Biography
CPUSA member who became secretary-treasurer and then president (1947) of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (IUMMSW). Publicly renounced his CP membership to sign Taft-Hartley affidavits, then was indicted for perjury/false statement on the basis that the renunciation was fraudulent. Convicted in U.S. District Court for Colorado, but the Supreme Court reversed in Travis v. United States, 364 U.S. 631 (1961), holding that venue lay only in the District of Columbia where the affidavits were filed.
Earlier arrest reported in November 1954
The November 3, 1954 Laisvė, page 1, identifies Maurice E. Travis as secretary-treasurer of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers union and reports that he had been arrested. It describes the allegation as remaining ideologically Communist despite swearing that he had left the Communist Party, and says the union would defend him. This is contemporary evidence of an arrest reported before the currently stored 1956 arrest date. The short item gives no actual arrest calendar day, prison admission or release date, and does not establish whether it was the same arrest as the later recorded prosecution. It therefore preserves an earlier-arrest lead without overwriting the existing case chronology or counting continuous custody.
Laisvė (Liberty), November 3, 1954, page 1. Lithuanian original and complete issue reviewed; no inferred custody endpoints.
