Five hundred delegates to the National Conference for the Protection of the Foreign Born rally in Washington D.C. and are beaten and arrested as watching members of Congress cheer on the police.

‘Demonstration for Foreign-Born Gassed and Clubbed’ by Joe Pass from The Daily Worker. Vol. 7 No. 288. December 2, 1930.

Congress Opens With Attack On Those Protesting Deportations; Workers Fight Back As Congressmen Urge On The Police

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1. The U.S. Congress opened today with a tear gas attack, with clubbing and beating and terror turned loose against the National Conference of Foreign Born. The 500 delegates to the Congress, joined by another thousand, many of them Negroes, demonstrated at the capitol building steps against the savage laws this Congress has before it, directed against the foreign born. Police drew their guns and fired tear gas shells. Members of the House of Representatives stood on the steps of the capitol and urged on the police to brutally attack the foreign born. Congressmen yelled, “Give it to them! Hit ’em again!” etc.

Defend Themselves.

The workers defended themselves, seizing back from the police those already arrested. The capitol police called out the municipal reserves.

The demonstrators were forced down Pennsylvania Ave. by the gas. A delegation headed by Herbert Newton, Negro worker waiting trial in Atlanta, Ga., where he will be given the death sentence if convicted of “insurrection” for organizing Negro and white workers, forced its way into Speaker Longworth’s chambers and filed the demands of the conference.

A committee headed by Ella Reeve “Mother” Bloor went to the senate building and was refused entrance. The singing of “Solidarity” by the demonstrators could be heard in the chambers of Congress.

Eleven workers were arrested and three are in the hospital poisoned by the gas used against them by tire police.

Abuse Negro Workers.

The police harangued and threatened Newton and Billups, Negro worker of Detroit, tor walking with a white woman delegate to the Congress. The police called them “God Damned n***s” and made other abusive and threatening remarks.

The tear gas pistols used by the police was loaned to them by the U.S. Army Chemical Warfare Service. American imperialism tries out its weapons on the nearest convenient workers.

The battle lasted all the way from the capitol to the “Peace Monument” a quarter of a mile away. The police admit beating up several women workers.

Placards carried by the demonstrators said: “Down With Deportations,” “We Demand Release of Political Prisoners and Justice for the Foreign Born,” “Down With Jim Crowism,” etc.

The demonstration came during the great national conference for the protection of foreign born, which started here yesterday with 480 delegates, representing over 200,000 workers.

The conference and demonstration are in protest against the finger-printing, segregation, discrimination and deportation bills which Congress has before it, and against the terror on foreign born workers.

Among those arrested are: John Zilic, McKeesport, Pa.; Faudlis, Kuldin, Detroit; Donzelo Fiorello. Italian chef, New York; Rose Stein, dressmaker, New York; Rose Markle, dressmaker, New York; Helen Roberts, Baltimore; Julia Whitfield, Washington.

All but Zilic were charged with disorderly conduct. Zilic, after having a broken nose treated, was held on charges of assaulting an officer.

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/1930/v07-n288-NY-dec-02-1930-DW-LOC.pdf