Biography
William Weinstone was a writer, labor organizer, editor, and founding member of the Communist Party USA. He organized garment, subway, textile, and automobile workers, edited the Daily Worker, and held leadership positions in the New York and Michigan branches of the party. Indicted in June 1951 under the Smith Act, he was convicted with twelve other Communist leaders in January 1953 and sentenced to two years in federal prison. After his release he remained active in the Communist Party for the remainder of his life.
George Morris’s May 17, 1936 Detroit dispatch recalls a police raid on Communist Party headquarters one day before the previous election, in which district secretary William Weinstone and other leaders were arrested while police purportedly searched for the authors of an anti-religious and racially inflammatory leaflet. The article states that an assistant prosecutor declared the leaflet fraudulent the preceding November. This is an earlier Detroit political arrest, distinct from the later Smith Act prosecution. No exact arrest day, statutory charge, verdict, physical release or completed custody interval is established. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1936/v13-n119-NY-May-18-1936-DW-Q.pdf#page=3
Named among the ten Communist defendants who surrendered at St. Joseph, Michigan, in the 1922 Bridgman convention prosecution. A companion report says four had furnished bail and the remaining six were temporarily free on recognizance, without identifying which individual had which status. No individual continuous jail interval, conviction or sentence is inferred.
