Montana labor news., 1935-04-25
ALL THINGS
CONSIDERED
BY Howard Vincent O'Brien

a HARAR VI kAAlLlia N1hArf
and in between, of both sexes resid-
ing in what is anything but an e~xclus-
i've neighborhood, formed a club. There
they met to talk and muse them
selves. Most Of them were unem-
ployed, and so the talk probably
showed little enthusiasm for the exist
ing order. Many of the takers SYM
pathized with the aims Of the COM
munist party-perhaps belonged to it.
The other night, as a means OF rails
ing money for the club, a dance was to
be held-admission 10 cents. Shortly
before the party began two policemen
in plain clothes entered, They had an
alteration at the door with a man
named Doyle. l do not know who
struck the first blow, or why, but do
know what happened to Mr.. Doyle.
l talked to the doctor who tried to
stick him back together again.
Law and Order.
-Four police cars, laden with defend
ers of law and order-known, be-
lieve, as the Industrial ~Squad-arrived
soon and went into action. Some
thirty persons were properly subdued
and carted off to a police station,
where they were booked, strangely
enough, as inmates of a disorderly
house.
The arrests did not require the ac-
tivity of all the police on hand. There
were enough left to smash all the fur
niture in the clubroom. Judging from
the photographs l saw, they did a
thorough job,
They were inspired, no doubt, with
holy zeal. They felt that they were
stamping out Instruction, even
though the charge on the blotter was
something else. They were maintain
ing the free institutions for which our
f~orefathers died.
One may question the results Of this
lofty patriotism. In my opinion, these
heroic bluecoats were not stamping out
communicating were creating it. A
brutal copper isn't paid by Moscow,
but think he ought to be.
melting to Murder.
A gentleman named Bernarr Mac
Fadden, writing in a magazine with
the quaint name of Liberty, points with
alarm to the fact that communistic
doctrines have crept into our schools
and colleges.
He is right, of course. Young peo-
pie who have had to leave college be-
cause their fathers are jobless, or who,
in school, have seen unpaid teachers
faint from hunger, are likely to specu-
late on the perfection of the present
scheme of things. They may even
reach the conclusion that the com
munists have a better scheme. Some
may go as far as to talk of revolution.
That is dangerous. 1t is on the Dor
derland of crime. There are laws
against incitment to murder. But
Mr.. MacFadden, furled in the folds Of
Liberty, does precisely what he says
the revolutionary must not do. He
declares that those opposed to the es-
tablished order must be treated like
man-eating tigers. The order given
to policemen in many of u cities to
shoot first and question afterward is a
good policy in this dire emergency"
Liberty or What?
That is plain speaking. 1t is a de-
mand that men be no longer tried by
a jury of their peers; that the admin
~istration of justice be turned over to
men with quick trigger fingers, better
versed in Colt than in Blackstone. 1t
declares a moratorium on habeas cor
pus, freedom from search and seizure
and all those other amusing relics for
which our race has fought SO long and
so painfully.
I am no enthusiast for revolution. l
have been on the fringe of one, and
seen mobs in action. But | don't
think that revolutions are prevented
by smashing the furniture in ~neighbor-
hood forums, beating soapbox orators
to a PURGE, or urging the police to kill
first and talk afterward.
l believe that violence begets VIC
lence and I, for one, am not yet ready
to concede that the time has come II
abolish the hard-won ripbbering I'M
liberty. Russia mas may enjoy Hitler
der Stalinins may run on time with
l-I~tassolini at the throttle. | am old
fashioned enough to prefer the demo-
cratic philosophy of Jefferson and
Lincoln to any efficiency" achieved
by castor oil and the night stick.