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The Story of Civil Liberty in the United States

The Story of Civil Liberty in the United States - Civil Liberty and Labor (1870-1917) - Page 227

to hold meetings across the river. At Wakefield, Mass., the owner of the hall already hired, revoked permission for its use and the strikers were told they could not even conduct outdoor meetings. Even a meeting held within a private dwelling was dispersed by the police, who invaded the home.

On Friday night, July 18, 1913, in Seattle, Wash., a large number of enlisted men from the U. S. Navy, together with U. S. soldiers from the forts, led a riotous and lawless outbreak against constituted authority—said to be seeking vengeance for “an alleged prior assault upon some two or three enlisted men by street speakers who advocated doctrines antagonistic to their ideas of law and order”…. It is persistently contended to the contrary that the one or two enlisted men, intoxicated, attacked a woman speaker on the street…. It is asserted that the crusade for vengeance … has been endorsed by officers of the Navy, and that the men's conduct was actually encouraged by some of their superiors…. The rioters, not only invaded the halls and buildings where the I. W. W. met, but they tore into the Socialists' halls, removed pianos, song-books and lodge paraphernalia, and made a bonfire of it. They then entered a Salvation Army place and continued their lawlessness tearing down mottoes “God Is Love.”

Congressional Record, July 29, 1913.

ILLEGAL ARRESTS AND DETENTION

Illegal arrests and detention are frequent in the history of industrial conflict. The report of the Federal Industrial Relations Committee, 1915, says:

It is charged by the workers that during strikes, innocent men are in many cases arrested without just cause, charged with fictitious crimes, held under excessive bail, and treated frequently with unexampled brutality for the purpose of injuring the strikers or breaking the strike…. The Commission has been furnished with evidence showing that in a number of recent strikes large numbers

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