Biography
John William Trumble was born on September 24, 1888 at Point in Rains County, Texas, the son of E. A. Trumble, and was a member of the Farmers and Laborers Protective Association identified in contemporary political-prisoner material as a Socialist. At the larger of the two anti-draft meetings held in the county in the summer of 1917 — called after local farmers complained their draft quota was unfairly high — he reportedly led a smaller group away from the main assembly to continue discussing resistance to induction. Rumours that the farmers meant to burn the town of Emory, form armed camps and attack officials proved baseless, but about fifty people were seized in raids beginning on the night of August 8, 1917; he was among the forty-six released on individual $2,000 bonds. Tried at Tyler from September 9, 1918, he was one of twenty-three convicted, of federal seditious conspiracy connected to resistance to the Selective Service Act, and was sentenced to two years alongside his father and John O’Rear. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the convictions on November 25, 1919. He entered USP Atlanta on January 31, 1920 and was paroled on December 4, 1920. He died on May 7, 1952 in Lampasas County, Texas.