Let's all take a moment this weekend, in addition to remembering those who gave their lives defending our country in uniform, or, for those who prefer, whose lives were taken from them, to commemorate another event, one which most Americans today have never heard of. I am speaking of the so-called Memorial Day Massacre of 1937, which took place on that date in Chicago, Illinois. Although this was not a military battle, it does deserve remembering, since it serves to show how different things are today, in some ways, and how much they haven't changed at all, in others...
As many people know, the 1930s was a decade that saw a rise of labor unions in the United States, after the Depression made many workers lose confidence in the ability of the business class, or government, for that matter, to provide stability to the national economy. In Chicago, the CIO made inroads into the the steel industry, but many companies opposed unions, notably Republic Steel Company, which responded to a strike called by the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, by bringing in "scabs", and housing them within the mill, and hiring armed guards. The Steel Workers Organizing Committee called a strike and came together on Memorial Day to march at the gates of the plant.
It was the Chicago police department, however, and not the paid company guards, that enthusiastically took a pro-company position, when a group of about 300 strikers neared the mill. Although police are supposed to keep the peace and enforce the law, there grew out of the economic troubles of the 1930s a tendency on the part of right wing reactionaries to equate labor activism with Communism. This phenomenon actually had its inception in the Red Scare of 1919, when the steel industry in particular took advantage of anti-Bolshevik sentiment to quell labor unrest in Pennsylvania, and Indiana, attempting, successfully, albeit temporarily, to characterize "strikes as revolutionary, a plot to overthrow the established order.
In Chicago, on Memorial Day in 1937, the police department acted as a goon squad of the first order, and brutally attacked the marchers, who, it turned out, had not done anything to provoke such a response. How do we know this? Well, it's the funniest thing. Apart from the fact that six out of the ten who were killed that day proved to have been shot in the back, it came to the attention of investigators that a 35mm film of the event had been shot, complete with a soundtrack, by a professional camera crew working for Paramount Pictures!
When this fact became known, the footage was subpoenaed by a Senate subcommittee headed by Wisconsin Senator Robert LaFollette, of the Progressive Party, now defunct, if I'm not mistaken. The movie production company itself had decided not to publicize the film, apart, I'm sure, from commercial considerations, based on the fear that the harrowing scenes would incite riots among the general public. So you can get a sense of what the camera recorded on that day.
The Committee held a private screening of the film during the second week of June, following the incident. On the day of the screening, the ninth victim, a 17-year old boy, succumbed to injuries he received on the day of the massacre. The screening was witnessed by a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, from whose account the following description is taken.
The showing of the film here was conducted with the utmost secrecy. The audience was almost limited to Senators La Follette (Prog.), Wisconsin, and Thomas (Dem.), Utah, who compose the committee, and members of the staff. Those who saw it were shocked and amazed by scenes showing scores of uniformed policemen firing their revolvers pointblank into a dense crowd of men, women and children, and then pursuing and clubbing the survivors unmercifully as they made frantic efforts to escape.
The impression produced by these fearful scenes was heightened by a sound record which accompanies the picture, reproducing the roar of police fire and the screams of the victims. It was run off several times for the scrutiny of the investigators, and at each showing they detected additional instances of "frightfulness." It is expected to be of exrtraordinary value in identifying individual policemen and their victims. The film itself is evidently and outstanding example of camera reporting under difficult conditions.
The first scenes show police drawn up in a long line across a dirt road which runs diagonally through a large open field before turning into a street which is parallel to and some 200 yards distant from the Republic mill. The police line extends to 40 or 50 yards on each side of the dirt road. Behind the line, and in the street beyond, nearer the mill, are several patrol wagons and numerous reserve squads of police.
Straggling across the field, in a long irregular line, headed by two men carrying American flags, the demonstrators are shown approaching. Many carry placards. The appear to number about 300--approximately the same as the police--although it is known that some 2,000 strike sympathizers were watching the march from a distance.
A vivid close-up shows the head of the parade being halted at the police line. The flag-bearers are in front. Behind them the placards are massed. They bear such devices as: "Come on Out--Help Win the Strike"; "Republic vs. the People," and "C.I.O." Between the flag-bearers is the marchers' spokesman, a muscular young man in shirtsleeves, with a C.I.O. button on the band of his felt hat.
He is arguing earnestly with a police officer who appears to be in command. His vigorous gestures indicate that he is insisting on permisson to continue through the police line, but in the general din of yelling and talking his words cannot be distinguished. His expression is serious, but no suggestion of threat or violence is apparent. The police officer, whose back is to the camera, makes one impatient gesture of refusal, and says something which cannot be distinguished.
Then suddenly, without apparent warning, there is a terrific roar of pistol shots, and men in the front ranks of the marchers go down like grass before a scythe. The camera catches approximately a dozen falling simultaneously in a heap. The massive, sustained roar of police pistols lasts perhaps two or three seconds.
Instantly the police charge on the marchers with riot sticks flying. At the same time, tear gas grenades are seen sailing into the mass of demonstrators, and clouds of gas rise over them. Most of the crowd is now in flight. The only discernible case of resistance is that of a marcher with a placard on a stick, which he uses in an attempt to fend off a charging policeman. He is successful for only an instant. Then he goes down under a shower of blows.
The scenes which follow are among the most harrowing of the picture. Although the ground is strewn with dead and wounded, and the mass of marchers is in precipitious flight down the dirt road and across the field, a number of individuals, either through foolish hardihood, or because they have not yet realized what grim and deadly business is in progress around them, have remained behind, caught in the middle of the charging police.
In a manner which is appallingly businesslike, groups of policement close in on isolated individuals, and go to work on them with their clubs. In several instances, from two to four policement are seen beating one man. One strikes him horizontally across the face, using his club as he would wield a baseball bat. Another crashes it down on top of his head, and still another is whipping him across the back.
These men try to protect their heads with their arms, but it is only a matter of a second or two until they go down. In one such scene, directly in the foreground, a policeman gives the fallen man a final smash on the head, before moving on to the next job.
In the front line during the parley with police is a girl, not more than five feet tall, who can hardly weigh more than 100 pounds. Under one arm whe is carrying a pursee and some newspapers. After the first deafening volley of shots she turns, to find the path to flight is blocked by a heap of fallen men. She stumbles over them, apparently dazed.
The scene shifts for a moment, then she is seen going down under a quick blow from a policeman's club, delivered from behind. She gets up, and staggers around. A few moments later she is shown being shoved into a patrol wagon, as blood cascades down her face and over her clothing.
Preceding this episode, however, is a scene which, for sheer horror, outdoes the rest. A husky, middle-aged, bare-headed man has found himself caught far behind the rear ranks of the fleeing marchers. Between him and the others, policemen are as thick as flies, but he elects to run the gantlet. Astonishingly agile for one of his age and build, he runs like a deer, leaping a ditch, dodging as he goes. Surprised policemen take hasty swings as he passes them. Some get him on the back, some on the back of the head, but he keeps his feet, and keeps going.
The scene is bursting with a frightful sort of drama. Will he make it? The suspense is almost intolerable to those who watch. It begins to look as though he will get through. But no! The police in front have tu around now, ,and are waiting for him. Still trying desperately, he swings to the right. He has put his hands up, and is holding them high above his head as he runs.
It is no use. Ther are police on the right. He is cornered. He turns, stil holding high his hands. Quickly the bluecoats close in, and the night sticks fly--above his head, from the sides, from the rear. His upraised arms fall limply under the flailing blows, and he slumps to the ground in a twisting fall, as the clubs continue to rain on him.
C.I.O. officers report that when one of the victims was delivered at an undertaking establishment, it was found that his brains literally had been beaten out, his skull crushed by blows.
Ensuing scenes are hardly less poignant. A man shot through the back is paralyzed frrom the waist. Two policemen try to make him stand up, to get into a patrol wagon, bu when they let him go his legs crumple, and he falls with his face in the dirt, almost under the rear step of the wagon. He moves his head and arms, but his legs are limp. He raises his head like a turtle, and claws the ground.
A man over whose white shirt front the blood is spreading, perceptibly, is dragged to the side of the road. Two or three policemen bend over him and look at him closely. One of them shakes his head, and slips a newspaper under the wounded man's head. There is a plain intimation that he is dying. A man in civilian clothing comes up, feels his pulse for a moment then drops the hand, and walks away. Another, in a uniform which might be that of a company policeman, stops an instant, looks at the prostrate figure, and continues on his way.
The scene shifts to the patrol wagons in the rear. Men with bloody heads, bloody faces, bloody shirts, are being loaded in. One who apparently has been shot in the leg, drags himself painfully into the picture with the aid of two policemen. An elderly man, bent almost double, holding one hand on the back of his head, clambers painfully up the steps and slumps onto the seat, burying his face in both hands. The shoulders of his white shirt are drenched with blood.
There is continuous talking, but it is difficult to distinguish anything with one exception--out of the babble there rises this clear and distinct ejaculation:
"God Almighty!"
The camera shifts back to the central scene. Here and there is a body sprawled in what appears to be the grotesque indifference of death. Far off toward the corner of the field, whence they had come originally, the routed parchers are still in flight, with an irregular line of policemen in close pursuit. It is impossible to discern, at this distance, whether violence has ended.
A policeman, somewhat disheveled, his coat open, a scowl on his face, approaches another who is standing in front of the camera. He is sweaty and tired. He says something indistinguishable. Then his face breaks into a sudden grin, he makes a motion of dusting off his hands, and strides away. The film ends.
Really good film review, hmm? That's the least we can say here. This was an example of a Congress using subpoena power to obtain evidence of wrongdoing, from whatever source, in order to instruct the citizenry about what was being done in their name, with their tax dollars. Public servants, in this case city police officers, acting outside the bounds of their supposed duty, and actually working against the public good. But, and this is important too, it never would have happened if the media hadn't been there. And by the media I do not mean people like Katie Couric and Matt Lauer, professional though they are. I mean someone standing there holding a camera in the middle of a terrible scene, and not dropping it and running for cover. We don't know who the cameraperson was that day in Chicago, but they deserve some sort of recognition, too. I personally can't imagine anything more scary than to be holding a camera in a place like that.
So this weekend, let's remember the souls who didn't get to come home and live out the rest of their lives because they trusted and cared enough to put themselves out there and do what our government told them was necessary. Let's pledge to try to oversee that government and make sure that no one sacrifices their life for a bogus cause. And let's remember people everywhere who try to show us what is happening with our goverment, and what our public servants are doing.