The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-12-04
Chicago JObless Delegation
Battle Police at City Hall

Close to hundred delegates from sSpurteen
Unemployed Councils throughout theA city,
storrned the meeting of the City Council on
Monday, November "a, in an attempt to speak
and place before the Council the demands of
the unemployed of Chicago Although the police
were guarding all doors, at o'clock, just as the
meeting was called to order, the delegation forced
their way to the second floor and up to the door
of the Council chamber and there were met by
sixty cops and as many plainclotheSmen and
members of the red squad, which resulted in
vigorous clash between the workers and the pol
ice.
The workers took a determined stand on the
second floor and battlsd with the police, refusing
to leave the place without getting hearing
from the Council The police were very brutal,
hurting men and women alike down the stairs
and beating them over the heads and faces with
their sticks. The Negro workers were very mill
tant and fought off the cops and refused to
listen to the Negro politicians who tried to divide
them from the white workers and send them
home. One Negro worker, Comrade Poindexter,
secretary of one of the Unemployed Councils,
was brutaIy beaten by the cops around the face
and head and was thrown, bleeding, down the
stairs-but only after he had also laid out once of
the burly cops and had beaten off several more
According to capitalist press reports, "As the
workers fought, refusing to be elected from the
second floor, many of the jobless we're pushed
into the city treasurers' office Bert Keefe, chief
clerk, Immediately ordered all the money locked
in the vaults
In the main lobby on the first floor the dele
cation, reinforced by mass of workers reaching
close to thousand, carried on their battle
shouting demands and refusing to leave the
building.
we want work, not charity" 1--WE built this
all have &c t1p 1e1ye1 of
Wacker Drive" You want to arrest us and
throw us in iail-but you can't put all the 100000
unemployed of Chicago in" 1--WE demand the
right to present our demands to the City CoJm-
Gil" IF this government can't take care of its
workers, we'll organize and get a government
that WILL" etc etc. were some of the slogans
shouted.
. Louise Morrison, a member OF the delegation,
started to speak to the workers from the top
of the first landing on the stairway-but after
ten seconds was grabbed by the police and beaten
and thrown out into the hall way of the lobby
A second reinforcement of about so police; in
addition to those already there was rushed in
and with drawn revolvers forced the workers to
disperse. Only after the police drew their guns
did the workers stop fighting and were thrown
out of the building.
The most militant section of the entire mass
of workers were the Negro and white women
workers, who tore at the cops buttons, pulled
off their badges and screamed and shouted to
the workers to keep on fighting
The workers are more deter ned now than
ever before that they will get nothing unless
they put up stiff fight for it. The Unemployed
Councils "~e modifying for big drive for sig
natures in the present campaign for a million
signatures for the Unemployment Insurance Bill
and are preparing to organize all the unemployed
and N~'ployed workers of Chicago for big dem
onstration and a real fight for immediate relief.