. Employees' Strike Committee.[3] The Communist Party expelled Coover in 1928 because of Trotskyist sympathies.[4] Coover became a founding member of the Socialist Workers Party, along with Vincent Dunne and James P. Cannon.[5]
In 1941, Coover was indicted along with twenty-eight other SWP leaders and charged under the Smith Act.[6] In December 1941, Coover was found guilty of violating the Smith Act and was sentenced to sixteen months in prison.[7] He died in New York, at Lenox Hospital, from spinal encephalitis.[8]