The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-12-30
BY SADIE VAN YEEN

THE story of Cumberland is not
a story of battle, but a story
of determination on the part of
the 1,700 marchers who passed
through Cumberland on the way
to Washington, and a story of
trickery and brutality on the part
of the police on the march back
to Cumberland and westward.
The Mayor of Cumberland, re-
Gently elected, stated that Cumber-
land would be properly protected
from the marchers" and made ell
aborate preparations in an attempt
to terrorize the hunger narchers
and the representatives of the ma
tionaI committee of the Unemploy-
ed Councils. Through the news
papers, Cumberland was told that
every police would be on duty;
that hundreds of special deputized
police as well as Maryland state
troops would be modified to pre-
vent the marchers from entering
the city.
In the meantime farm house
and barns had been donated by
Cumberland workers and farmers
and preparations went steadily
forward to feed and shelter the
marchers. The police and deput-
lied unemployed were modified.
State troopers came to town. On
Saturday the day Of the arrival Of
the hunger nlrachers the city
bristIed with police and troopers,
machine guns and clubs. They
lined all the roads leading into the
city and the roadway leading to
the farm where food and rest
awaited them.
ENTER CITY
On came the marchers.
They entered the city-60 trucks
and cars filled with courageous
workers delegated from all over the
West and Middle West. They
came into Cumberland past the
groups of police stationed at in
tervals through the line Of the
march.
The Cumberland authorities had
declared war on the hunger march,
but they did not carry out their
threats.
The police did not dare to start
a battle. AS in Washington, they
hoped either to prevent the arrival
of the marchers by terror or to
provoke them into anger as an ex-
cuse to attack them. Thy did not
succeed in either case. They were
deferred by the discipline and
the courage of the 1,700 hunger
fighters, men and women, Negro
and white.
DUT precisely because the victory
ID went to the unemployed, that
the Maryland and West Virginia
authorities wanted revenge and con-
nived by trickery to get the
marchers, on the way back and
here we we're at fault, for the
marchers, feeling that they had
Weathered the worst Of the battle,
were not so keenly on the alert for
the enemy as before. This enabled
the Maryland and West Virginia
state police to break UP the march
and separate the onconling groups.
Leaving Washington, the West
ern contingent scheduled to pass
through Cumberland came on In
two parts. The first group was es-
corted by Virginia troopers, and
when they got within SO miles OF
Cumberland they we're tricked by
the police who took them round
about SO that they never reached
Cumberland at all.
POLICE SEIZE TRUCKS
Two trucks were taken away from
the marchers by the police and the
workers told 'to keep on walking"
Another truckload we're arrested
and lodged in the Cumberland
County jail. Several trucks got into
Cumberland during the night and
managed to reach the farm where
they had stayed enroute to Wash
ington. Another group of is were
taken to the city jail at Cumber-
land but released the following
morning on the promise that they
take the next freight out of Cum
berland.
This brutal maneuver Of the po-
lice in separating the marchers
caused illness and suffering because
it prolonged the exposure of the
marchers to the bitter cold of the
Allegheny hills,
TEE Stranded marchers with dam
aged trucks camped all night
on the hillside with "a fire for
warmth oyer which Y Nu1anaged