The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-09-17
BY FRED WALKER

ANOTHER episode in the efforts of the Port
"A land police to smash the Communist Party
and discredit it i'll the eyes of the workers is
booreranging back at them in complete fiasco
On Sept. l, the First National Bank at Aurora
30 miles south of Portland, oregon, was held up
Three men participated in the job, Frank Farley
Ed Sigmund, and Louis Bruggnan Another
who aided in planning the robbery Joe Edgar
was not at the holdup itself
AS the car in which the three were leaving the
bank was not fast enough due to tampering by
Bruggman Farley and Sigmund got out and
took another. few minutes later Bruggman
was arrested by the state police Ga new insti-
tuition in the state of Oregon and held as a
participant in the bank robbery.
On the afternoon of Bruggn1ans arrest a
statement was made to the press by MIR. M r.
Bacon of the Portland police department that
Bruggman had been victimized by members
of the Communist Party who held up the bank"
and that sit is part of the Communist creed,
that they have right to rob any bank of the
capitalistic class to get funds to carry on their
activity"
M. r. Bacon is the stool pigeon who was in
structed by Mayor Baker and Chief of Police
jenkins of Portland to join the Communist
Party nine days after the mass demonstrations
against unemployment on March 6, $780, Later
in September, Bacon led the police in the raids
on the headquarters of the Communist Party
which resulted in the arrest of 25 workers, IL
held for deportation and ID charged with GRIM
inal syndicalism.
After the raids and terrorism the criminal
syndicalsm trials began. The first victim was
Ben Boloff. The lying testimony and the pref
udice worked up against Boloff who was born in
Russian was used to convict and sentence him
to ten years in the penitentiary. The next trials
however did not go SO well. Fred Walker, the
second to go on trial was acquitted.
The defense has gotten a little ex-
perience in exposing the complete ignorance of
the states witnesses as well as evidence to show
that Bacon was of the lowest type of underworld
character, informer, bootlegger and rat in
general The jury refused to believe the lies so
much and also were not swayed by the patriotic
appeal of the prosecutors, as were the jurors in
Boloffs trial. The third trial, of John Moore
also resulted in an acquttal.
The police were getting desperate One of
Bacon's lying statements on the witness stand
was that the Communist Party advocated rob-
bling banks When juries refused to believe this
lie and when the support for the Communist
Party was growing by leaps and bounds, only
one thing remained. For the next criminal syn
dicalism trial. scheduled for this month, real"
evidence" would be on hand to convict What
more natural then than to stage Communist"
bank robbery as "a background for a criminal
syndicalism trial?
The rat chosen for the work was Louis
Bruggman Bruggman arrested in
the police raids in September, 1880, and turned
informer in order to save his own dirty hide.
He was used by Bacon and ODale, head of the
fred squad" to get information" on Communist
activities. Because of Bruggman's line of talk
10 WAS m
list Party for long time. Several efforts he