"Do you know that a worse than military censorship is being maintained in the domain of Stocklitzky (the Northwestern States), where it is prohibited to the branches to communicate with each other or to send out or receive any correspondence otherwise than through the hands of the censors, the Executive Committee, and that this censorship committee, like the imperialists in the world's war, are holding up the mail of these branches and do not deliver at all the 'undesirable' mail?" August 30, 1919, the day for the assembling of the National Emergency Convention of the Socialist Party, at last arrived. Delegates of the Right Wing, and many of the Left, including John Reed, I. E. Ferguson and Rose Pastor Stokes, were present. The Left Wing delegates, to the number of about 84, arrived early at the place of meeting, Machinists' Hall, 113 South Ashland Boulevard, Chicago. Trouble immediately began, for the seats being occupied by the Left Wingers, the members of the Right were crowded out. Germer and Gerber of the Right seem to have lost their heads. "The Chicago Herald and Examiner," of August 31, 1919, informs us that Adolph Germer, National Secretary of the Socialist Party and one of the leading members of the Right Wing, called in the police, who cleared the hall. "The Chicago Tribune" of the same day tells us that everybody was exchanging fisticuffs when the police arrived. Detective Sergeant Lawrence McDonough, head of the anarchist squad, with the aid of a dozen uniformed policemen, seems to have saved the day for the Right Wingers. John Reed, of the Left Wing, was furious, and "The Call," New York, August 31, 1919, tells us that he issued a statement which he addressed to the delegates of the Emergency Convention: "We address you to inform you of occurrences this morning which every Revolutionary Socialist on the floor of this convention will protest against. "Delegates from Illinois, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, Ohio, Nebraska, California and other states entered the convention floor and took their seats in readiness for the opening of the convention. "At nearly 10 o'clock Gerber of New York and Goebel of New Jersey, who were at the door and attempted to refuse the above named delegates admission, called the police and these delegations were ejected from the hall by police power, many of them being roughly handled." Press reports inform us that after the belligerents had calmed down the meeting was again convened, and that Victor Berger, in referring to the Lefts, said: "They're just a lot of anarchists; we are the party." Berger did not say whether or not by the word "we" he meant the old National Executive Committee, which should have gone out of office in July,[G] but seemed to have given itself a "mandate" to run the National Emergency Convention.