Biography
William Weinstone was a writer, labor organizer, editor, and founding member of the Communist Party USA. He organized garment, subway, textile, and automobile workers, edited the Daily Worker, and held leadership positions in the New York and Michigan branches of the party. Indicted in June 1951 under the Smith Act, he was convicted with twelve other Communist leaders in January 1953 and sentenced to two years in federal prison. After his release he remained active in the Communist Party for the remainder of his life.
George Morris’s May 17, 1936 Detroit dispatch recalls a police raid on Communist Party headquarters one day before the previous election, in which district secretary William Weinstone and other leaders were arrested while police purportedly searched for the authors of an anti-religious and racially inflammatory leaflet. The article states that an assistant prosecutor declared the leaflet fraudulent the preceding November. This is an earlier Detroit political arrest, distinct from the later Smith Act prosecution. No exact arrest day, statutory charge, verdict, physical release or completed custody interval is established. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n119-NY-May-18-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=3
Named among the ten Communist defendants who surrendered at St. Joseph, Michigan, in the 1922 Bridgman convention prosecution. A companion report says four had furnished bail and the remaining six were temporarily free on recognizance, without identifying which individual had which status. No individual continuous jail interval, conviction or sentence is inferred.
The released FBI file on Claudia Jones, New York file 100-81752, summarizes the federal Smith Act docket and identifies William Weinstone as released on bail on July 26, 1951, during the 1951 bail proceedings. It separately records remand after the January 21, 1953 guilty verdict and actual release on appeal bail on February 17, 1953. These bail interruptions are distinct from the later prison term. Its April 21, 1952 counsel list identifies Frank Serri as defense counsel for William Weinstone. Source: FBI, released Claudia Jones file, New York 100-81752, sections on bail and sureties, counsel and trial proceedings. The file supplies these individual procedural phases without establishing a new complete custody total.
