Biography
Ben Thomas was a Philadelphia machinist and Workers (Communist) Party representative. Ben Thomas was one of the leaders arrested in the November 1928 anti-war and "Free John Porter" demonstration in Washington, D.C., when police jailed some two dozen workers and several children. Some defendants received fine-or-jail sentences. Individual custody must be distinguished from the sentence imposed.
The November 12 jail protest attributes crowded, vermin-infested First Precinct cells, restrictions on communication and refusal of food to the prisoners. The November 14 trial account describes Judge Hitts’s local park-ordinance prosecution for using the street between the War Department and White House and distinguishes six leaders’ $100-or-sixty-day alternatives from the others’ $50-or-thirty-day alternatives. Collective refusal-of-bail language conflicts with its individually reported Crouch appeal-bail release; it is not used to infer a new remand for every named defendant or turn nominal terms into actual service. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n270-NY-nov-14-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1 Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n270-NY-nov-14-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5 Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n268-NY-nov-12-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The December 9 Washington account places this already recorded antiwar defendant at Occoquan and describes the authorities’ questioning of prisoners by Barnard and Schoen. This supplies conditions during the existing November prosecution, not another arrest. The collective report that twenty-two others had completed thirty days is not automatically assigned as this person’s individual total. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1928/1928-ny/v05-n292-NY-dec-10-1928-DW-LOC.pdf#page=5
1920s custody-date review: The contemporary November 11 dispatch names Ben Thomas among those arrested and jailed in the previous day's Washington demonstration. Arrest and initial jail entry are recorded as November 10, 1928, not December. No release date is inferred from a group sentence or a later advertised speaking engagement. A sentence length is not used as a measure of time actually served.
Sources: Daily Worker, November 12, 1928, pages 1 and 3; Daily Worker, November 14, 1928, pages 1 and 5, trial and bail follow-up.
The December 13, 1928 Daily Worker reports Ben Thomas speaking at the previous night’s New York reception after leaving the Occoquan workhouse. It explicitly says this Philadelphia machinist had just finished serving thirty days with twenty-two other workers following the Washington demonstration demanding John Porter’s release. Unlike the earlier sentencing notice, this is a report of completed service. It does not supply his precise physical-release date; the December 12 reception is not used as a discharge date.
