Biography
Bill Howard was an Omaha streetcar striker and a member of the union strike committee. A contemporary Federated Press report identified him among ten strikers arrested on dynamiting, conspiracy and criminal-syndicalism charges and reported seventy-two hours of police interrogation before a disputed confession.
Bill Howard was an Omaha streetcar striker and a member of the union strike committee. A contemporary Federated Press report identified him among ten strikers arrested on dynamiting, conspiracy and criminal-syndicalism charges and reported seventy-two hours of police interrogation before a disputed confession.
The February 15, 1936 Daily Worker report, datelined Omaha February 14, said police forced Howard to sign a confession more than a month earlier after questioning him for seventy-two hours. It presented the prosecution as an effort to break the union; those claims remain attributed to the contemporary report. The eight-month reference describes the age of the charge, not his custody duration. The February 22 Socialist Call reported that his trial had begun Monday. Neither report supplies exact arrest, admission or physical release dates, a verdict, a sentence or his full time in custody.
Federated Press, Omaha Car Strike Trial On Feb. 17, Daily Worker, February 15, 1936, page 5; Socialist Call, Labor in Action, February 22, 1936, page 2.