This page was created by Anonymous.
"12 Are Indicted for Part in Harlem Riot," New York Sun, March 21, 1935, 1.
1 2021-04-05T19:53:40+00:00 Anonymous 1 2 plain 2021-04-05T19:55:34+00:00 AnonymousThis page has tags:
- 1 2020-10-13T18:56:01+00:00 Anonymous In the New York Sun Anonymous 1 plain 2020-10-13T18:56:01+00:00 Anonymous
This page is referenced by:
-
1
2020-10-01T00:07:06+00:00
Harry Gordon arrested
75
plain
2022-02-23T20:22:07+00:00
Around 6.30 PM, Patrolman Irwin Young arrested Harry Gordon, a twenty-year-old white student on the north sidewalk of West 125th Street near 7th Avenue. Gordon had climbed a lamppost to speak to the crowd that police had pushed east, away from Kress’s store; Young pulled him down. The Patrolman alleged that Gordon then grabbed his nightstick and hit him with it; Gordon denied doing anything. Young and other officers dragged Gordon thirty feet to a police radio car and drove him to the police station on West 123rd Street, he told a public hearing of the MCCH.
Around 6.30 PM, Patrolman Irwin Young arrested Harry Gordon, a twenty-year-old white student on the north sidewalk of West 125th Street near 7th Avenue. Gordon had climbed a lamppost to speak to the crowd that police had pushed east, away from Kress’s store; Young pulled him down. The Patrolman alleged that Gordon then grabbed his nightstick and hit him with it; Gordon denied doing anything. Young and other officers dragged Gordon thirty feet to a police radio car and drove him to the police station on West 123rd Street, he told a public hearing of the MCCH. (56)
As soon as the radio car reached 7th Avenue, out of sight of the crowd on 125th Street, Gordon told the MCCH hearing that the officer driving “Go ahead and hit him’ to the officer next to him, and both men “poked him in the ribs and kicked him.” [56] When the car got to the station, Young pushed him up against the wall of the station and clubbed him in the stomach. Officer continued to beat and kick Gordon when he was put in a cell, taken upstairs for questioning and fingerprinted. As a result of these attacks, Gordon told a public hearing, “I had two black eyes. Had bumps on my head. My shins were bruised.” [57] When he was bailed and released forty-eight hours after being arrested, his lawyer described Gordon’s face as “entirely discolored,” so much so that he took Gordon to his home so his mother would not see his injuries, he told the public hearing. [57-58] The man identified as Gordon has no visible injuries in a photograph published in the DN on March 20 that purported to show him and the three other white men police arrested in front of Kress’ store in the Harlem Magistrates Court. However, that image may not include Gordon, who appeared in court separately from the other three men even as police grouped them together in the information they gave reporters. There are only three white men in the foreground of the photograph.
Gordon was among the group of around eighty-nine arrested put in a line-up and questioned by detectives in front of reporters downtown at Police Headquarters on the morning of March 20, before being loaded into patrol wagons and taken back uptown to the Harlem and Washington Heights Magistrates Courts. Gordon was brought to the platform together with Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators arrested at other times protesting in front of Kress's store, a New York Herald Tribune story noted, with police presenting the group as acting and arrested together. However, Gordon's actions overshadowed the larger group in stories about the line-up. While Gordon stood on the "klieg-lit platform," Captain Edward Dillon questioned him about his role in the disorder in an exchange reported in three newspapers. The briefest mention appeared in the Daily Mirror, which reported the details of the setting, but only that "under the grilling conducted by Acting Capt. Edward Dillon" Gordon declared "I am a student at City College of New York" and "refused to answer further questions." The reporter described Gordon's manner as "defiant." Other reporters conveyed a similar judgment in their portrayals of Gordon. The New York Herald Tribune described him as "a tall, lanky youth [who] thrust one hand in his pocket and struck an orator's attitude" during the questioning; the New York Sun described his pose as "Napoleonic." Neither of those stories mention Gordon identifying himself as a student; they instead quote him as refusing to answer questions until he saw a lawyer; the New York Sun reported Gordon as saying:
The Daily Mirror concluded that Gordon, in responding as he did, "had practically declared himself the inciter of the night's rioting" and the leader of the four others arrested at the beginning of the disorder. Gordon himself, testifying at the MCCH hearing, set himself apart, as a passerby who had attempted to urge the crowd to go to the police for information. Inquiries by reporters from the New York Evening Journal found no evidence that Gordon was a City College Student, with the New York Herald Tribune reporting Dean Morton Gottschall did not find him in college records. The New York Evening Journal did confirm that he lived in the Bronx, at 699 Prospect Avenue."I have no comment to make until I see my lawyer. I understand that anything I might say would be used against me."
"If you are not guilty why do you want to see a lawyer?" he was asked.
"I know all that," he replied with a wave of his hand "But I won't talk until I see my lawyer."
Gordon did not appear in the MCCH transcription of the 28th Precinct Blotter, nor did Miller and the two white Young Liberators arrested in front of Kress’ store. Margaret Mitchell, the Black woman arrested inside Kress' store before Miller's arrest and Claudio Viabolo, the Black Young Liberator arrested with two white companions soon after Miller, do appear in the transcription. That discrepancy suggests that the white men were omitted from the transcription, perhaps overlooked because they were somehow less readily identified as participants in the disorder among others arrested for unrelated activities at that time.
Gordon appeared in the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20, shortly after Miller and the three Young Liberators with who police had grouped him. The charge recorded in the Magistrates Court Docket book was assault, which was the charge reported by New York American, New York Evening Journal, New York Times and New York Herald Tribune. A second list in the New York Evening Journal, a later story in the New York Herald Tribune, and the New York Amsterdam News, Daily Mirror and New York Sun reported Gordon had been charged with both offenses. The Home News, New York Post, New York World-Telegram, New York Age, and the list published by the Atlanta World, Afro-American, and Norfolk Journal and Guide, reported the charge against Gordon as inciting a riot.
The mistaken information about the charge could result from police continuing to group Gordon with the Miller and the three Young Liberators when he appeared in court. the Am, HN, NYHT, and NYT all described the men as the "ringleaders" of the disorder, which was likely the term police used, in stories on the court appearances. However, while the DN, HT, and DM included all five men in that group, the Am, HN, and NYT omitted Gordon. That difference appears to have resulted from Gordon being arraigned separately from Miller and the other three men. That separation was likely because he was charged with assault, the other men with riot, and the officer listed as arresting Gordon was Patrolman Irwin Young not Patrolman Shannon, the arresting officer recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for Miller and the three other men.
The Daily Mirror claimed Gordon was heard separately when he indicated that he would produce his own lawyers." While being held, Gordon testified, he had not been not allowed to contact a lawyer or his family and was not fed until he had been in custody for more than twenty-four hours and had been arraigned in the Magistrate's Court. [56] In the courthouse on March 20, Gordon was able to make contact with an ILD lawyer, Isidore Englander. Englander testified [60] that while he was speaking with Frank Wells, who had learned had been arrested, he saw Gordon, who he claimed not to know, and spoke with him after his arraignment. Gordon asked him to communicated with Edward Kuntz, another ILD lawyer, whose son Gordon testified was a friend, and who would represent him in subsequent court appearances. After Gordon was taken away, Englander heard him scream, and immediately heard him scream, the result, Gordon claimed, of being beaten again by police officer. Englander made no mention of the visible injuries on Gordon’s face that Gordon and Kuntz described in their testimony.
Magistrate Renaud remanded Gordon to reappear on the March 25, on a bond of $1000; the magistrate also remanded the other four alleged Communists, but for them set the maximum bail of $2500. Around forty-eight hours after Gordon’s arrest, at 1 AM, Kuntz testified that he secured bail for Gordon, who was released from prison [??]
initially felonious assault, but the clerk struck that out and wrote "Red[uced] to Simple Assault misd[emeanor]." The charge of assault was The inconsistent reporting may have resulted from confusion about what occurred in the Court. [Someone - Gordon or his lawyer] told a public hearing of the MCCH about reduced charge, questioning Irwin about extent of injuries, addition of riot charge]. According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, after being arraigned, Gordon and the three white men, Miller, Jamison and Samuels, had been "taken to the District Attorney's office for questioning on possible charges of indictment to riot." The New York Evening Journal and New York Sun announced the first grand jury charges without naming those charged; the New York Herald Tribune and New York Daily News stories distinguished "two informations charging five persons with inciting riot." The Daily Mirror named Gordon and the four other men as those charged. However, Gordon's case proceeded in a different way than those of the men charged with inciting a riot.
.
Magistrate Renaud remanded Gordon to reappear on the March 25, on a bond of $1000; the magistrate also remanded the other four alleged Communists, but for them set the maximum bail of $2500. Gordon returned to court, at the same time as the other four alleged Communists; while they were discharged so they could be indicted, Renaud remanded Gordon again to appear on March 27, with the New York American reporting "his case, it was said, is being investigated by the Grand Jury." (The only other newspaper to report this appearance was the New York World-Telegram). When Gordon did appear again, Renaud instead transferred him to the Court of Special Sessions, a decision only reported in the New York Amsterdam News, New York Times and New York Herald Tribune. That court had jurisdiction over misdemeanors such as the charge against Gordon. The outcome of his trial is unknown. -
1
2023-02-09T20:01:58+00:00
Dodge grand jury hearing (March 21)
40
plain
2023-02-09T22:19:25+00:00
With only a handful of those arrested during the riot arraigned in the Magistrates Court on March 21, the focus of the press shifted downtown to DA Dodge’s grand jury investigation. As grand jury proceedings were closed, no details of the evidence presented were available to reporters, and only how many individuals the jurors voted to indict, not their names. Partly as a result, statements Dodge made to the assembled reporters dominated the stories. That he focused attention and blame for the disorder on Communists resulted in particularly prominent stories in the city’s anti-Communist newspapers. Among the Black newspapers, only the Afro-American and Norfolk Journal and Guide published any details of Dodge’s claims, while both the Amsterdam News and New York Age quoted editorials rejecting the idea that Communists were responsible for the disorder.
The first day of District Attorney Dodge’s grand jury investigation was widely reported in New York City’s white daily newspapers. Twenty-six witnesses appeared before the grand jury that day according to the New York American, Daily News, New York World-Telegram, New York Times, New York Herald Tribune and Home News; three other publications reported a different number, 25 witnesses in the New York Evening Journal, and 30 witnesses in the New York Post, New York Sun and Times Union (the Daily Mirror did not mention witnesses). According to the New York Post, more than 70 additional witnesses were in attendance, likely responding to the subpoenas sent the previous day. The New York Sun reported that Assistant District Attorney Saul Price questioned a number of those witnesses before the grand jury convened at 10:30 AM. The witnesses were described as mostly policemen in the New York Times and New York World-Telegram, and as a mix of policemen and Black witnesses by the New York Post, New York American, and Times Union, which all included the detail that the police were bandaged [link to other discussion of bandaged – address in injured page?].
Several newspapers identified Lino Rivera as among the witnesses. ADA Saul Price questioned Rivera (before the grand jury convened at 10:30 AM according to the New York Sun), with photographs of the pair sitting at a desk published in the Daily Mirror, New York American and New York Evening Journal. Price told the assembled reporters that a threatening postcard had been sent to the boy’s home. It read: "Get out of this city or we will burn you alive. Fair Warning. The threat and text of the postcard were reported by the New York Sun, New York Evening Journal, Times Union, New York Herald Tribune, Daily News, Daily Mirror and New York American. The New York Post and New York Times simply mentioned Rivera as “among the witnesses,” without noting the threat. No mention of the boy appeared in the New York World-Telegram. Price also told reporters he had placed Rivera under the supervision of Patrolman Eldridge of the Crime Prevention Bureau (the New York Evening Journal described him as also a “guard” for Rivera, the Times Union as assigned to Rivera as “safety measure”; the Daily Mirror reported a police guard for Rivera without mentioning Eldridge). The Daily News published a photograph of Rivera and Eldridge leaving the building. While the New York Times and Home News included Rivera among the 26 witnesses who appeared before the grand jury and New York Evening Journal reported that he “testified,” other newspaper stories did not include him in those proceedings. The Daily News story had Rivera dismissed when Dodge left for the grand jury. The Times Union reported he would be called before the grand jury. No mention of Rivera testifying appeared in the New York Herald Tribune, New York Sun, Daily Mirror and New York American. Later, Jackson Smith, the manager of the Kress store, told a hearing of the MCCH that he had sat beside Rivera “before we went in to the Grand Jury room.” [Hearing, May 18, 22] It is not clear what day that happened.
Dodge himself presented the cases to the grand jury, despite assigning that role to ADA Price the previous day, a change only the NYP noted. Dodge, Price spent much of the day in the grand jury with the result that the body voted for seven indictments charging twelve individuals. While the New York Post, and New York Times reported only the number of people indicted, the New York American, New York Evening Journal,, Daily Mirror, Times Union, Daily News, New York World-Telegram, New York Sun and New York Herald Tribune also mentioned the crimes with which they had been charged: inciting riot in the case of five men, assault in the case of two others and burglary for the remaining five men. The grand jury did not release the identity of those indicted, but many readers likely realized, based on other stories, that the five men indicted for riot were those arrested at the beginning of the disorder Daniel Miller, Harry Gordon and the three Young Liberators.
Dodge spoke to the reporters before and after he went into the grand jury, and again after he later met with police officials. Those statements and responses to questions from reporters expanding on his claim the previous day that Communists were responsible for the disorder dominated stories about the grand jury, reported in varying detail and emphasis by different publications. A handful of newspapers noted that Dodge’s statements came at different times; most simply combined them in some way.
On his way into the grand jury, according to the New York World-Telegram and New York Evening Journal,, Dodge told reporters: “The Reds have been boring into our institutions for a long time, but when they begin to incite to riot it is time to stop them.” "They have been safe because we are sticklers for free speech, but when that free speech undermines our laws and causes riots drastic action must be taken.” Those were Dodge’s most widely reported statement, in the New York Evening Journal, New York Post, New York World-Telegram, Times Union, Daily News, New York American, New York Herald Tribune, Daily Mirror, and New York Sun. The New York Evening Journal, New York World-Telegram, Times Union and New York Post added, “We must stiffen our laws.” Only the Daily Mirror reported Dodge suggesting that as “dealing with rioters on the basis of their having committed misdemeanors is not practical” an alternative would be to use Sect. 161 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which provided a sentence of ten years for those advocating the overthrow of organized government by force or violence.” Given the reaction provoked when Dodge made the same call several days later, it is unlikely that would have gone unreported by other publications. [A reporter from the New York American raised the use of this statute in questions posed to Commissioner Valentine after he left a meeting with Dodge later in the day]
In seeking action against those involved in the disorder, Dodge also argued that those found guilty should be removed from Home Relief rolls” and if aliens, deported. He would make those recommendations to the Mayor and the Home Relief Bureau and Commission of Immigration respectively. The New York Post, New York World-Telegram, Times Union, New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Home News, New York Sun reported those proposals; they were not mentioned, somewhat surprisingly, in the Hearst newspapers, the New York Evening Journal, New York American, Daily Mirror , that otherwise amplified Dodge’s anti-communism.
Some of the charges Dodge made against the Communist Party were also absent from the three Hearst newspapers. They did not join the New York Post, New York World-Telegram, Times Union, New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, New York Sun in reporting that Dodge said, “Half the troubles in labor unions are caused by Reds.” However, the New York Evening Journal,, together with the New York Post, New York World-Telegram, Times Union, New York Times, did report his charge that Communists had sent threatening letters to judges. The Ties Union named General Sessions Judge Joseph E. Corrigan, Judge Otto A. Rosalsky and Edward R. Finch as recipients, the New York Post Corrigan and Rosalsky, the New York Evening Journal Corrigan and Finch, the New York Times only Finch, and the New York World-Telegram just “various judges.”
Dodge’s claims were staple anti-Communist charges. The New York Post reporter recognized them as such, noting that the “inquiry threatened to turn into a red-baiting campaign.” A New York Sun editorial (reprinted in the New York Age on March 30) was more dismissive of Dodge’s charges commenting that “seeing red is an official privilege, diversion and avocation at the moment; no disorder can occur without being attributed to those terror-inspiring Communists whose shadows darken the sky at noonday.” So too was a story in the Afro-American later in the week, which asserted that “Colored goody, goodies—ministers, social workers, et al—who are whooping it up that last week’s rioting was the work of Communists, and who are ready to deny freedom of speech to “radicals who come to Harlem,” are, right now, a greater menace to Harlem than the Reds.”
After Dodge left the grand jury, the Daily News, New York Times, New York American, New York Herald Tribune, Home News newspapers reported he made a more specific claim about the Communist role in the disorder. "We have evidence that within two hours after that boy stole a knife the Reds had placed inflammatory leaflets on the streets. We know who printed those leaflets and where they were printed.” That allegation echoed what police had told reporters in the immediate aftermath of the disorder; those papers that did not include it in their stories may not have seen it as new information.
Following a meeting with several police leaders, including Commissioner Valentine, that lasted around an hour and a half, Dodge returned to his broad attacks on Communists. While the New York American and Home News stories suggested a statement (and the Am reported slightly different wording), the New York Times reported Dodge as responding to questions from reporters. Dodge likely announced his plan to have the grand jury undertake a city-wide investigation of radical agitators. It was in answer to a question as to whether that investigation would be focused on Communists that Dodge asserted, "I am not interested in the labels by which they are known. We are interested in any people, no matter what they call themselves, who believe and advocate the overthrow of the Government.” He went on, “"A challenge has been made thrown down to law and order, and the Grand Jury, the District Attorney and the Police Department have accepted that challenge.” Despite repeated questions, he declined to offer further details. That it was late in the day by the time the meeting was over likely contributed to how few papers reported; other reporters had left (to file their stories?).
Despite the unity of purpose Dodge claimed with the Police Department, Commissioner Valentine did not echo the DA’s plans to target Communists. He took the opportunity of appearing before reporters to announce a summary of the report Inspector Di Martini had submitted about the disorder. The New York American, Home News, New York Sun, New York World-Telegram and New York Times reported Valentine pointed to four causes for the disorder: "a Negro youth had been caught stealing, that a woman had screamed, that the "Young Liberators" had met, that they had thereafter disseminated "untruthful deceptive and inflammatory literature" and that all these events had been climaxed by the appearance of a hearse in the vicinity," as summarized by the New York Sun. The New York Times and Home News offered slightly longer summaries that described the woman who screamed as “hysterical” and the appearance of the hearse as “accidental.” The Daily Mirror mentioned only the role of the Young Liberators and the appearance of the hearse, quoting Valentine as saying that he believed “that the hearse which drew up in front of the store Tuesday was part of the plot.” The remaining reports of Valentine’s statements in the New York Post, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and Daily Worker described him as simply blaming Communists for the disorder. The New York Post, New York Evening Journal, Times Union, New York Herald Tribune and Daily News made no mention of Valentine's statement in their stories.
The reporter for the New York American also put a series of “written” questions to Valentine reflecting the newspaper’s anti-Communist agenda, asking: “Why are Communists allowed to roam in Harlem?; "Why was the situation allowed to get out of control?"; and "Why were no steps taken to invoke the penal law regarding advocacy of criminal anarchy?” Only the New York Times joined the New York American in including his answers in its story, publishing more extensive answers to some questions, while the New York Post summarized those answers as Valentine indicating “that his men would be careful not to violate constitutional rights of agitators.” Valentine had answered that the Constitution gave Communists the right to assemble, that the situation did not get out of control, and that ther had been arrests under the criminal anarchy statute but “It is difficult to convict under this section. The smart fellow does not advocate anarchy. He is very cautious not to overstep himself."
Mayor La Guardia, posed the same questioned by Hearst/Am journalists in Washington, DC, was more dismissive. His reported answer to the question about why Communists were “allowed to roam in Harlem” was “Read the first ten amendments to the Constitution,” and to what steps he would take to” stop inflammatory tactics” was “We can’t suppress free speech.” [Am, 3/22 scrapbook, extra Roll 14].