Biography
Ray Trafton was a carpenter and Communist candidate for county commissioner in Skagit County, Washington. He was arrested on September 7, 1932, after unemployed workers took food from a grocery store in Anacortes following the denial of relief. Trafton and three other defendants were convicted of grand larceny and riot and released on their own recognizance pending appeal after a mass demonstration. The Washington Supreme Court upheld Trafton’s convictions on August 30, 1933. He was sentenced on November 15, 1933, to nine to eighteen months in the Washington State Reformatory at Monroe. He was still held there on January 17, 1934. Governor Clarence Martin granted him executive parole on January 19.
Initial September 1932 recognizance release, before the later prosecution phases
The Western Worker’s Anacortes report individually names Ray Trafton among Iver Moe, A. L. Marshall, Ray Trafton, Stanley Anderson and William Wollertz, arrested on September 7 after the September 3 food-relief action. The continuation, datelined Mount Vernon, September 8, says all five defendants were actually released on their own recognizance at the hearing and walked out with supporters. It distinguishes the authorities’ unexecuted proposal for $1,000 cash bail and the future September 15 trial before Judge Joiner from that actual departure. The report describes grand-larceny, incitement-to-riot and conspiracy accusations; these are not a fresh finding of conviction. This is the initial pretrial release, not proof of a final discharge after the later verdict, appeal or prison service. No explicit physical admission day or completed numeric duration is supplied. September 7 is the reported arrest day, not automatically an intake day, and the food action’s September 3 date is not an arrest date. Existing later custody rows and counters are preserved while the initial phase is separately reconciled.
Western Worker, volume 1 number 19, October 1, 1932, original pages 1, 3. Contemporary political allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
The issue contains an internal trial-date inconsistency: the first report on page 1 is datelined September 18 and says the trial is to occur the following day, while the page 3 continuation is datelined September 8, reports the actual recognizance release that day and forecasts a September 15 trial. These trial forecasts are not silently reconciled or treated as another actual release or admission date.
