The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-05-02
BY t. ]. o'FLAHERTY.

THE Victory Loan drive was sagging
in Cleveland. The people who
were sold sordid war under the
pretense that it was fight for civili-
cation and freedom for humanity were
recovering from the spree and they
Rugged their dollars regretting that
they had not Rugged the sons they
sent across the ocean to die or be
manned on the bloody fields of Fland-
ers to protect the millions OF the
House Of Morgan that were invested
on the side of the allies. The patriotic
bankers and business men and their
political flunkeys were frantic. the
Victory Loan must be put over. The
voices of those who continued to tell
the masses the truth must be stilled.
II was in this atmosphere of contem-
plated violence that the Socialist Par
ty of Cleveland, under the direction
Of Comrade C. E. Ruthenberg organ
lied a monster parade on that his
toric May Day, 1919.
THE Socialists Of the city of Cleve-
land and sympathetic organiza-
tons gathered in their respective
halls early on May Day and formed
in line for the march downtown to
the Public Square where they were
supposed to arrive by noontinle. The
procession was orderly. As the parade
got under way hcodlums of the Amer
lean Legion, under the direction of
the local business men began to at
tack the individual marchers who car
RED red flags. Crippled victims of the
war in wheel hairs were used by the
reactionaries to arouse the people
against the socialists. These unfor-
tunste victims of capitalism did not
realize that their crippled bodies was
their only gain from war that raised
a crop of American millionaries who
were never within hearing Of gunshot,
and that the men and women they
were melted to attack were their best
friends whose advice if followed would
have kept in the United States the
millions of young men who risked
life and limb in the bloody holocaust
that the imperialist powers turned
loose upon the human race.
A DESCRIPTION of the attack on
N the parade as reported in The
Cleveland Press tells us that trouble
started simultaneously on each route
as the paraders entered the down
town section" Everything pointed to
a well-planned attack.
The Press, which is member of
the allegedly liberal United Press
news syndicate, points exultingly to
the patriotism shown by the office
employees who showered confetti on
The hoodlums, labelled "loyalists" as
those "heroes" broke the heads of
defenseless and peaceful workers.
How this confetti appeared so sudden
" is not explained by the capitalist
press but furnishes more evidence in
proof of the contention that the at
tack was planned and premeditated.
The police were supposed to pro-
tect the parade but the kind of pro
lection that afforded was the club
bing of the heads of paraders and the
killing of two of them.
CRIPPLED war victim James Stew
y ems who was sitting in his wheel
chair in front of the Olmstead Hotel
deposes:
"The first thing I saw was the red
flags. l wheeled my chair into the
street as the heads of the column
passed and l yelled. Get those red
flags
"Some of the marchers laughed and
jeered at me. But my comrades in
uniform came running when I yelled,
Get 'em boys"
o. III III