Montana labor news., 1937-07-22
WORSE sums DRAMA
OF CHICAGO MASSACRE

and CHASTITY drama OF the Chlcago
Memorial Day massacre unrolled 1t
self before an audience of 500 people
including Senators and Congressman
and many Washington notables III
was nothing new The shooting by
police of steel workers asking for
their constitutional rights is an old
story 1t began in Homestead mi
1892 and has gone on steadily ever
since. In the 1919 steel strike Il
people were killed, including Fanny
Sellins who was shot by gunner asl
she bent over some children to pro-
tect them. They killed steel work
ers in Ambridge in 1888.
The number of United Mine Work
ers dead in its long fight for or
ganization is uncounted. The mines
of West Virginia and Harlan are
drenched with workers blood. The
Ludlow rnassacres are fresh in
everyones mind and the blood OF the
textile workers of Marion and HoneaI
Path still cries out. No, the massacre
of workers is no new thing. The
purpose of the killings is always the
same. It is to crush the workers
right to organize lawfully.
What is new is that there should
be a hearing at all, that the whole
horrible story should be accessible
for the public. What is new is that
gathered into one room should be
unassailable and impartial witnesses
lawyers, social workers, doctors,
ministers-who corroborate and fill
out the whole danning story told
by a newsreel. Here folks could see
how murder was done. They could
hear the police perjure themselves.
They could see how the fake red
scare was created. But most horrible
was the measured testimony of the
witnesses.
There was the lawyer, Frank w.
McCulloch, Social Relations Secre-
tary of the Council of Social Action
of the Congregational Church. To
him the meeting at Sans place was
a friendly holiday crowd asserting
its right to organize. Later, out of
harms way himself, he saw police
man 70 feet from the marchers
empty gun at them and reach for
another clip.
The Rev. Charles B. Fiske, a con-
gregational minister concerned about
workers civil liberties, went to the
meeting as an impartial observer.
He heard the shots, saw the people
give way and he took pictures of the
whole fight He heard a man cry
ing, 81 am going as fast as | can,"
as police dubbed him, took pictures
of men being shot, of men beaten on
the ground. In the end he was ar
rested, thrown in Jail and kept in
communicate for nineteen hours. His
pictures were taken from him.
There was Meyer Levin's testi-
mony. He is the editor of Esquire.
He heard the outbreak of the shoot
ing. He watched workers being shot
down. He carried a bleeding child.
He was kept out Of the Burnside
Hospital by police where volunteers
had been called for.
More telling than anyone else's
was the testimony of the volunteer
social worker and housewife, little
Mrs. Lupe Marshall. There are stills
of her as she stands arguing with
the police and of her being beaten
as she bends over the wounded
There are pictures of her being
hurled into the terrible patrol wagon.
Her voice came out quiet and exact
as she told of the nightmare ride
with 16 desperately wounded and
dying men, one of whom died with
his head in her lap. She told of the
obscenity of the police, and worst of
all, how they tried to stop her help
ing the doctor at the hospital with
a wounded boy.
A blind man followed Lupe
Marshall to the stand, Harry N. Har-
per, steel worker of nonstriking
firm who had tried to find his broth
ers to ease his i'll mothers anxiety.
You get the picture of him, his eye
shot out, blood running into his
mouth, falling into ditch, and say
ing to man who groans, Help me,
buddy" and hearing the answer 81
am helpless myself" Blinded he
hears the groans of the dying and
the police saying, eve will take
them to the morgue," and the an
swer, There's some breathing yet"
The blind mans story capped the
horrors of the afternoon. He is a
good Catholic. He had nothing to
do with the strike-but they booked
him as Communist. This had to be
"red" meeting.
The pictures and the testimony 60
on. 1t becomes unbearable. The
details of the needlessness of this
killing pile up. There are already
10 dead and eight more lie seriously
wounded. Over 100 have been
wounded by gun shots and by brutal
clubbings. That there was collusion
with the mills we know. Testimony
has shown that a platoon Of SO po-
1icap,an WAC caan 1ua1kino from tho