The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1935-01-15
Negro Youth
Wed to White
Girl, Is Held
Sioux City Newspapers
Launch Race Hatred
Campaigns

SIOUX CITY, Iowa, Jan. IA
white girl who married a Negro
worker who had gone to her de-
Tense when a white man insulted
her, the Negro bridegroom and a
Negro witness to the ceremony have
been thrown into jail hese.
The couple, 1s-year Doris
Chase and 22-year-old Hartwell G.
Bonner, SIT West Seventh Street,
were married last Tuesday by Rev.
G. A. Burke, Negro pastor of the
Mount Zion Church, on a marriage
license issued by the clerk of the
district court. The license lists
Bonner as a Negro and the girl as
white. 'f
Following the marriage, the local
boss press started a campaign of
chauvinist Indictment against the
young couple, on the lines of a sim
liar campaign conducted by the
Hearst press in Chicago in the case
Of Jane Emery Newton, whom a
Chicago court tried to have adj
judged insane because she had
married a Negro worker, Herbert
Newton, a leader of the Communist
Party.
Frame-up Machine Functions
Pressure was brought to bear
upon the girls mother, both by the
boss press and shocked" city Off
Gals, and the mother, Mrs. v. A.
Chase, sl4 Grandview Boulevard,
is reported by the police to have re-
QueSted that her daughter be ar
rested and held in jail until she
could have the marriage annulled,"
The girl had not been living with
her mother, but was staying at 1904
West Fourth Street at the time of
her marriage. The mother bases
her move to annul the marriage on
the claim that the girl is only II
years old, although her daughter
gives her age as over 49, Juvenile
authorities have rushed into the
situation to investigate" the case,
with view to preparing a frame
up against the girls husband and
the witness to the ceremony.
The outlines of the proposed
frame-up is already evident In the
holding charge of contributing to
the delinquency of a minor. on
which Bonner and the witness,
William B. Payne, are held. The
charge against Payne is based on
the fact that he was a witness to
the marriage, and that the marriage
was performed at his home.
Trial Next Friday
The two Negro youths have been
ordered held in $500. bail each by
Municipal Judge H. r. Kenaston for
trial this coming Friday. Both
pleaded not guilty to the framed up
charge.
Bonner declined to comment on
the marriage, aside from. saying he
had known Doris for a long time.
In her cell Doris sobbed out the
story of their romance. They had
gone to grade and high school to-
gether and had been friends a long
time, she said.
Last November, she related a
white man insulted her in a barba-
cue place on the West Side, and
Bonner went to her defense. 1t was
then, she said, she first realized that
she loved him.
Il love him, I love him." the girl
sobbed, declaring she could not un-
derStand the furore raised in the
local press because she had married
the man Of her choice.
Protests Planned
The County Attorney conferred
yesterday with the girls mother re-
garding steps to procure an an
nulment and for a Juvenile court
order to commit the girl to the
state training school for girls at
Mitchellville.
Meantime, class-conscious white
and Negro workers here are planning
a protest campaign against the at
tempt of city officials to restrict
the freedom of the individual In the
private matter of marriage, and bv
this and other methods to prevent
determination of Negro and white
workers and to block their growing
unity in the struggle against unem-
ployment, starvation, Fascism and
war. Many workers have expressed
a determination to be present at
the trial Friday to express their OPP
position against race hatred and
discrimination and the whole mon
strous oppression of the Negro
masses.