Biography
Page 6 reports Buffalo police seized William C. McCuiston from the rostrum of an open-air meeting Friday August 10 protesting treatment of Manning Johnson. More than five hundred seamen and workers demanded his release; a delegation seeking the accusation was turned away at gunpoint. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n193-sect-one-aug-13-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Page 3’s August 15 Buffalo report says McCuiston had been released on $1,000 bail. This documents actual bail liberty by that reporting date within the established August 10 protest-speech arrest, without an exact discharge day or complete term. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1934/v11-n196-aug-16-1934-DW-LOC.pdf
Contemporary original newspaper source; individual page evidence retained in review audit 490. Exact individual custody dates and duration are not inferred from relative dates or collective claims.
The Daily Worker of October 26, 1934, page 1, in a Baltimore dispatch dated October 25, reports the trial of five unemployed-seamen leaders arrested September 30 for leading a demonstration against relief cuts. Judge Stanton imposed two-year penitentiary terms on Yates, Wagner, Davis and Allen, and four years on W. C. McCuistion, who additionally faced an assault-on-an-officer count. The judge then suspended all sentences, threatening the house of correction if they stayed on the waterfront and were arrested again. The packed courtroom walked out behind the five workers. The headline and departure establish freedom following the proceeding, but do not prove continuous custody from September 30 or an exact physical discharge day. The nominal suspended terms are not actual imprisonment totals. Bernard Ades assisted the self-represented defense; violence and frame-up claims are attributed to the newspaper. The paper spells the surname McCuistion; the initials and maritime organizing context support matching this report to the existing William C. McCuiston profile, without a speculative legal-name change.
