Open forum, vol. 11, no. 13 (March, 1934)

OPEN FORUM

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.-Mifiten

Vol. 14

MARCH 31, 1934, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

No.415

"VALLEY VIGILANTES KIDNAP THREE

BULLETIN

Ag we go to press word comes that Brig.-

ten. Pelham D. Glassford has been ap-

ited Federal Conciliator of labor and

yricultural disputes in the Imperial Val-

py, He was appointed by Secy. of Labor

mrkins, Secy. of Agriculture Wallace and

thaivman Wagner of the Nat'] Labor Board

i response to a recommendation by the

nderal Commission that recently investi-

ated the Valley. He has accepted the ap-

jintment we understand and will be on

ie job next week. It will be remember-

ii that Glassford was formerly Chief of

dlice in Washington, D. C. and resigned

wer the way the bonus army was handled

i 1932 when they were driven from the

vaity.

The grower-shipper element in the Val-

byisnot pleased with Glassford's appoint-

nent. A. N. Jack, their president, im-

yediately expressed the opinion that Glass-

`rd "will find nothing to concilate when

levets here."" The Board of Supervisors

jied Washington that "he can be of no

assistance to us and such expense would be

unjustified." `Thus do they hurl the club

if defiance at him before he has even en-

red the Valley.

Well, in our judgment he will find plenty

do, and we hope he will have the intes-.

inal stamina to take hold of the job and

(lean up a mess that smells to heaven.

The big, bad wolves of Imperial Valley

we on the rampage again. Last Sunday

ey kidnapped three representatives of the

American Civil Liberties Union who went

ito the Valley from Los Angeles to hold

imeeting at Calexico. Dr. Alexander Ir-

ine, famous author of `""My Lady of the

thimney Corner' and The Fighting Par-

`m," an autobigraphy, was taken out of a

@ in Calexico by vigilantes, beaten up

ind otherwise abused, and dumped on the

isert thirty miles east of Brawley. His

llece, Miss Lenore Hardin, was grabbed

tthe same time by another bunch of vig-

antes who dumped her by the roadside

tar Et Centro. Ellis O. Jones was seized

y fifteen or twenty thugs on a street in

lilexico, beaten up and transported some

itty miles to a canyon west of El Centro,

`Xmiles from the State Highway. He says

lat they took some of his personal belong-

gs including $10 in cash from him and

tthim to make his way back as best he

`ould. All of these kidnappings occurred

"broad daylight in a so-called civilized

`Mnunity. The police were nowhere in

`idence although it is suspected that some

it the kidnappers were themselves officials

ithe law. Ernest Besig, a lawyer who

"(been in the Valley for several days

`aking investigations for the A. C. L. U.,

"8 so terrorized by the mob at Calexico

`the time the others were kidnapped that

"took refuge in the Calexico jail.

Pe Irvine is a former clergyman now

`" Seventy, well known all over America

; for a time was connected with a boys'

an In Santa Barbara. After receiving

ke atrocious treatment described, he made

, 29 back from where he was left in

of eurosert toward Brawley. He says that

, nted once and after coming to press-

. 1 an effort to reach some habitation.

ake finally picked him up and took him

Mice ey He went immediately to the

Mise station and inquired about his niece,

ardin. Fearing further violence at

ithe lands of the vigilantes he remained in

;,,%ll the rest of the night and the next

tH .

aw 7:00 p.m. when a car from Los

i a appeared and bore him back to

th

a `'Y. He alleges that he was hectored

all day Monday at the jail and was follow-

out of the jail by vigilantes who insisted as

he was leaving Imperial County that he

raise his right hand and swear never to re-

turn. He absolutely refused to do this, as

he had refused the night before when

dumped out on the desert, declaring that

he was an American citizen and that they

could kill him if they wished before he

would forswear his rights as an American.

To cap the climax, the people in Imperial

Valley who are responsible for such out-

rages, beginning with the arrest of num-

erous workers on strike and the kidnapping

of A. L. Wirin in January, deny that any

kidnappings occured in their Valley last

Sunday. They will have hard work con-

vincing the public that there is no truth

to the tales of three reputable citizens who

were handled as badly as were this trio.

TO RED-BLOODED AMERICANS

Friends of Freedom:

The long-continued campaign for

constitutional rights inthe Imperial

Valley is draining our resources. It

is now several months since we sought

to restore that field to normalcy. Our

representatives have been shamefully

treated-beaten, kidnapped, robbed

and otherwise mistreated. Read the

story of the latest outrages as told on

this page. It makes one's blood boil.

But it should do more than that; it

should loosen your purse strings too.

We must make good the losses that

have been sustained by our courage-

ous representatives down there. We

must stand back of them-and of

others who will go into that unhappy

region and take risks that many would

shrink from. Send us your gifts right

away therefore. Make them gener-.

ous. We can't carry on unless you

back us up loyally. But you will.

We know you will. Please do it now.

Miss Hardin made her way into El Cen-

tro where she remained for the night and

came out of the Valley by way of San

Diego Monday morning. Ellis Jones says

that he walked fully ten miles from the

canyon where he had been left by his four

captors and was picked up by a car com-

ing toward San Diego early Monday morn-

ing.

Peirson M. Hall, United States Attorney

at Los Angeles, has been apprised of this

latest outbreak of violence in Imperial Val-

ley and has been asked to take vigorous

measures to correct a situation which is ab-

solutely intolerably from the standpoint of

American ideals. Washington aid was also

invoked by the American Civil Liberties

Union, messages being sent to Homer 8S.

Cummings, Attorney General of the United

States and Frances Perkins, Secretary of

Labor in Roosevelt's cabinet. EH. Raymond

Cato, head of the State Motorcycle Patrol

at Sacramento, was called over the phone

on Sunday night when we learned that

there was trouble in the Valley, but he ab-

solutely refused to direct that any aid

should be given to our representatives. The

Sheriff of Imperial County was also asked

to do something, but displayed the same

kind of indifference that he has regularly

shown toward matters of this kind. He

professed absolute ignorance of anything

that was happening in Imperial County

contrary to law.

All that the growers and officials of Im-

Injunction Against South Dakota

Farmers to be Fought by A. G. L. U.

The first court order restraining farmers

from organizing campaigns against fore-

closures and evictions issued at Sisseton,

3. D., will be contested in the courts and,

if necessary, appealed to the Supreme

Court of the United States, the American

Civil Liberties Union declared in announc-

ing it was entering the case at the request

of the farmers who have been enjoined.

"The A.C.L.U. opposes the injunction on

the grounds "that mere words as well as

acts are enjoined, that the present order

was issued against the farmers without

notice or hearing, that the injunction is

plainly an effort to smash a militant farm-

ers' organization at a time when the New

Deal is encouraging all economic groups

to organize."

Application has peen made to Judge

Howard Babcock who issued the restrain-

ing order on February 23 against the Unit-

ed Farmers League and the Unemployed

Council to permit the Union to appear-at

hearings set for March 27th as "friend of

the court:'"? Joining in preparation of the

brief opposing the temporary injunction

will be Arthur Garfield Hays, general coun-

sel for the Civil Liberties Union, Jerome.

Hellerstein of the Internationa] Juridical

Association, both of New York, and A. L.

Wirin, A. C. L. U. attorney of Los Angeles,

California.

$$ HP ~

U. S. Report on Imperial Valley

The National Labor Board has sent us a

number of the Federal Commission reports

on the Imperial Valley. The report was

made by Prof. J. lL. Leonard, Will J. French

and Simon J. Lubin and covers the situation

as it existed in February. Students of in-

dustrial and agricultural strife will find it

tremendously interesting. If you want a

copy call and get it or send us five cents

and we will mail you one.

perial County seem to understand is vio-

lence. Suppress the Reds; drive them out

of the Valley is their slogan, and when

they say `"`Reds" they mean the American

Civil Liberties Union representatives, Com-

munist organizers and anyone sympathetic

toward labor. A large meeting was held

at the fairgrounds at Imperial last. week

Friday afternoon at which these doctrines

of suppression were advocated afresh.

Working through the Mexican Consul, En-

rique Terrazas, the growers are making a

desperate attempt to set up a company

union which they can control. The big erop

of the Valley, melons, will be ready to har-

vest in about a month. 35,000 acres have

been planted to melons, and unless some

kind of settlement between the workers

and growers is effected soon there is likely

to be a first-class war precipitated in the

Valley in about four weeks.

Not only have the growers resented the

A.C. L. U. going into the Valley and trying

to reestablish the right of the workers to

meet, discuss their problems, and form a

union of their own choosing, but they have

also anathematized the Federal Commission.

that recently reported on conditions in Im-

perial Valley. This commission was ap-

pointed by the National Labor Board of

Washington, D. C., and because it con-

demned working conditions as unsanitary

and intolerable and recommended drastic

changes as to wages and the right of the

workers to meet freely, the growers have

done their utmost to discredit the commis-

(Continued on Page 2)

~ port was approved by

THE OPEN FORUM

Published every Saturday at 1022 Civic Center Bidg.

Second and Broadway,

Los Angeles, California, by The Southern California

Branch of The American Civil Liberties Union.

Phone: TUcker 6836

Hlinton J. Taft. Editor

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Upton Sinclair Kate Crane Gartz

DBeoremus Scudder

Lee Gallagher Ethelwyn Mills P. D. Noel

goin Packard John Beardsley Charlotte Dantzig

A. L. Wirin Edwin P. Ryland

Subscription Rates-One Dollar u Year, Five Cents

per Copy. In bundles of ten or more to one address,

Two Cents Hach, if ordered in advance.

Advertising Rates on Request.

Entered as second-class matter Dec. 13, 1924, at the

post office of Los Angeles, California, wnder the

Act of March 8, 1879.

MARCH 81, 1934, LOS ANGELES, CALIF.

crfaes "o 16

a

Mediation Proposal Made -

A proposal to help avoid interference

with public meetings by conflicting groups

has been sent by the Civil Liberties Union to

the national offices of the Communist and

Socialist parties and to trade union and

political groups, following a report made

to the Union by a Commission of Inquiry

on the recent disturbance at Madison

Square Garden, where a meeting against

Austrian fascism was disrupted by oppos-

ing groups in the audience. |

The Union offered its service as a "neu-

tral agency" that had given similar service

in the past in cases where working class

street meetings had been broken up by

rival grouPs. Continued disturbances "are

bound to result in the intervention of the

public authorities." Formation of an im-

partial committee outside political groups

to obtain working agreements between

warring faciions wasrecommended. Mem-

bers of the Commission of Inquiry were

Prof. Henry Pratt Fairchild of N. Y. Uni-

versity; Corliss Lamont, writer; Albert

Bingham, editor of "Common Sense ;'' Wil-

liam B. Spofford of the Church League for

Industrial Democracy, and Roger N. Bald-

- win, director of the Union. The final re-

a majority of the

Board of Directors of the A. C. L. Lavo

dissenting reports were submitted by the

members of the Board.

The Commission declared that the Com-

~ munists came to the Madison Square Gar-

den meeting with "the announced purpose

of preventing two speakers from being

heard and of demanding places for two of

their own speakers on the program. The

immediate responsibility for breaking up

the meeting rests, therefore, squarely up-

on the Comraunist Party leadership."' The

handling of the meeting, however, was cit-

ed as intensifying the conflict. The attack

on the Editor of the Daily Worker who

went to the platform alone was character-

ized as "disgraceful and wholly unneces-

sary."

Dissenting from this report, Robert W.

Dunn and Mary Van Kleeck declared,

"+h at the Socialist Party should have avoid-

ed forseeable provocation and the Com-

munist Party should have foreseen the ef-

fect of its advice to protest. But in our

opinion such a public meeting could not

escape protest from a dissenting group in-

cluded in the general call and vitally anx-

ious to have its point of view expressed.

An audience has rights, as well as the plat-

form. We dissent from the implication that

the right of free assemblage requires peace

gained by withholding protest."

Norman M. Thomas also dissented from

the majority report. THe deplored the A.

C. L. U.'s stepping out of "`its historic role

as a defender of pure and simple rights of

assemblage and the unmolested conduct of

meetings to try to pass judgment on the

way in which leaders of a meeting caught

entirely by surprise, conducted a meeting

after the riot had begun. ... The sole and

single responsibility of the Civil Liberties

Union was to determine who was respon-

sible for the kind of attack which turned

what would have been a solemn and order-

ly meeting into a riot."

Passaic Ban Opposed

Protesting the ban by municipal authori-

ties at Passaic, N. J., on speeches by a rad-

ical leader and labor organizer, Albert

Weissbord, the American Civil Liberties

Union will hold a meeting at Passaic Fri-

day evening at which Norman M. Thomas,

Socialist leader, Roger N. Baldwin, director

of the A. C. L. U., Vera Buch, associate of

Mr. Weissbord in the Communist League

of Struggle, and others will speak. Injunc-

tion proceedings will also be undertaken to

restrain the mayor and police officials from

interfering with meetings at which Mr.

Weissbord is to speak.

"Law or no law,' Chief of Police Ken-

nedy of Passaic told A. L. Wirin, counsel

for the Union, last week. ``Weissbord will

not be allowed to speak in Passaic.'' Mayor

Johnson declared that Passaic was a

"quiet, peaceful' town with "happy and

contented' people and that the organizer

would not be allowed to speak since distur-

bances might follow.

"Mr. Weissbord,'"' the Union said, "was

chief organizer of the United Front Com-

mittee of Textile Workers in the Passaic

strike of 1926. This arbitrary and illegal

prohibition against' him plainly proceeds

from fear by the authorities that he will

start another organizing campaign in the

mills. Denial of the rights of a labor or-

ganizer to hold meetings not only is a vio-

lation of the right of free speech, but a

defiance of the New Deal with its empha-

Sls On. union organization."'

(Continued from Page 1)

sion and to repudiate its findings. Dr. J.

13: Leonard of the University of Southern

California, who headed the commission,

had his hotel door kicked at El Centro re-

cently when he was staying there over-

night. Simon J. Lubin, another member of

the commission, recently commented on

conditions in Imperial Valley before the

Commonwealth Club of San Francisco by'

saying that the workers down there "`live

worse than feudal serfs, get virtually no-

thing for their labor, are dominated by a

handful of shippers who control 90 per

cent of the 500,000 acres in the valley, and

are "tormented by so-called peace ofticers

who do the bidding of their masters with

the able assistance of pistols, machine guns,

tear gas bombs, hardwood sticks and a suf-

ficiently large deputized rabble to supply

the chorus for fifty comic operas-and the

color as well."

Another batch of workers was arrest-

ed last week and_thrown into jail on trump-

ed-up charges, thus fanning the flames of

discontent among the laborers to a higher

pitch of intensity. Everything at present

indicates a blow-up of major proportions in

Imperial Valley within a month. The

American Civil Liberties Union will do all

in its power to avert such a catastrophe,

but unless the Federal government moves

in on the situation and reestablishes con-

stitutional rights in that area we fear there

is nothing ahead except grave disaster.

SINCLAIR BOOKS CHEAP

For only a dollar we will send you

postpaid fifteen copies of Upton Sin-

clair's newest book:

**T, Governor of California "'

This is the book that sets forth his EPIC

plan-for ending poverty in California. It is

the platform on which he proposes to run for

the nomination of Governor in the coming

primaries.

We make the same offer regarding his form-

er book-

"THE WAY OUT"

fifteen copies for a dollar. Or you may order

part of one kind and part of the other-15

altogether.

"LETTERS TO JUDD"

- are ten cents each.

Send your orders to The Open Forum, 1022

Civic Center Blidg., Los Angeles, Calif. Better

hurry while we have a good supply on hand.

Police Brutality Protested

Police brutality in breaking up a "peace

ful, orderly, and lawful" Scottsboro meet.

ing in the Harlem section of New York City

was protested to Mayor LaGuardia by the

City Committee of the Civil Liberties Up.

ion as "utterly inexcusable and thoroughly

lawless." This is the third serious cage of

police violence protested by the Committee

since the beginning of the Fusion Admin.

istration.

Following complaints by A. L. Wirin, A

CG. L. U. attorney, and representatives of

the International Labor Defense, againg

the secret police investigation of the

trouble, Mayor LaGuardia ordered that the

reporters be allowed to attend the hearings

and that attorneys for the Union and the

I. L. D. be permitted to cross-examine the

witnesses. Mr. Wirin was requested by the

Mayor to prepare a special report on the

whole affair.

"Our information is to the effect," the

- Committee's protest said, "`that officers de-

manded a permit of speakers when there js

no law or ordinace requiring such a permit;

that a police car was driven into the crowd

in an attempt to overturn the speakers'

platform and that although your own ord-

ers to the effect that peaceful and orderly

demonstrations should not be molested by

the police, one of the officers responded,

"To hell with that. We have our orders,"

The use of tear gas by the police is brutal-

ity that should not be tolerated by your ad-

. ministration."'

Federal Censorship Opposed

Defeat of the Patman bill for creation of

a federal motion picture censorship was

urged at a hearing on the bill in Washing-

ton in a memorial from the National Coun-

cil on Freedom from Censorship, signed by

Hatcher Hughes, chairman, Elmer Rice and

Barrett H. Clark, vice-chairman, and pre-

sented by Leroy Bowman of the Child Study

Association who acted as spokesman for

a number of groups opposing the bill.

--

_ Hear Scott on Technocracy

Howard Scott, the original Technocrat,

who set all the country talking on the sub-

ject, will lecture on Technocracy at the

Shrine auditorium next Monday night,

April 2d. Orchestra tickets may be had

for only 25c each at the office of the Ameti-

can Civil Liberties Union, 1022 Civic Center

Bldg. Tel. TUcker 6836.

COMING EVENTS

WOMEN'S SHELLEY CLUB meets regu-

larly on the second Wednesday of each

month at 12:45 P. M. at the Ontra Cafe-

teria, 757 South Vermont Avenue.

SOCIALIST PARTY. Headquarters a

126 N. St. Louis St. Hyman Sheenin, State

Secretary. ~

PROLETARIAN PARTY, Room 101

Music-Art Building, 232 So. Hill St. Forum

every Wednesday at 8 p. m. Classes in

History and Philosophy Monday oe

led by C. M. O'Brien; in American His a

Tuesday evening, led by Minna Bergsiror

in Lenin's Imperialism Friday evens, 1.

by J. Feebis. 8 p. m. is the hour.

mission free.

ETT eee melamine tennant

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