Biography
William Trajer was a marine worker prosecuted with Thomas Bunker and John Soderberg during the Independent Tidewater Boatmen's Union dispute in New York Harbor. Their defense committee contested the bombing charges and accused police informer William Hoyle of provoking the alleged offenses. Trajer signed a prisoners' appeal from the Tombs dated November 24, 1931. He received a sentence of six and a half to twenty-five years for placing explosives in a vessel with intent to injure human life and entered Clinton Prison on April 25, 1932. In February 1936 he was granted parole, but two additional indictments in the same dispute required his return to the Tombs to await further proceedings.
The December 21, 1935 Daily Worker reports that Clinton Prison Warden Murphy returned books intended for Trajer, restricted his correspondence and permitted him out of his cell only for meals on Christmas. It describes a six-and-a-half-to-twenty-five-year imposed sentence, without establishing that maximum as actual service. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1935/v12-n307-NY-dec-21-DW-Q.pdf#page=6
The November 9, 1932 Daily Worker prints the marine defendants as Sodaberg, Trager and Bunker and reports their appeal to the ILD for defense assistance after the ship-bombing convictions. A letter attributed to Sodaberg criticizes the former defense committee. The shared boatmen’s prosecution identifies the existing Soderberg, Trajer and Bunker cohort without new people. The report’s up-to-twenty-years wording differs from the more specific individual sentences already recorded; it is not substituted or treated as completed service. No new intake or release is supplied. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1932/v09-n268-NY-nov-09-1932-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The Militant, December 5, 1931, pages 1 and 4 publishes the Marine Workers’ Defense Committee appeal and the three defendants’ November 24 letter from the Tombs Prison denying involvement in the alleged New York Harbor bombing plot. The committee says a secret grand-jury indictment the night before the scheduled November 24 hearing avoided cross-examination of William Hoyle. It alleges the union hall was raided and padlocked and members intimidated. These are attributed defense allegations, not judicial findings. The threatened twenty-five-to-forty-year terms are prospective and do not replace later individual sentences or establish actual service. Source: https://www.themilitant.com/1931/0434/MIL0434.pdf The page 1 prisoners’ statement says Trajer was brought in less than an hour after another prisoner’s arrest, swollen and blood-smeared, and alleges police torture to force guilty pleas; that relative hour is not a custody duration.
In a signed account published in January 1932, Trajer traced his waterfront organizing to seafaring work begun in 1927. A Young Communist League woman’s visit to his Brooklyn ship with the Daily Worker in early 1929 led him to the Marine Workers League, then the Marine Workers Industrial Union and YCL. He described addressing a Communist convention at Madison Square Garden, an organizing assignment toward New Orleans interrupted at Buffalo, and his expulsion with Morgan in fall 1930. He helped Morgan and Sizemore form the Marine Workers Solidarity League and later joined IWW Marine Transport Workers No. 510, organizing with John Soderberg. The letter was written in confinement; its years of employment are not years imprisoned. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/youngspart/YS1931-32/jan1932.pdf#page=2
The November 18 report identifies these seamen as arrested in the alleged explosives plot, which the newspaper denounced as a police frame-up. The paper distinguishes their union faction from Communist Party membership. The allegations are not presented as an adjudicated finding; exact custody endpoints and completed duration are unknown. Daily Worker, November 18, 1931, original PDF page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n277-NY-nov-18-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Labor Age, February 1932: Sylvan A. Pollack reports that Trajer and Bunker were arrested on the Brooklyn barge where Trajer worked, later the same day Soderberg was seized at union headquarters. He alleges brutal police interrogation to obtain confessions and describes the ACLU preparing legal action. The threatened 25-to-40-year penalty was prospective. Soderberg's account contrasts his Tombs cell with the bare barge cabin Trajer had been expected to inhabit. PDF pages 23 and 28. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/laborage/v21n02-feb-1932-labor-age.pdf#page=28
