Our mayor is a politician, and cautious. He would not say that it was the duty of the police to smash the harbor strike, neither would he say that a group of American citizens had the right to proceed to Liberty Hill and there read the Constitution of their country and explain to all who might care to hear them the meaning of the Bill of Rights. His proposition was that we should go to the harbor and ask permission of Captain Plummer, and if Plummer refused, the mayor would “review” his decision. To this we answered that the essence of the situation was time; the strikers were being robbed of their rights every hour, and civil liberties were not subject to review by either a police captain or a mayor. The upshot of the hour’s argument was that Mayor Cryer made the specific promise that he would telephone to Captain Plummer and instruct him that we were to be “protected in our constitutional rights, and not molested so long as we did not incite to violence.” Let it be added that at his next interview the mayor denied that he had made this promise. Now, I shall not take up space in detailing what happened to our little group. Suffice it to say, we repaired to the harbor, a dozen ladies and gentlemen, with two lawyers; and in an interview with Chief of Police Oaks we were informed that if we attempted to read the Constitution of the United States on Liberty Hill we would be arrested and jailed without bail. Four of us, Prince Hopkins, Hugh Hardyman, Hunter Kimbrough, and the writer, did attempt to read the Constitution. I personally read Article One of the first amendment, and was then placed under arrest. Kimbrough started to read the Declaration of Independence. Hopkins remarked, “We have not come here to incite to violence.” Hardyman remarked, “This is a most delightful climate.” For these words they were arrested—all four of us for “suspicion of criminal syndicalism.”[A] We were held “incommunicado” for eighteen hours, and an effort was then made to rush us into court a few minutes before closing time, and have us committed and spirited away again, so that we could be given the “third degree”; but this plot was balked, owing to the fact that a confidant of Chief Oaks betrayed it to my wife, and our lawyers got to the court and demanded and obtained bail. A week later we went again to the harbor and held our mass meeting, and said to ten or fifteen thousand people everything that we had to say. Next day the police turned loose all but twenty-eight of the six hundred men they had arrested; and some three weeks later a police judge threw out the case against us four. So ended our little adventure in “criminal syndicalism.” ----- Footnote A: