BourgeoisieCapitalismDemocracySocialismSocialist PartySovietWorking Class

THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE Saturday, May 10, 1919 The Cleveland May Day Demonstration He workers of Cleveland who are striving to By Ruthenberg long, heavy clubs, with nails projecting two or three throw off the yoke of oppression and exploitation Sercretary, Local Cleveland; Arrested inches from the end, beat everyone within reach.
have received their baptism in blood.
The sudden attack of the police, the quick appearThey have learned that the ruling class will not driven back to the sidewalk, the head of the line re ance of the trucks loaded with the Black Hundred and even permit workingmen to peaceably demonstrate. formed and with the red flag still flying, marched on their helpers, the tanks, all provhat the whole affair They have been shot, brutally clubbed and crushed by to the Public Square.
was carefully planned in advance in order to teach army tanks and heavy military trucks, all because they Uu to this point the police had been conspicuous by the workers who dared take up the fight against their dared inarch through the streets of Cleveland carrying their absence from the line of march. With the excep masters, a lesson.
their banners demanding freedom for Debs, freedom tion of two or three trafic officers at important corners, Of course the workers fought back and fought for Mooney, freedom for all political and industrial not a policeman was to be seen. This fact was partiç bravely. But they were caught at a disadvantage, with fprisoners and work for the unemployed through the ularly noteworthy as it is the custom in Cleveland, their lines extended through the heart of the city four when there are parades, to station officers a few hund abreast, as it no doubt had been planned that they The May Day Demonstration in Cleveland was the red feet apart, along the whole line of march, and the should be caught. The fighting continued from about greatest outpouring of militant workers that this city police had asked for and had received a detailed state o clock until late in the evening Iras ever seen. Arranged under the auspices of the ment of the plans for the procession.
Socialist Party, the and nearly When the head of the line entered the Public Square one being kiled on the spot and the other has since Two of the workers were shot by police officers, score of of unions participated. The plans there were two noteworthy events: first there was a for the demonstration called for four sections of the great wave of cheers and applause from the twenty died in the hospital. Hundreds were brutally beaten, procession to assemble in different parts of the city, or more thousand workers who were assembled there men and women alike, and about a hundred and fifty were arrested.
all of which were to to participate in the meeting, and the police made theit The brutalities did not cease with the attack made They came down Superior which to be made.
divides the upon the streets. The writer was arrested with others, and worker after worker placed in the same cell block Up to a certain point the program was carried out tion, headed by the mounted squad, followed by auto successfully. The different sections assembled and load after load. The newspapers later reported that ridor leading into the station to administer some extra told of how the police took advantage of a dark cormarched through miles of the city streets carrying seven Station, who now descended upon the marchers.
their red banners and thousands of red pennants and blows with their clubs. One man, unable to stand up, the May Day slogans. When the four was dragged into the corridor, set on his feet and told signs bearing sections arrived at Central and 9th Street the streets thousand or so of workers marched onto the square collapsed was brutally shoved into a corner. The floor The head of the line was not molested. The first to stand up before the registry clerk, and when he were lined for blocks and blocks in every direction by and took possession of the Victory Loan speakers before the clerk window was soon covered with the various columns. No more glorious sight could be stand, which had been built over the stone blocks plac blood from the workers wounds and medical aid was imagined by the mind of those inspired by the ideal ed on the Public Square for the use of speakers at not furnished for hours after.
of the Social Revolution than to look down these lines public meetings. These marchers with the workers from the point of intersection and to see the scores of already asseinbled covered the entire section of the While the fighting was going on a crowd of hoodred banners waving high in the air, and then, with a square.
lums, with police looking on, entered the party headmighty cheer, to see a veritable cloud of red as thous The chairman of the meeting was about to introduce quarters and tore and smashed everything they could ands of pennants were thrust high over the heads of the writer as the first speaker when an officer and a lay their hands on.
the marchers.
few soldiers tried to climb to the platform, demanding Rumor says after the slaughter was over the ChamNot less than twenty thousands workers participated that the soldier holding the red flag give it up. Com ber of Commerce gave a dinner to those who did such in the procession and when the head of the line reach rade Lawrence Zitt, the chairman, entered into an effective work in their interest and that many thugs cd the Public Square another twenty or thirty thous argument with him and showed him the foolishness and hoodlums received wads of money from the same and workers were there to greet the marchers.
of his conduct and had him calmed down, when, with source.
The joined sections started down 9th Street and out warning, a squad of mounted police dashed into The arrested workers are being charged with distthe head of the line had covered three fourth of the the audience, driving their horses over the assembled urbance and are being railroaded to the workhouse distance to the Public Square without the slightest workers and clubbing them as they went.
to serve sentences of thirty days and a fine and costs.
trouble. Rather were the marchers applauded and Meanwhile the police hau cut the line a block away The writer is charged with causing a disturbance, cheered, as they had been applauded and cheered while from the Public Square and had begun their attack but the authorities are working hard to frame up some the sections were passing through the working class all along the line, stretched out over a half mile and evidence for a more serious charge in order to fasten sections of the city to the meeting place.
upon When the head of the line was within a block of place the thousands who had not yet left the meeting responsibility for their own bloody work on other of the sections.
shoulders.
the Public Square the first trouble occurred. Al What followed is indescribable in its brutality. The Meanwhile, the Socialist organization remains intofficer in the uniform of the Red Cross jumped from police drove their horses into the lines crushing and act in spite of the destruction of the party headquarta Victory Loan truck and endeavored to take a red beating men and women alike. The police autos were ers. Committees are at work arranging for protection Aag which a soldier in uniform was carrying at the similarly driven into the ranks of the workers. The of those in prison and to raise the thousands of dollars head of the procession. scuffle followed in which police were soon joined by truck loads of soldiers and needed to pay fines. The workers have had their lesother soldiers from the truck and some business men members of Cleveland Black Hundred, the Loyal son. They have learned how democracy meets a joined. During the scuffle one of these business men American League, and by army tanks which every peaceable protest. They know from the thousands drew a revolver and wildly threatened the workers in where drove into the line of marchers. One heavy who marched that their power is greater than ever.
the procession. In five minutes, however, the struggle truck loaded with soldiers and the Black Hundred Another day is coming. They will go on until victory was over. The lieutenant and his supporters were drove along the line while those on board, armed with is achieved.
The Red First of May in Boston children, the morning. in Still there was no disturbance. Then, suddenly, Then the crowd clispersed. Two policemen had Boston assembled at Dudley Street Opera House. two police wagons appeared, and about fifteen police been shot, four of our comrades, one a woman; and at 11 o clock a meeting was in session. Outside men jumped out were police and a patrol wagon; they liad come pre perse. They did. They did not ask the crowd to dis many heads of comrades and police had been smashed.
not parley: They immediately, with About forty had been arrested.
pared for trouble, and were disapointed at being un trawn clubs, a saulted the front of the crowd, where But this was just the start of things. Police and able to start something. The night before four the Aags were, and where there were at least ten thugs surrounded New International Hall, arrested comrades (one of them a former Canadian soldier who women and The police used clubs freely, everyone there, ate up the sandwiches and cake prehad fought four years in the war and had more decor and smashed the Red Flag This brutal, unprovoked pared for the formal opening, and wrecked the whole uting a leaflet, May Day and the Revolution. Bail a struggle; broken heads and smashed faces, includ rades were arrested, the police beating them up mercihad been granted the night before, but withdrawn in ing those of women and children.
Up until midnight the fighting went on, police Then the police, having destroyed the Red Flag and thugs assaulting everyone they suspected of being At the meeting, there were addresses and the sing and made a number of arrests, drew their revolvers. foreigner or a of Socialist songs in English, Lettish, Russian and The crowd was at bay. One comrade, an old man of ing All together, 112 comrades were arrested (one a boy Italian. At two thirty, it was decided to hold another fifty, barred his breast, and said: Kill! Deliberat of 15, who the police lyingly accuse of carrying a meeting at the New International Hall, the new head ely, Sergeant Casey took aim and shot this comrade, revolver) among them about 20 women.
quarters of the Roxbury Socialists, because many straight at the breast. The bullet hit the comrade There was no disturbance until the police came.
comracles had been unable to get in the Opera House.
watch, and this saved his life, but he is now under a it.
The comrades Mowed nation the streets and began bhysician care.
We have the dented watch and the The police deliberately assaulted the crowd. The police loaned their clubs and billies to young thugs tweaty minutes walk away. They formed in line, first shot was the signal for indiscriminate to beat the women and children.
order to facilitate matters and not obstruct anything; The police up prisoners, in one case, at least, at the head of the crowd was Red Flag and a flag of arrived by the police. In the meanwhile, more police thugs with sticks and stones attacked our lining up a comrade against a wall while four of them Soviet Russia. At least one third of the crowd of comrades, and the fight became general. Scores of brutally beat him about the face.
1000 were women and children. The mood was one of comrades were in the police wagons under arrest; and And now our comrades are being tried before a gaiety. There here was no disturbance, no obstruction of thugs with sticks went into the wagons, protected by prejudiced judge, while the police indulge in more traffic just a crowd marching on.
lying in one day than Ananias could in a year. SentThen a group of young thugs, including soldiers and While the fighting was still going on, a large group nces of 18 months, one year and months are being sailors, were seen to hold a consultation. The plan of the comrades marched down a side street, formed imposed on men and women.
was explained by one we ll head them off and grab in line, and proceeded on their way. to New Inter The Socialists of Boston are now the Aag. But they didn policeman appeared; national Hall. Then two more police wagons appeared, clearly than ever, of the class justice of bourgeois the gangsters held a consultation with him, and he scores of police; they again attacked our comrades, society. And they are more determined than ever that sent a call for the reserves.
again shot at the crowd with deliberate intent to kill. Capitalism shall go.
They started This beat aware, more