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Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935

Daniel Miller arrested

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 the grand jury had indicted them in response to evidence presented by District Attorney Dodge as part of his investigation of the disorder. The Magistrates Court docket book records the deposition of the men's cases as "Dism[issed], def[endant] indicted." Stories in the Daily Mirror and New York Amsterdam News also 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 that sent them to the Court of Special Sessions not an indictment that would have sent them to 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.

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