City College of New York was one of the most radical campuses of the 1930s. Here students strike demanding the reinstatement of students suspended for anti-war activity and the abolishing of R.O.T.C. on campus. As today, the police attacked.

‘1500 C.C.N.Y. Students Strike, Police Attack Meeting’ from the Daily Worker. Vol. 10 No. 137. June 8, 1933.

NEW YORK. The city government sent police to break up the strike begun yesterday at City College for the reinstatement of students suspended for taking part in an anti-war demonstration last week.

The strike began at 10 a.m., with 200 students around the college flag pole. By 11 o’clock the number swelled to 1,500, when the police appeared and broke into the center of the demonstration.

The students clasped hands and formed a large ring around the cops, shouting, “Cops off the Campus, Cops off the Campus.” Students boosted on shoulders to speak were hauled down by the police.

Protest Suppression.

Indignant at the suppression of the strike meeting, Irving Dichter protested to Dean Gottschall, who refused to send the cops away and told the students they could meet inside in the Great Hall, hoping to keep the protest inside the college walls.

The students marched into the hall and when addressed by the Dean began firing questions at him on the suspension of the students, the right to hold protest meetings, and demanded an open hearing for the suspended students.

2,000 In Hall.

By this time there were 2,000 students in the hall. The Dean told them to send a committee with the request for an open hearing, which later turned out to be a trick to meet with a small number of students so as to be able to say only a small number were in the fight.

The students left the hall and marched to 138th Street and Amsterdam Ave., where the meeting was continued.

Pending the Dean’s announcement of his decision the students are preparing an open hearing under the auspices of a student committee elected at the meeting.

Fight to Continue.

The National Student League, a leader in the students’ strike, announced that the campaign to oust President Robinson, Colonel Lewis and Major Holton and reinstate the students would continue. These three are directly responsible for the suspension of the students and are rabid war-mongers who led the attack on the students for their war activities. The full demands of strike are:

1. Immediate reinstatement of the suspended students.
2. Immediate reinstatement of the suspended clubs.
3. Immediate reinstatement of the expelled Campus editors and the Campus charter.
4. Immediate abolition of the R.O.T.C. in the college.
5. Immediate removal of President Robinson.
6. No police interference with student activities.

The Civil Liberties Union sent a protest yesterday to the Board of Higher Education against the suspension of the students asking for “a reversal.”

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1933/v010-n137-NY-jun-08-1933-DW-LOC.pdf