The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-10-24
Judicial Farce Enacted in Conviction
OfDetendants in May 20 Demonstration
Cops T ell Conflicting
Stories on Witness
Stand

titled nine Of the ten defendants by
name, saying he had never seen
either before or after the demon
stration. After him. Patrolmsn
Peragallo took the stand to state
that defendant David jenkins
singled out Sergeant Haggerty,
walked up to him in the presence of
eight policeman and knocked him
bleeding to the ground.
That was the general run and
competence Of police testimony.
After their disastrous experience
with Duffy the judges let bad
enough alone and confined them
selves to the fewest questions pos
sible. On the other hand, when the
defendants took the witness chair,
Judge Solomon bombarded them
with leading questions. He tried
repeatedly to establish that they
had been sent to the offices of the
Welfare Department by some sinis-
ter, unknown power.
Built Wiring in Tombs Prison
Joseh SCHNEIDER in the chair.
How long have you been out Of
work?"
-Four years"
What did you do before that?'
II had been an iron worker for
% years. I have worked on the
staircases in this very building. I
built the wiring in Tombs Prison
where we were confined"
Not one of the ten gave the
slightest sign Of cringing They
told of the conditions which caused
them to appear on Lafayette Street
May 26th. They gave bold answers
and stood by their action.
nURING recess SCHNEIDER said to
~ me, 1--WE been around courts
before. I was with the Brownsville
Unemployment Council when we
put back an evicted old ladys fur
niture and went to the relief cen
ter to ask for a rent check for her
They'd been cutting down on rent
checks and Mrs. Wallace refused to
see the delegation About IS Of us
went in and placed the desks and
chairs against the door and would
not come out until they promised to
pay the checks. Then the emer-
gency squad came and a few Of us
were pulled in and the judge says
to Mike Davidoff, Will you promise
not to do it again? Mike says, I
wouldn't promise any such thing
and he got three days. But the
same day they handed out about 20
rent checks and the old lady stayed
right where we put her"
Sang InternstionaIe in Jail
Cecil Alexander appeared to be
Judge Solonon's best bet to estab-
fish as an agitator . He had curly
black hair and wore gray shirt
and gabardine jacket. Trouble
was, Alexander seemed perfectly
willing to be identified as an
organizer Of the Unemployment
Councils. Further quizzing dis
closed that previously he had been
employed as reporter and art critic.
During recess Alexander said.
After we had been beaten up, Jen-
kins and I were put in the same
cell and my mother managed to
slip single sheet Of the Daily
Worker through the bars and after
we opened it, we saw Ernst Thael-
picture near the top. You
don't know how that made me feel.
I started singing the Intsrnationale
and one by one people in the other
tiers, people I didn't know and
couldn't see, joined in"
over twenty witnesses testified
that the picketline had been orderly
and that mounted police had rid
den on to the sidewalk, swinging
billies. Not one detail Of their mass
of evidence contradicted each others
statements. They all told exactly
how the police had emerged from
their hiding places around the
building. charged in flying wedges
and fired shots,
Again the judges tried to iden-
tify witnesses as members Of the
occult outside" ordinations. No
mention was made of the stories of
capitalist newspapers which de-
scribed the white marble of the de-
tention place as "sleughter-house,
spattered with blood"
Daughter of American Revolution"
Testifies
A pale. handsome girl in the wit
ness chair.
"What organization do you be-
long to, Miss Olandt?"
I'm a member of the Daugh-
tiers of the American Revolution.
My people came to this country in
1920. When
Never mind all that" Judge
Solomon said.
Cecil Alexander, Mike POLISH,
David jenkins, jeremiah Lynch,
Harold G. Keithline, Charles Will
Jams and Sam Miller were found
guilty. Core Daniels, Larry Carl
son and Joseph SCHNEIDER were &C
quilted.
After the verdict was announced,
Judge McInerney said. Il wish that
instead of you the people who sent
YOU to the riot would be up here for
trial"
Workers will have a chance to
show what they think of this con-
viction when sentences will be
pronounced Oct. 80, in the Special