The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-12-05
NIGHT OF BATTLE
IN WILMINGTON
w 0 m e n Marcherg
Locked in Gas Filled
Church

WILMINGTON, Del, Lee. 9.-A
savage attack on the womens del
egation in the National HUNGER
March Column was launched by the
reinforced police army here Friday
night, after the marchers had burst
through the restrictions against pa
rading into Baltimore.
A night of fighting followed in
which four police were crippled, the
women we're locked into tear gas
filled church, scores of marchers were
badly beaten including the Column
captain, Carl Reeve, and Ben Gold,
member of the leading committee of
the column. Gold was also arrested
and sentenced to 40 days in jail and
$50 fine. Ann Burlak and Rebecca
Grecht were arrested. Orloff, a del
egate of the jobless from Connect
cut was beaten up and sentenced the
next day to three months in jail.
Several others were railroaded to
sentences of fine or imprisonment,
All cases are appealed by the Inter
national Labor Defense.
The attack did not break up the
Column, composed of New England
New York, New Jersey and Delaware
marchers, and they left Saturday
morning for Baltimore.
Paraded Through Town
When the column approached
Wilmington, its night stop over point
for Friday night, the authorities were
still threatening and declaring that
no march through the town would be
allowed.
Police Superintendent Black got in
his high powered car and with a
heavy guard around him rode out to
meet the column, Capitalist news
papers report him as shocked" at the
size of the march and its militancy.
At the city limits he ordered mo
parade" and the answer of the
marchers was to dismount from the
trucks and march on foot through
the workers sections of the town,
which capitalist reporters do not
hesitate to call "slums,"
Drives Car into Negro
Black drove his car into the march
ers, with Stern shrieking but they re-
fused to break up. He bumped his
tenders into a Negro marcher, and
the police chauffeur cursed roundly.
But the marchers held their lines,
and paraded for 40 blocks through
streets lined with cheering workers.
The police sent hurried calls for
reinforcenentS, split off the women
delegates, and drove them into the
Polish church, leaving the men in
another hall.
Women Resist imprisonment
The rumor spread that the women
were to be locked into the church for
the night. The police roped off the
street on each side of the church,
and barred the throngs of Whining
ton workers who wanted to get in
and attend the meetings of the
marcherS.
The women delegates came out and
held meeting in front of the
church though, as the capitalist re-
porters say in the local papers, 1.-THE
women fought like tigers" Several
police we're knocked out and many
of the women workers maltreated.
Gold was beaten up brutally.
Police then demanded the right to
arrest the leaders among the women.
Come and get Them" some one yell
led inside, and police smashed in the
windows and door and hurled dozens
of tear gas bombs, then after an
other sanguinary battle, barricaded
the door and kept the women in all
night in the church building reeking
with smarting, poisonous tear gas
clouds.
In the second struggle, hundreds of
men delegates charged to the de-
Tense Of the women, more police we're
injured, and more workers dubbed
and arrested. The struggle flared up
again and again, and continued for a
long time.
Win the Armory
BALTIMORE, Md, Dec. Alive
thousand Baltimore workers met the
National Hunger Marchers Of the two
northern columns, at the city limits
last night They lined up the street
to the armory of the 104th National
Guard Regiment, which the marchers
occupied for the night. The armory
has been denied these marchers only
three days before, but the heroic
defense Friday night in Wilmington
against the organized police attack,
the power Of the onward sweep of the
marchers, gaining strength and de-
termination, city by city in their
march toward the capital, and the
mass support given them by the Bal
timore workers, caused Governor Rit-
chic and the National Guard Off
GERS to change their minds at the
last minute.
The parade of marchers, of Columns
which arrived first, 1900 strong, in
wildly placarded trucks and autos
from New England, eastern New
York and New York City, New Jer-
sey, Delaware and Maryland, swept
down Baltimore ST., the main street
in the city to Broadway and Fay
cite streets, where 1900 more workers
greeted them.
Marchers Consolidate