TRUNCHEONS USED LIKE SICKLES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 169, 4 August 1937, Page 14

TRUNCHEONS USED LIKE SICKLES

Film Record of Fatal U.S. Riot POLICE CHARGE METH0DS Films taken of the actual rioting, when. police weye ckarging the strike marcliers, were produced before the La Follette Civil Liberties Commission of the United States Congress when recently it endeavoured to fix the responsibility for the precipitation^ of the Chicago Memorial Day riot, in which several strikers were killed. The nlms, which had been taken by a news cameraman, were suppressed in the United States. They failed to iix the blame. While the pictures undoubtedly have a tremendous emotional impact and are _ of the greatest historical importancO, it cannot be said they iinally reveal who -precipitated the fatal csash between Chicagp pohce and marching itepublic Steel strikers and sympathisers in which 10 of the latter were killed, of whom seven, according to a coroner's report, were shot in the back, (wrote a correspondent of the Cliristian Science Monitor). Like the pictures of the airship Hindenburg crash, the exact instant at which the crisis occurred is missing, and an estimated seven secqnds elapsed before tlie sound machme becarae focused on the scenes that were occurring. Police In Action. These latter revealed themselves to be the first vivid, indisputably. authentic films ever recorded of a big police force in violent action against a dispersing workers' moP. Most vivid of the mass scenes is a long line of dark uniformed patrolmen raising their truncheons and biinging them down regularly on the heads and backs of the fieeing crowd, so huddled together in the centre as to block their own escape. The operation is'strikingly reminiscent of harvesters in a wheat field. Tlie picture. was run through twice, first in ordinary time, then in slow motion with certain vital points stopped altogether for a period of seconds. A gatheriug of approximately 1000, including half a dozen Senators and llepresentatives, crowded the Senate office caucus room for the display. Just. prior to it, Orlando Lippert, Paramount cameraman who toek the film, was -put on the stand, to explain how he got the scenes. March of Strikers Starting with random "shots" of pickets, the film follows the crowd on its march to establish picketing near the steel plant, then the film shows the front rank c- the crowd, numbering several hundred, arguing with the 200 assembled policemen. The picture is taken from a height sufficient to give the impression of covering practically the whole scene. There are close-ups of the two forces, indicating excitement, but no violence. Then comes the picture of the affray, with workers in retreat. It is a battlefield, save that the marcliers give practically no resistance. The picture is taken from behind the police line, and the wall of rising and falling clubs moves away in the rear wliile in the foreground individual marchers are dealt with summarily by the police. The camera picks out one member who has been beaten down, as he is hit by several policemen as he lies on the ground. A worker runs across the field, h'ands over head, as though in supplkation. But he runs into other policemen and goes down. The first showing is too rapid for the spectator to grasp details. But on the slow-motion showing,. with frequent halts at critical points, individual dramas can he disentangled. Revolver Revealed' The picture halts once, dramatically, to show a brandished police ' revolver, Contrary to earliest official denials of their use. The -picture shows police with the long hatchet or axe handles in addition to regular truncheons, similar to those used by Republic Steel guards; whose use has been denied. The crowd watched the* film in silence. Ranking officers of th^ Chicago police were placed in a forward row at Senator La Follette' s command prior to subsequent testimony. Leading up, to. the picture was testimony by strike leaders that police had restricted or denied their right to picket near the plant. Frank W. McCulloch of Evanston, industrial relations secretary of the Congregational Church's Council for Social action, testified after the film's showing that he saw a policeman empty his gun at the crowd and start to reload. "Are you sure he wasn't shooting in the air?" Senator La Follette asked. "He was aiming directly at the fieeing mob," Mr McCulloch said. The picture indicates a new factor has entered the story of industrial relations, the eye-witness recording ^ of such scenes either by still or motion cameras.