The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1940-08-28
Alabama Farmers
Continued from Page one)

and workers in Alabama, for his I'M
selfish efforts on their behalf, man
well known in Washington and in
Montgomery for his appearances there
to speak for the common people,
man widely known here in Birming-
ham-this man they arrested and held
in sitting hot jail cell for nine hours
under this infamous ordinance.
No information
Just before eight o'clock, he was
quietly eating his breakfast before
getting to work Officers Gilliland
and Propst accosted him as he ate and
ordered him to accompany them to
the city hall ITO be identified" Gill
land said.
"And that was all the information
they would give him. Later they al
lowed him to call the office and say
that he was detained. Our office man.
ager, Mrs. Nora McAndrews, caught
the worry in Gerald's voice. She sur
missed he wasn't being allowed to talk
she asked him if he was being de-
tanned indefinitely, and Gerald said
Eyes"
This was our clue. Our lawyer
checked at the city hall. There they
insisted that they were not holding
Gerald Harris or anybody else. Time
after time our lawyer, George Patter-
son Jr., checked. Finally at 1910
Gerald Harris was booked at the
Southside Jail, under Ordinance 1902,
and we learned for certain that he
was being held by the police.
"Mr. Patterson went to the city hall.
No one would tell him anything about
the case other than that Mr.. Harris
was booked Sec. 1902, Suspicious
False Pretense.'
Couldn't See Him
II accompanied Mr.. Patterson to the
Southside Jail, but they refused to let
us see Gerald Harris. We were given
the names of five detectives listed as
working ON the case. We went back
to the city hall determined to institute
habeas corpus proceedings to force
them to make a definite charge
against Mr.. Harris, and to set his bail
so that we might get him out. 1t
would have been the easiest sort of
thing to raise any reasonable bail that
might have been SET
after a long wait we were able to
see Chief Riley and then Officer Gill
land, who made the arrest Gilliland
insitsed that, acting on tip he had
arrested Gerald Harris as one wv M.
Newman who was involved in a con-
fidence game in Walker county" He
admitted that Harris weighed 80
more than the description of
the wanted man.
"(All this, despite the fact that it
would be one of the easiest things
in the world to find out the real iden-
tity of man like Gerald Harris. They
didn't even check at our paper, the
place where he works.)
T. C. |. Against Him
"Chief of Detectives Holum came
in at that time. Sure ! know that
guy he said, hes labor man,
one of them labor agitators. TO- |.
sent out something about him few
years ago.
at. c. |. is Tennessee Coal and
Iron Company, subsidiary of United
States Steel Company, J. P. Nor
cams great steel trust. 1t has often
been accused of running Birming-
ham lock, stock and barely
"They reluctantly admitted that they
'idn't have any evidence to hold him,
10 Gerald Harris was finally released.
lie had been held incommunicado for
line hours. They had made him strip
IF all his clothes and put on prison
He had been searched to
zee that he would have nothing that
lie might use to get in touch with the
outside world. He was locked in
tifling hot cell and left there.
Saturday was the day Gerald Har-
ria had been scheduled to make an
important speech at the annual Bibb
County convention of the Farmers
Union. His friends had had to wait
there in vain. Gerald Harris was
sweating in Birmingham's Southside
iaI-his scrime? Living in city
that is trying to force upon the peo-
pie of Birmingham police conditions
borrowed from the dungeon keepers
of the middle ages.
"How many have suffered from this
oul law? Perhaps the records will
how. There were II being held in
he special section of the jail under
his ordinance while Gerald was
here"