The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-03-12
BY BILL LAWRENCE

A frame-up is not novelty in the United
States The history Of the class struggle in the
States is tull OF capitalist frame-ups against the
workers and working-class leaders. With the
sharpening OF the class struggle and the growing
readiness Of the workers to fight for better con-
ditions. these frame-ups against workers are
occurring more often Especially is the capitalist
class using the frame-up as means in its at
tempts to prevent unified struggle of both
negro and white workers in their demands for
a better living wage The ruling class is using
the framl-lIo to divide the ranks OF the workers
on the b-sis of races
One Of the latest victims Of capitalist frame
ups is Willie Brown, resident Of Philadelphia.
This youth who is Is years Of age is charged with
trapping and numbering young girl years old,
named Dorothy Lutz.
Before going into the facts Of the case, few
words about the neighborhood where the murder
was committed The section is known as the
"band-box" area. The Band box" section gets
it's name from the fact that its back streets are
honey-combed with small sunless. airless some
times sewerless courts, around which are ranged
two and three story houses, one room above
another built like 'band-boXes." In describing
this section Of the city, the Philadelphia Record
writes the following. "To reach these foul rabbit
warrens where the "band-bOxes" are one must
duck in through broken arches between houses,
penetrating sometimes by little CUTS as they used
to be called by old Philadephians, that open up
on an interior court. On both sides of this
narrow court paved with rotten and struggling
bricks, with gutter draining down the middle,
sre the tall narrow cells which masquerade
under tn names of houses.
"Many of them are well over 100 years old some
of them 90 back to the time earlier than the
american Revolution. They the habitations
az the most r1iserably impoverished of the city's
moor TFsy are as like as old graves in an
abandoned cemetery, and dark and as cherries
Window lanes are dirty and broken. Roofs sag
and leak. IN many th4sdirt floor cellars are deep
in water often foul with seepage from sewers
or cesspools. They are lacking in the most
primitive of toilet accommodations. Families Of
six and eisht live in one room. large number
of houses including the where the child was
found, locks as if they might topple over with
the next gust of wind"
incidentally we might mention that it is under
such conditions that the unemployed are forced
to live in the city Of Brotherly Love- in the
richest country Of the world, and in such an
atmosphere on February 3 little Dorothy Lutz was
murdered, @
Immediately upon the discovery Of the murder,
the Philadelphia Police Department utilized it to
attack and tsrrorize the unemployed workers and
the Negroes in particular At the city'5 shelter
for the homeless, at 18th and Hamilton Streets,
1900 Negro and white unemployed workers were
lined up and ;srilled for hours by detectives.
Mass arrests Of unemployed workers on the
streets took place throughout the city
The police department which is so sufficient in
modifying its full force with machine guns and
bilIies against the unemployed, knew nothing
about the person who was guilty Of the murder
of Lutz. The population was outraged against
the murder and demanded action on the part Of
the police. The public sentiment against the
police department grew daily. The press was
forced to come out edtorially and place the
police on the carpet re
The police department IN order to whiteWash
Itself anG cover up its incompetence decided that
something must be done at all costs. and the
assistant superintendent Of police, Mr. lie Strange
laid the basis for frame-up, against Negro
worker when ne stated; The police possess ne
description of the slayer, no one has been able
TO give us a description of even a suspect we
believe, however that the crime was committed
BY EITHER A DARK SKINNED WHITE MAN
OR A LIGHT SKINNED NEGRO.
Thus shaping out the plans for 8 frame-up,
the police began to search for the guilty Negro
and on the twelfth Of February the police arrested
Willie Brown.
That the franle-up was pre-arranged was quite
obvious. Prior to the finding of the body of the
murdered child, the police searched the houses in
the neghborhood where Willie Brown lived. There
they discovered that Willie did not come home
to sleep for night, willie often slept in
friends house, and therefore had his brother
officially report to the police department about
the missing Of Willie 1t became clear that the
police picked its victim.
Willie Brown not suspecting anything was on
his way home, when Detective Francis E. Agnew