This page was created by Anonymous.
"Alien Squads Hunt Harlem Red Lairs," Daily Mirror, March 21, 1935 [clipping].
1 2021-04-02T21:01:14+00:00 Anonymous 1 3 plain 2021-04-03T21:35:49+00:00 AnonymousThis page has tags:
- 1 2020-09-24T17:48:14+00:00 Anonymous In the Daily Mirror Anonymous 1 plain 2020-09-24T17:48:14+00:00 Anonymous
This page is referenced by:
-
1
2020-10-01T00:07:06+00:00
Harry Gordon arrested
98
plain
2022-11-26T21:41:08+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.
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 police officer driving “Go ahead and hit him’ to the officer next to him, and both men “poked him in the ribs and kicked him.” When the car got to the station, Young pushed him up against the wall of the station and clubbed him in the stomach. Police officers 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 testified, “I had two black eyes. Had bumps on my head. My shins were bruised.” 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. The man identified as Gordon has no visible injuries in photographs taken a few seconds apart published in the Daily News, New York American and New York Evening Journal that purported to show him and the three other white men police arrested in front of Kress’ store on their way to the Harlem Magistrates Court. However, one of the men was only partly visible, behind the other three, and could be injured. The caption to the Daily News photo suggests otherwise, labeling all the men "unmarked by the race riots."
Gordon was among the group of around ninety-six of those 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 Daniel 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. In the courthouse on March 20, Gordon was able to make contact with an ILD lawyer, Isidore Englander. The attorney testified that while he was speaking with Frank Wells, who he 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. Kuntz would represent him in subsequent court appearances. After Gordon was taken away, Englander heard him scream, the result, Gordon claimed, of being beaten again by police officer. The attorney 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 told a public hearing that he secured bail for Gordon, who was released from prison.
Gordon returned to court on March 25, at the same time as Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators, but there his treatment further diverged from them. While Renaud discharged the other four men as they had already appeared before the grand jury and been sent for trial, the magistrate again remanded Gordon, to appear on March 27, with the New York American and Home News reporting that police were planning to submit evidence to the grand jury seeking to have him indicted. (The only other newspaper to report this appearance was the New York World-Telegram). That effort was unsuccessful. When Gordon appeared again in the Magistrates Court, the ADA reduced the charge against him from felony assault to misdemeanor assault; in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book a clerk struck out Fel[ony] Ass[ault] and wrote "Red[uced] to Simple Assault misd[emeanor]." Kuntz claimed credit for the reduced charge when he questioned Gordon about this legal proceeding in a public hearing of the MCCH. While Gordon testified that the ADA had said he was doing Gordon a “favor” by withdrawing the assault charges, Kuntz drew out that his cross examination of Patrolman Young established that the officer did not go to a doctor or a hospital, so did not suffer injuries justifying a felony charge, or even simple assault. He also testified that a new charge of unlawful assembly, the misdemeanor form of riot, had been made against him at that hearing, information not mentioned in any other sources. Magistrate Renaud transferred Gordon to the Court of Special Sessions for trial on the reduced charge, a decision reported only in the New York Amsterdam News, New York Times and New York Herald Tribune.
For some reason, the trial did not take place for almost eight months. Sometime in early November the judges convicted Gordon and sentenced him on November 15. Arthur Garfield Hays, who had chaired the MCCH hearing at which Gordon testified, wrote to the Chief Judge of the Court of Special Sessions on November 13 after hearing of the conviction, the only evidence of that outcome. Expressing surprise about the conviction, Hays urged that Gordon be given a suspended sentence as he was "certainly not a criminal and was exercising what he deemed to be his right of free speech." Judge William Walling responded, telling Hays that he "did not have all the facts." As far as the judge was concerned, "There was not the slightest doubt but that Gordon assaulted the officer who was in uniform. Thereafter, of course, the officer hit back and subdued Gordon." That assessment made it unlikely Walling and his colleagues would have imposed the suspended sentence Hays favored. However, what sentence they imposed on Gordon is unknown. -
1
2020-03-11T21:10:35+00:00
Sam Jameson, Murray Samuels and Claudio Viabolo arrested
81
plain
2022-11-30T23:52:55+00:00
Shortly after 6.45 PM, Patrolman Timothy Shannon and other officers arrested two nineteen-year-old white men, Sam Jameson and Murray Samuels, and Claudio Viabolo, a thirty-nine-year-old Black man, who were picketing in front of Kress’ store at 256 West 125th Street. The three men had arrived a few minutes earlier, likely from 262 Lenox Avenue, the offices of the organization to which they belonged, the Young Liberators. The placards they carried read “Kress Brutally Beats and Seriously Injures Negro Child and Negro Women. Negro and White Don’t Buy Here” and “Kress Brutally Beats Negro Child.” An officer “told or asked [the men] to stop marching in front of Kress'," Patrolman Moran told a public hearing of the MCCH and when they did not leave “after about five minutes," police arrested them for unlawful assembly. Jackson Smith, the store manager, watched the arrest from inside the store. “The police took the placards and pushed the people carrying them into the vestibule,” he told a later public hearing. Around thirty minutes earlier, Patrolman Shannon had arrested another man in front of the store, twenty-year-old white man, Daniel Miller, pulling him down from a stepladder when he tried to speak to a crowd. A few minutes later, around 6.30 PM, other officers, including Patrolman Irwin Young, arrested a second white man, Harry Gordon, when tried to speak to the crowd by climbing a lamppost on 125th Street east of Kress’ store.
The testimony of Moran and Smith in the public hearings provide the only details of the arrests of Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo. The men themselves did not testify. Patrolman Shannon did testify, but was not asked about any of the arrests he made. Newspaper stories on the arrests grouped the men with Miller, and in some cases, Gordon, reflecting information from police that they had acted together to create the disorder. Two Hearst newspapers, the New York American and New York Evening Journal, published stories that described the arrest, but they included details that testimony in the public hearings indicate did not happen: Jameson and Samuels arrived with Miller and Gordon, not after them, in the newspaper narrative, picketed before Miller spoke, and with Harry Gordon came to Miller’s aid when he was arrested, battling Shannon and two other patrolmen before also being arrested. Viabolo was not on the picket line in those stories, but in the Am was a member of the crowd who joined in efforts to prevent Miller’s arrest. Although the newspapers said their information came from police, the elements that did not happen seem to be a product of the anti-communist stance and sensational style of the Hearst newspapers. The NYT and, somewhat surprisingly, the DW, also published narratives in which the men picketed before Miller spoke, but without details of their arrest. The NYT simply reported that the arrest of Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo, and Miller, came “later,” after Miller spoke. The DW did not report specific arrests, but rather that “police broke up the picket line, arresting the leaders.”
Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo all appeared in the lists of those arrested during the disorder published by the AA etc, the NYEJ, the DN, the Am and the HT, among those charged with inciting a riot. However, the white men, Jameson and Samuels, as well as Miller and Gordon, are not in the transcription of the 28th Precinct Police blotter in the MCCH records. Viabolo did appear, with Margaret Mitchell, the Black woman arrested inside Kress' store. 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. It may be that the charges against those men were not recorded as riot. The charge against Viabolo in the blotter is disorderly conduct, with the note that he was “Disorderly in Kress’ 5 & 10c store,” the same description recorded for Margaret Mitchell.
In a line-up on the morning of March 20 that included ninety-six of those arrested disorder, police put Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo in a group with Miller and Gordon, a New York Herald Tribune story noted. Police described the men as all "arrested at a demonstration in front of the Kress store." That grouping was not mentioned in the two other newspaper stories about the line-up, in the Daily Mirror and New York Sun. An unnamed Black man, presumably Viabolo, was quoted in the New York Sun “giving his version of the start of the trouble:” "We were picketing in front of the store. I heard that a child had been killed inside. I thought it ought to be called to the attention of the public, about the child being killed.” The man then told the officer questioning him that he “and his companions took turns on a soap box “informing the public.”” That last detail was not part of any other description of the picketing. The two other newspaper stories on the line-up did not include Viabolo’s comments, but focused, as the New York Sun did, on Harry Gordon’s exchange with police, in which he refused to answer questions until he saw his lawyer.
The Daily News, New York American and New York Evening Journal published photographs taken a few seconds apart that are captioned as showing the four white men arrested outside Kress’ store in the West 123rd Street police station on their way to the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Surrounded on three sides by both uniformed police and detectives in plainclothes, three white men are visible, with another white man party visible behind them, all but the first, identified as Harry Gordon, looking at the ground. On the right of the image is a Black man, almost certainly Viabolo as police had grouped him with these men in the line-up earlier that day, and would again in the courthouse. He is unmentioned in the captions, and, perhaps as a result, cropped out of versions of the photograph published by several regional newspapers. Reflecting its anti-communist focus, the New York Evening Journal placed the photograph on page one, across the whole width of the page, with a caption labeling the men “young college-bred Communists.” The next page featured photographs of two placards used in the picket, and the leaflets circulated by both the Young Liberators and the Communist Party. The Daily News photograph, taken at almost the same moment, appeared in the center of a two page spread of photographs of the disorder in the center of the newspaper. The caption did not identify the men as Communists but as inciting the riot, focusing on drawing a contrast between their uninjured appearances and the damage done during the disorder (Gordon later testified he had been beaten and had injuries to his face; he may be the man whose face was not visible in that photograph notwithstanding the caption).
Police continued to group Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo with Miller and Gordon when they were appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court. In stories on the court appearances, the New York American, Home News, New York Herald Tribune, and New York Times all described the men as the "ringleaders" of the disorder, which was likely the term police used. However, while the Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, New York World-Telegram and Daily Mirror included all five men in that group, the New York American, Home News, and New York Times omitted Gordon. That difference appears to have resulted from Gordon being arraigned separately from the three Young Liberators and Miller. That separation would have resulted from the different arresting officer listed in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for Gordon, Patrolman Irwin Young, not Patrolman Shannon, the arresting officer recorded for the four other men. The charge recorded for Gordon was also different, assaulting Young, not inciting riot. The Daily News claimed Gordon "was heard separately when he indicated that he would produce his own lawyers."
When the court clerk called the names of Jameson, Samuels, Viabolo and Miller were called, two lawyers from the International Labor Defense Fund rose to represent them. The appearance of those attorneys was reported by the New York American, Daily Mirror, Home News, Daily News, New York Herald Tribune, New York Times, New York World-Telegram and Daily Worker but for some reason they were not recorded in the column for the name and address of a defendant's lawyer in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book. The ILD's affiliation with the Communist Party would have been well-known to readers of those newspapers, but the Daily Mirror explicitly made the connection in its story, stating that the men's "Communistic affiliations were declared" by the identity of their attorneys. The Daily Mirror and Daily Worker named the lawyers as Miss Yetta M. Aronsky and I[sidore] Englander, while the Daily News named only Aronsky, and the New York American, New York Herald Tribune and New York Times reported only "a woman lawyer" who would not give her name to their reporters. (Englander later testified about being present in the court in a public hearing of the MCCH).
Assistant District Attorney Richard E. Carey, the Black attorney Magistrate Renaud had requested prosecute those arrested in the disorder, according to the Daily News, requested the men be held for a hearing on Friday on the maximum bail of $2500. The men's lawyers protested that sum. Other arrested during the disorder charged with felonies had their bail set at $1000, including Harry Gordon. Magistrate Renaud dismissed those protests, and complaints by Aronsky, reported by the Daily News and Daily Worker, that the men "had not been fed by police following their arrest."
When Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo returned to the Harlem Magistrates Court with Miller, Magistrate Ford dismissed the charges against the group because they had already appeared before the grand jury. The Magistrates Court docket book recorded the deposition of the men's cases as "Dism[issed], def[endant] indicted." Stories in the Home News, Daily Mirror and New York Amsterdam News also reported that they had been indicted by the grand jury. However, while the grand jury did send the men for trial, it was for a misdemeanor not a felony, so an information not an indictment, and to the Court of Special Sessions not the Court of General Sessions. Other newspaper stories included elements of that distinction. The New York American reported that after being discharged the men were "turned over to detectives with bench warrants based on the Grand Jury informations voted last week charging inciting to riot." The New York Herald Tribune also reported "two informations charging five persons with inciting riot" without naming them; so too did the Daily News, which alone specified that an information charged a misdemeanor and that the men were sent for trial in the Court of Special Sessions. The grand jury also sent all the other individuals charged with inciting a riot that appeared before it to the Court of Special Sessions to face trial for misdemeanors. If the men were being prosecuted for the form of the crime defined as a misdemeanor, unlawful assembly, their crime was being treated as involving disturbing the peace not efforts to prevent the enforcement of the law or incite force or violence.
As other prosecutions resulting from the riot made their way through the courts there were no reports mentioning Jamison, Samuels and Viabolo, or Miller. Finally, on June 20, the four men appeared in the Court of Special Sessions. The New York Amsterdam News reported an additional defendant, a "young sympathizer," Dave Mencher, not mentioned in any other sources, or in the Daily Worker story, the only other report of this trial located. Only one prosecution witness testified before the court's three judges, Sergeant Bauer of the West 123rd Street station (likely the sergeant who testified at the public hearings that he was involved in the arrest, although his name was recorded as Bowe in the transcript). It is not clear why Patrolman Timothy Shannon, the arresting officer, did not appear as a witness. International Labor Defense lawyers again represented the men, but not the same attorneys as the day after the disorder. Instead, Joseph Tauber and Edward Kuntz, who played prominent roles in the MCCH public hearings, represented the men. After cross-examining Bauer to establish that a crowd had collected in front of Kress' prior to the men arriving, they moved to have the charges dismissed. The judges agreed, and freed Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo, as well as Miller.
Claudio Viabolo lived in Harlem, at 202 West 132nd Street; the two white men did not. Sam Jameson lived at 967 East 178th Street in Washington Heights, north of the Black neighborhood, although when a reporter from the New York Evening Journal went to the address the tenants denied knowing him. Murray Samuels lived at 8621 Twentieth Avenue, Brooklyn. However, he was not a student at City College, as the New York Evening Journal reported on March 21. A week later the New York Evening Journal acknowledged that the Murray Samuels a reporter had identified as attending evening classes was not the man arrested during the disorder, in a story headlined, "Far From Red, and RIiot! Says C. C. N. Y. Man."
Claudio Viabolo’s name was spelled in a variety of ways in these sources. Viabolo is used here as it was recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, and in stories about his appearances in the Harlem Magistrates Court published in the 1935_03_30_AA_12; 1935_03_21_NYDN_3; 1935_03_25_NYP_3; 1935_03_21_NYHT_2; 1935_03_21_American_2; 1935_03_21_HN; 1935_03_25_NYS_2; 1935_03_21_NYT_1; 1935_03_21_American; 1935_03_30_NYA_1; 1935_03_22_NYP_1. The name was spelled Diabolo in the list of those arrested in the disorder published in the AA, AW and NJG, and stories in 1935_03_20_WT; 1935_03_20_NYJ_1. In the edition the NYA rushed to print on March 23, the name was Bilo. In the DW on March 21, the name was Viano. Sam Jameson's name was also misspelled, but was not corrected over time as Viabolo's name was. Jameson is used here as it was recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book, and in stories published in 1935_03_20_NYJ_1; 1935_03_20_NYT_1; 1935_03_20_NYP_1; 1935_03_20_NYHT_1; and stores about court appearances published in the 1935_03_21_HN; and 1935_03_25_NYS_2. The name was spelled Jamieson in the 1935_03_20_NYDN_6; 1935_03_21_NYDN_3; 1935_03_27_AW_1; 1935_03_30_NJ&G_18; 1935_03_20_American_1;.
-
1
2022-02-04T19:41:26+00:00
Daniel Miller arrested
66
plain
2022-11-17T20:23:31+00:00
Daniel Miller stepped up on a ladder in front of Kress' store about 6.15 PM, and began to speak to a crowd he estimated at 100-200 people. The twenty-four-year-old white man who identified himself as a member of the Nurses and Hospital League had said only "Fellow workers" when someone in the crowd threw an object at the windows of the store, breaking one. Patrolman Timothy Shannon of the 28th Precinct, one of about five officers stationed in front of Kress' store, immediately pulled Miller from the ladder and arrested him. Sergeant Bowe testified in a public hearing of the MCCH that he was a "witness" to that arrest. James Parton, the Black man who had carried the ladder, and an American flag banner, to the front of the store and spoke briefly before Miller, was not arrested. Nor was Parton arrested when he climbed a lamppost on the opposite side of 125th Street and spoke to the crowd. However, Harry Gordon, a white man who followed Parton in climbing up the lamppost to speak, was, like Miller, immediately arrested.
Miller's testimony in a public hearing of the MCCH provided the most detailed description of his arrest. Patrolman Shannon also testified in an earlier public hearing, but he was not questioned about the arrest. Two Hearst newspapers, the New York American and New York Evening Journal, published stories that described the arrest, but they included details that other sources indicate did not happen: Shannon arresting Miller after he refused an order to move on, with no mention of the widely reported broken window; and two white Young Liberators and Harry Gordon coming to Miller’s aid when he was arrested, and battling Shannon and two other patrolmen before also being arrested. Although the newspapers said their information came from police, these elements that did not happen seem to be a product of the anti-communist stance and sensational style of the Hearst newspapers.
The lists of those arrested during the disorder published by the AA etc, the NYEJ, the DN, the Am and the HT all included Miller among those charged with inciting a riot. However, Miller, and the three other white men arrested in front of Kress' store, are not in the transcript of the 28th Precinct Police blotter in the MCCH records. 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.
Miller was among around eighty-nine men and women arrested put in a line-up and questioned by detectives in front of reporters at Police Headquarters downtown on the morning of March 20, before being loaded into patrol wagons and taken back uptown to the Harlem and Washington Heights Magistrates Courts. Police put him on the platform in a group with Gordon and the three Young Liberators, Samuels, Jamison and Viabolo, a New York Herald Tribune story noted; it reported that police described them as all "arrested at a demonstration in front of the Kress store." That grouping was not mentioned in the two other newspaper stories about the line-up, with the Daily Mirror and New York Sun, as well as the New York Herald Tribune focusing on Harry Gordon refusing to answer questions until he saw his lawyer.
The Daily News and New York Evening Journal published photographs taken a few seconds apart that are captioned as showing the four white men arrested outside Kress’ store in the West 123rd Street police station on their way to the Harlem Magistrates Court on March 20. Surrounded on three sides by both uniformed police and detectives in plainclothes, three white men are visible, with another white man party visible behind them, all but the first, identified in the caption as Harry Gordon, looking at the ground. Miller was the man on the right of the group, according to the captions. To his right is a Black man, almost certainly Viabolo as police had grouped him with these men in the line-up earlier that day, and would again in the courthouse. He was not identified in the captions, and, perhaps as a result, cropped out of versions of the photograph published by several regional newspapers. Reflecting its anti-communist focus, the New York Evening Journal placed the photograph on page one, across the whole width of the page, with a caption labeling the men “young college-bred Communists.” The next page featured photographs of two placards used in the picket, and the leaflets circulated by both the Young Liberators and the Communist Party. The Daily News photograph, taken at almost the same moment, appeared in the center of a two page spread of photographs of the disorder in the center of the newspaper. The caption did not identify the men as Communists but as inciting the riot, focusing on drawing a contrast between their uninjured appearances and the damage done during the disorder (Gordon later testified he had been beaten and had injuries to his face; he may be the man whose face was not visible in that photograph notwithstanding the caption).
Police continued to group Miller with the other four men when they were appeared in Harlem Magistrates Court. In stories on the court appearances, the Am, HN, NYHT, and NYT all described the men as the "ringleaders" of the disorder, which was likely the term police used. 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 charged separately from Miller and the other three men. That separation would have resulted from the different arresting officer listed in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book for Gordon, Patrolman Irwin Young, not Patrolman Shannon, the arresting officer recorded for the four other men. The charge recorded for Gordon was also different, assaulting Young, not inciting riot. The DN claimed Gordon "was heard separately when he indicated that he would produce his own lawyers."
In the Harlem Magistrates Court Miller was charged with inciting a riot, as were Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo. When their names were called, two lawyers from the International Labor Defense Fund rose to represent them. The appearance of those attorneys was reported by the DM, HN, DN, NYT, and DW but for some reason they were not recorded in the column for the name and address of a defendant's lawyer in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book (a section completed for Harry Gordon). The ILD's affiliation with the Communist Party would have been well-known to readers of those newspapers, but the DM explicitly made the connection in its story, stating that the men's "Communistic affiliations were declared" by the identity of their attorneys. The Daily Mirror named the lawyers as "Miss Yetta M. Aronsky and I[sidore] Englander," while the DN named only Aronsky, and the HT and NYT reported only "a woman lawyer" who would not give her name to their reporters. (Englander later testified about being present in the court in a public hearing of the MCCH).
Assistant District Attorney Richard E. Carey, the Black attorney Magistrate Renaud had requested prosecute those arrested in the disorder, according to the Daily News, requested the men be held for a hearing on Friday on the maximum bail of $2500. The men's ILD lawyers protested that sum. Other arrested during the disorder charged with felonies had their bail set at $1000, including Harry Gordon. Magistrate Renaud dismissed those protests, and complaints by Aronsky, reported by the Daily News and Daily Worker that the men "had not been fed by police following their arrest."
When Miller returned to the Harlem Magistrates Court with the three Young Liberators, Magistrate Ford dismissed the charges against the group because they had been, or so they could be, indicted. The Magistrates Court docket book records the deposition of the men's cases as "Dism[issed], def[endant] indicted." Stories in the Daily Mirror, New York Amsterdam News reported they had been indicted by the grand jury. However, while the grand jury did send the men for trial, it was for a misdemeanor not a felony, so an information not an indictment, and to the Court of Special Sessions not the Court of General Sessions. Other stories included elements of that distinction. The New York American reported that after being discharged the men were "turned over to detectives with bench warrants based on the Grand Jury informations voted last week charging inciting to riot." The New York Herald Tribune also reported "two informations charging five persons with inciting riot" without naming them; so too did the Daily News, which alone specified that an information charged a misdemeanor and that the men were sent for trial in the Court of Special Sessions. The grand jury also sent all the other individuals charged with inciting a riot that appeared before it to the Court of Special Sessions to face trial for misdemeanors. Testifying in a public hearing of the MCCH, Miller said he was charged with unlawful assembly. That crime involving disturbing the peace not efforts to prevent the enforcement of the law or incite force or violence.
As other prosecutions resulting from the riot made their way through the courts there were no reports mentioning Miller, or Jameson, Samuels and Viabolo. Finally, on June 20, the four men appeared in the Court of Special Sessions -- the New York Amsterdam News reported an additional defendant, a "young sympathizer," Dave Mencher, not mentioned in any other sources, or in the Daily Worker story, the only other report of this trial located. Only one prosecution witness testified before the court's three judges, Sergeant Bauer of the West 123rd Street station (likely the sergeant who testified at the public hearings that he was involved in the arrest, although his name was recorded as Bowe in the transcript). It is not clear why Patrolman Timothy Shannon, the arresting officer, did not appear as a witness. International Labor Defence lawyers again represented the men, but not the same attorneys as on the day after the disorder. Instead, Joseph Tauber and Edward Kuntz, who played prominent roles in the MCCH public hearings, represented the men. After cross-examining Bauer to establish that a crowd had collected in front of Kress' store prior to the men arriving, the attorneys moved to have the charges of inciting a riot dismissed. The judges agreed, and freed Miller and the three other men.
Miller's home address is recorded in the Harlem Magistrates Court docket book as 1280 South Boulevard in the Bronx. That address is also published by the DM, BDE, AM, 3/20 arrests, NYT, NYA, 3/23. However, the NYEJ reported that address did not exist. (NYEJ, 3/21, 2). However, the HT, 3/21 + HN, 3/21 + AM, 3/21 + AN, 3/30 reported Miller's address as 35 Morningside Avenue, between West 117th and 118th Streets two blocks west of 8th Avenue. That address fits the information he gave in the MCCH public hearing. All those newspaper stories are reports of Miller's appearance in court, suggesting that the Morningside Avenue address was mentioned at that time even if it was not recorded in the docket book. Miller's organization, the Nurses and Hospital League, had an office downtown at 799 Broadway, identified in the New York Post New York American and Daily Worker as raided by police investigating the disorder that was outside Harlem. -
1
2022-10-26T20:01:26+00:00
Appointing the Commission
31
plain
2022-11-12T03:29:52+00:00
Most newspapers reported in the same edition both the statement that Mayor La Guardia released on the morning of March 20 and had distributed in Harlem and his afternoon announcement of who had appointed to the Commission. Only the appointment of the eleven Committee members was reported in the Daily News, New York Evening Journal, and Brooklyn Daily Eagle, while their names were included in the Home News, NYWT, Atlanta World. The NYA published the names of only the six Black members. The names and the occupations provided by the Mayor’s press statement were published in the Daily Mirror, New York American, NYT, DW (3/22) and the AN (3/30). The New York Post, and the AA and NJG, combined that occupational information with information on the political affiliations of each member. The NYHT and NYS published more extended biographies of all eleven members.
Black members:- Hubert T. Delany
- "Tax Commissioner of the City of New York" in the Press statement, DM and Am
- "Negro, lawyer, graduate of the College of the City of New York and New York University Law School, Assistant United States Attorney under former United States Attorney Charles H. Tuttle, Republican candidate for House of Representatives from 21st Manhattan District in 1920. Commissioner of Board of Taxes and Assessments by appointment of Mayor LaGuardia in February 1934." in the New York Herald Tribune
- “lawyer and Republican leader" in the New York Post
- A. Philip Randolph
- "Natl. President, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters" in the Press statement
- general organizer and president of National Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, attended College of City of New York, founder of a magazine, "The Messenger" in the New York Herald Tribune
- “president of the National Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters” in the New York Post
- Charles Roberts
- "Dentist" in the Press statement
- - Negro, dentist, graduate of Lincoln University, Republican candidate for House of Representatives from 21st District in 1924, member of Board of Aldermen, 1931-1933.
- “dentist, Republican leader and former Alderman” in the New York Post
- Charles Toney
- "Municipal Court" in the Press statement
- Justice of Municipal Court; graduate of Syracuse University, Tammany Democrat.
- "justice of the Municipal Court and Democratic political leader” in the New York Post
- Eunice Hunton Carter
- “social worker and lawyer" in the Press statement
- "Lawyer and social worker, holds degrees from Smith College and Columbia and Fordham Universities, Republican-Fusion candidate for Assembly from 19th Manhattan District in 1934.
- “lawyer and social worker and Fusion political leader” in the New York Post
- Countee Cullen
White members:- Arthur Garfield Hays
- "Lawyer"
- "Lawyer, graduate of Columbia University, counsel to American Civil Liberties Union, appeared as defense counsel in many cases involving civil liberties - coal strike in Pennsylvania, 1922; Scopes evolution trial in Tennessee, 1925; Countess Cathcart immigration case; Sacco-Vanzetti case in 1927, and most recently in defense of John Strachey, English lecturer threatened with deportation.
- [abbreviated as “of the Civil Liberties Union,” and grouped with Ernst in the New York Post
- William J. Schieffelin
- "Trustee of the Tuskegee Institute” in the Press statement, DM and Am
- "Chemist, graduate of Columbia School of Mines and University of Munich, chairman of Citizens Union, trustee of Hampton Institute and Tuskegee Institute, schools for the education of Negroes."
- [abbreviated as “chairman of the Citizen's Union and of Tuskegee Institute, the Negro university” in the New York Post
- Morris L. Ernst
- "Lawyer" in the Press statement; “writer and publisher” in the DM and Am]
- "lawyer, graduate of Columbia University, member of American Civil Liberties Union, counsel in many liberal causes, represented Mrs. Margaret Sanger, birth-control advocate; mediator in recent taxicab strike by appointment of Mayor LaGuardia."
- "of the Civil Liberties Union,” and grouped with Hays in the New York Post
- Oswald Garrison Villard
- "Publisher"
- "owner of "The Nation"; graduate of Harvard University, liberal crusader, grandson of William Lloyd Garrison, founder of "The Liberator," and apostle of abolition of slavery."
- “editor of the Nation” in the New York Post
- John J. Grimley
La Guardia subsequently added two additional members, a Black clergyman and a white clergyman. Only the AN reported those appointments, suggesting that the Mayor's office did not announce them in press statements. The appointment of Rev. John W. Robinson, the retired pastor of St. Mark's, the city's largest AME church, was foreshadowed in newspaper stories about the mayor's visit to the Interdenominational Preachers Meeting of Greater New York and Vicinity on March 25. Robinson led that group. After their complainants about La Guardia's failure to appoint a minister, the mayor indicated he would consider appointing a nominee of the meeting. Stories in the ? reported that the meeting chose Robinson. Evidence of an indirect political connection that may have made La Guardia receptive to that suggestion appeared in a AN story on the couple's wedding: Robinson’s second wife, pharmacist ? Coleman, was active in the Republican Party in Harlem.
That La Guardia told the Interdenominational Preachers Meeting that he would also appoint a second clergyman “chosen from a denomination not included in the Alliance” was reported only in the ??. It took until April 4, almost a week after Robinson's appointment, for the mayor to finalize that choice: Father McCann of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church on West 141st Street. The AN made McCann's appointment the headline of the story it published on April 6 about the MCCH hearing. McCann had appeared in earlier stories in the HN, Am and NYJ, and in the NYP and the AN (3/30) as a result of a pastoral letter he made public on March 30[?] blaming Communists for the disorder and calling for a movement to keep them out of Harlem. The priest's anti-communism offered La Guardia a way to address those who had criticized those he had appointed as all liberals. However, La Guardia had clearly also decided the second clergyman on the committee should be Catholic as he had sought the advice of Edmund B. Butler, a prominent Catholic lawyer who was secretary of the city’s Emergency Relief Bureau about who to appoint immediately after he met with the Black ministers. Butler wrote to him the next day, to give him McCann’s name, which he had been unable to think of at that time: “He has always been very much interested in Negroes and volunteered for the work….I think that the appointment of him would be excellent.” A note on the letter recorded, “Father McCann is white,” likely another criteria for his selection given that the committee had two more Black members than white members after Robinson’s appointment. Several days later, on April 1, Butler spoke to La Guardia about McCann, after which he told the clergyman that La Guardia was going to appoint him. On April 4, La Guardia wrote to notify Roberts that he had appointed Father McCann. Even after the CP wrote to both the MCCH and the Mayor to complain about McCann's appointment on April 25, the DW did not report it.
Secondary sources? - Hubert T. Delany
-
1
2022-11-26T20:10:24+00:00
Line-up at Police Headquarters
18
plain
2022-11-28T02:18:07+00:00
On the morning of March 20, police transported most of those arrested during the disorder from Harlem’s two police stations downtown to police headquarters for a line-up prior to their arraignment in the Magistrates Courts. Only four white newspapers reported details of that line-up. The New York Herald Tribune and New York Sun devoted the most space to those events; the Daily Mirror offered an overview and a brief account of an exchange between Harry Gordon, one of the white men arrested in front of the Kress store at the beginning of the disorder, and Captain Dillon, one of the officers questioning prisoners. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle included a series of snippets in a list of “Highlights on the Harlem Front.”
The stories presented those arrested as a group, emphasizing the scale of the disorder, in contrast with subsequent stories about the appearance of those prisoners in court, which named multiple individuals. The focus of the stories was those charged with looting and on Harry Gordon, one of the white men arrested outside the Kress store. No mention was made of those charged with assault. The only suggestion of violence came in a photograph published on the front page of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of prisoners after the line-up in the back of a police wagon that would take them back uptown to the Magistrates courts. One of several images of the prisoners being transported, this photograph had, as the caption described it, “in the left foreground a policeman is holding a long knife taken from one of the rioters.” There was no reference to that weapon in the newspaper’s story.
The New York Herald Tribune reported 96 prisoners were involved in the line-up, while the New York Sun and Daily Mirror reported only 89. As the New York Herald Tribune used its number in a headline, it is treated as the more reliable. All three stories agreed that there were six white men and four black women in the group; the remainder were Black men. They also agreed the twenty-one of those questioned by police were on relief, three had been until recently and one was a CWA worker. That information was likely obtained for the benefit of “a representative of the Department of Public Welfare and a representative of the Aldermanic Welfare Committee,” who attended the line-up according to the New York Herald Tribune. “Both took notes, presumably in checking the number of prisoners on the home relief rolls.” However many prisoners were brought to police headquarters, the number was more than the building’s cells could accommodate, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. It reported, “There weren't enough cells to go around for the Harlem visitors at headquarters and many were herded in the photographic gallery.” A photograph published in the Daily Mirror seemed to confirm the overcrowding, showing prisoners packed together behind bars.
Police led groups of three to five men and women on to a narrow, flood-lit stand to be questioned by detectives, according to both the New York Herald Tribune and Daily Mirror. A transcript of the exchange between a police officer and Isaac Daniels in the line-up contained in his DA’s case file indicated the questions asked of those in the line-up: about an individual’s alleged offense, which elicited explanations; about details of that explanation; and about their identity in terms of time in New York City, marital status and birthplace. Unfortunately, there are no records of the questioning of others police arrested during the disorder
Many of those arrested were injured, described as having “battered heads and [?] hands” in the New York Herald Tribune and “bruised and beaten and their clothing was torn” according to the New York Sun. Prisoners with those injuries are among those who appeared in images taken by press photographers as they were being transported to police headquarters. A Black man in the foreground of a Daily News image of prisoners being led into the back of a police wagon in front of the 28th Precinct had a large bandage around his head. The caption to that image was the only one to draw attention to the injuries of those arrested in the disorder, noting "First man in line was badly banged up." The same man also appeared in a second Daily News photograph exiting a wagon at the Harlem court. Two other men with bandages around their heads appeared among a half dozen prisoners photographed sitting in the rear of a wagon, an Acme agency photograph that has been insightfully analyzed by Sara Blair.
Embed from Getty Images
The other detail that attracted the attention of the reporters was the goods that many of those in the line-up carried with them. The New York Herald Tribune simply reported that “Many admitted they had stolen articles such as clothing, groceries and toothbrushes in their possession when apprehended.” While the New York Herald Tribune simply presented those individuals as guilty of looting, the New York Sun added a sense of the answers they gave that complicated that picture: “Many admitted thefts from the stores damaged during the riot, stealing everything from toothbrushes to shirts and groceries, but all denied breaking the store windows, insisting that they had picked the articles up from the street after others had thrown them out of the stores.” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle also reported such responses only to make fun of them: “Many in the lineup still carried things they admitted picking up in the street but denied reaching into broken shop windows to secure. Cigarettes were the favorite item "found." One Negro woman still had in her possession five milk bottles. Police were doubtful that she drank as much milk as all that.”
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle also made fun of some of the answers offered by Aubrey Patterson, a twenty-one-year-old Black man, statements also reported in the New York Herald Tribune and New York Sun. ""I don't want to extricate myself from any guilt," said Aubert Patterson, colored, of 83 E. 113th St. Manhattan,” according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, “in explaining (amid laughter) why he didn't want to discuss the charge of burglary against him." The New York Herald Tribune and New York Sun by contrast, quoted Patterson answering questions, although only the New York Sun reported the questions: ""Are you a citizen?" Capt. Dillon asked this prisoner, who had identified himself as Aubrey Patterson, of 83 East 113th Street. "I am a citizen of this great metropolis," replied Patterson. I was born in this metropolis on 132d Street." "What do you do for a living?" "I do laboring in the daytime and I go to school at nighttime."" The story framed that exchange by denigrating Patterson as having "assumed a pompous air when questioned by Acting Capt. Dillon and gave off oratory to reply to most of the questions." The New York Herald Tribune did not offer any similar judgement but did add that Patterson was "a light-skinned Negro"
The other prisoner that reporters selected for attention was Harry Gordon, who the New York Herald Tribune reported was grouped with Daniel Miller and the three Young Liberators in the line-up. Gordon’s response to being questioned was reported by the New York Herald Tribune, New York Sun and Daily Mirror. The briefest mention appeared in the Daily Mirror, which reported only that "under the grilling conducted by Acting Capt. Edward Dillon" he 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." The other stories 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 mentioned Gordon identifying himself as a student; they instead quoted him as refusing to answer questions until he saw a lawyer. The New York Sun quoted the exchange at the greatest length:
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."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."
The New York Sun alone included the response of Claudio Viabolo, who was in the same group as Gordon. The story did not name him, instead identifying him as “Another Negro, giving his version of the start of the trouble:”
The inclusion of Viabolo’s answers was an unusual departure from reporting across the range of newspapers that consistently portrayed the Communists involved in the early part of the disorder as white. A striking example of that focus are the later photographs of this group taken in the 28th Precinct station house as they were being transported to the Harlem courthouse. Although Viabolo was visible in image published in the Daily News, New York American and New York Evening Journal, he was not identified as part of the group in the captions, and was cropped out of versions of the photograph published by several regional newspapers."We were picketing in front of the store. I heard that a child had been killed inside. I thought it ought to be called to the attention of the public, about the child being killed."
Whereupon this Negro and his companions took turns on a soap box "informing the public," Capt. Dillon was told.”