We take a look at the largely forgotten 1937 Memorial Day Bloodbath, when police in Chicago shot at and gassed a peaceable gathering of placing steelworkers and their supporters, killing 10 individuals, most of them shot within the again. It was a time like at this time, when unions have been rising stronger. The employees have been on strike towards Republic Metal, and the police attacked them with weapons provided by the corporate. The tragic story is informed in a brand new PBS documentary. “The mass media, proper as much as The New York Instances, was supporting the police story that they’d no selection however to open hearth on this mob,” says Greg Mitchell, who directed the brand new PBS documentary, Memorial Day Bloodbath: Staff Die, Movie Buried, and edited a companion e-book that’s the first oral historical past on the tragedy. The movie may be considered at PBS.org and was produced by Lyn Goldfarb.
TRANSCRIPT
This can be a rush transcript. Copy will not be in its closing kind.
AMY GOODMAN: As Memorial Day weekend begins right here in the US, we finish at this time’s present wanting again on the largely forgotten 1937 Memorial Day Bloodbath, when police in Chicago shot at and gassed a peaceable gathering of placing steelworkers and their supporters, killing 10 individuals, most of them shot within the again. It was a time like at this time, when unions have been rising stronger. The employees have been on strike towards Republic Metal. The police attacked them with weapons provided by the corporate.
The tragic story is informed in a brand new PBS documentary, Memorial Day Bloodbath: Staff Die, Movie Buried. It primarily based on e-book with oral histories of eyewitnesses of the assault. The movie begins with the good radio broadcaster Studs Terkel.
STUDS TERKEL: That is 1937, and the labor battles are occurring. The CIO is being organized. And the steelworkers and the packing, they’re all being organized. And the Massive Metal, the large metal firms, lastly agreed. They acknowledged the union. However there’s one firm in Chicago, Republic Metal, Tom Girdler: “I can’t acknowledge the union.”
And so there was a strike. Memorial Day 1937. And there was a picnic. Strikers and their wives and youngsters are on the grounds of Republic Metal in South Chicago. Somebody threw a stone, and cops have been there on the behest of Girdler. And so they shot down 10 individuals, killed them, within the again.
JOSH CHARLES: Within the days that adopted, newspapers from coast to coast portrayed the incident as a riot provoked by a harmful mob, which left police no selection however to open hearth, with 10 useless inside days. Nonetheless, the important thing piece of proof, the one movie of the tragedy, remained buried. Paramount Information created, then suppressed, a newsreel airing the footage. When the hidden footage was lastly screened, the stunning photos drew nationwide consideration, with very important classes for at this time.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s the opening to the brand new documentary, Memorial Day Bloodbath: Staff Die, Movie Buried. That is one other clip, when an eyewitness describes how the police assault unfolded. We hear from reporter Harold Rossman and Mollie West, who was a teen when she attended the Memorial Day gathering in help of the placing staff.
MOLLIE WEST: We simply walked. And folks have been speaking and holding arms, and the youngsters have been being carried by their fathers on their shoulders. And all people was laughing, and it was a joyous factor. And as we got here nearer to the mill, the strolling slowed a bit. It appeared like the whole police power of town of Chicago was on the market. However that didn’t deter. We have been nonetheless going to go over to the mill and simply conduct a peaceable mass picket line.
HAROLD ROSSMAN: I may see just a few objects by way of the air. I may see some issues being thrown. Not a lot. It wasn’t loads of stuff, possibly a few rocks. There was a dry, crackling form of a noise. It took me a second to determine what it was, and I noticed it was gunfire. And by that point, the individuals have been falling. And so they have been turning and attempting to run, and the gunfire continued. It was clear that an entire variety of these individuals had been shot within the again. They have been attempting to flee, and so they have been nonetheless being fired at.
MOLLIE WEST: After which an entire variety of individuals have been piled up on prime of me, and I may barely breathe. Additionally, there was tear gasoline. Folks lastly started to get off, get on their toes. And once I lastly stood up, and I — complete bewilderment. I regarded round, and I noticed a battlefield.
AMY GOODMAN: The brand new PBS documentary, Memorial Day Bloodbath: Staff Die, Movie Buried, which simply aired on PBS, is now online. It’s the newest venture from longtime creator and journalist Greg Mitchell, who’s written 12 books and made many movies about U.S. politics and historical past.
Greg, welcome again to Democracy Now! This can be a devastating documentary a couple of story only a few individuals at this time know, what occurred 86 years in the past in Chicago. Take it from the place we have now simply heard these eyewitness descriptions. How did this occur?
GREG MITCHELL: OK. Nicely, I’m blissful to be right here.
Sure, the police, in reality, shot 40 individuals, the overwhelming majority within the again or within the facet. Ten would die, inside days. After which, they — because the movie exhibits, they waded by way of the gang, beating individuals over the pinnacle, typically with ax handles supplied by Republic Metal. And so, there have been one other 50 individuals who have been injured sufficient to be hospitalized. After which, once more, because the movie exhibits, the injured, as a substitute of getting any medical remedy, have been truly arrested and shoved into paddy wagons and brought to jail or taken to distant hospitals.
And that is all on the Paramount Information footage, which was suppressed. So, we all know the step-by-step issues that occurred. And you’ll watch —
AMY GOODMAN: Greg, your movie is so good —
GREG MITCHELL: — nearly all of the Paramount footage.
AMY GOODMAN: Greg, your movie is so good, I need to return to a different clip from Memorial Day Bloodbath.
JOSH CHARLES: A disturbing new account of the loss of life of 1 man emerged. A photograph of Earl Handley being carried by police, seemingly for medical consideration, had appeared in newspapers earlier. Now the complete story got here out.
Handley, a 37-year-old carpenter, had been shot within the thigh, so a employee tied a tourniquet on his leg to cease the bleeding. The Paramount footage confirmed him being hauled to a employee’s automobile for a fast journey to the hospital. After the digital camera stopped rolling, nevertheless, police yanked him out of the automobile and carried him to their paddy wagon, as his tourniquet slipped off, and he bled to loss of life.
A physician who handled a number of the wounded offered post-mortem stories proving that just about all the useless had been shot within the again or within the facet.
AMY GOODMAN: And that is one other clip from Memorial Day Bloodbath about how progressive Senator Robert La Follette subpoenaed the suppressed footage of the assault. This was the primary time movie was proven as proof in a Senate listening to.
JOSH CHARLES: Senator La Follette introduced that the footage could be screened at each common velocity and gradual movement. Pointedly, he requested the highest Chicago police officers to sit to view the movie. This was reportedly the primary time movie footage had ever been launched as proof in Congress.
The response within the listening to room: gasps, some tears, however stony silence from the highest police officers. The gradual movement revealed a murderous new element. A lot of the press protection the following day now flipped to blaming the police, though many information retailers now claimed that the digital camera may certainly lie.
NEWSREEL: What occurred at South Chicago, Memorial Day, 1937.
JOSH CHARLES: Additionally the next day, Paramount, after burying the primary two newsreels, eventually launched a movie primarily based on its footage.
NEWSREEL: The next photos, made earlier than and in the course of the bother, are proven precisely as they got here from the digital camera, with out enhancing — as offered earlier than the US Senate committee in Washington.
JOSH CHARLES: The newsreel claimed that the footage was not edited, however this was false. Truly, it omitted this significant footage: the lethal first 15 seconds. So Paramount was nonetheless withholding proof from the general public.
AMY GOODMAN: One other excerpt of Memorial Day Bloodbath: Staff Die, Movie Buried, the director, Greg Mitchell, with us. I imply, this story of what the general public understood occurred, with 10 individuals killed, discuss concerning the function of the media, and the police working with it, whether or not the digital camera was shut off, as we noticed in that first clip, or Paramount suppressing this, Greg.
GREG MITCHELL: Sure. The significance of it was, to me, the mass media, proper as much as The New York Instances, was supporting the police story, that they’d no selection however to open hearth on this mob. And Paramount had the footage, had the proof. They created a newsreel, after which they determined to not launch it. They created a second newsreel and didn’t launch that. And it took the being subpoenaed by the La Follette listening to, and the screening on Capitol Hill then pressured Paramount to launch a 3rd newsreel. And even then, metropolis officers in Chicago, in St. Louis, in Massachusetts banned its exhibiting. So, even in its closing kind, it was not launched in full.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Greg, on this final minute, why is Paramount so important? Folks won’t perceive that at this time. And what’s crucial lesson to take of what happened?
GREG MITCHELL: Nicely, you understand, as you understand, the flicks have been extremely in style then. This was earlier than tv, so most individuals acquired their — actually their visible information from these newsreels, which have been proven in each movie show at each film exhibiting.
I believe the lesson, amongst different issues, is the significance of visible proof when there’s police shootings and police brutality, as we see at this time. That’s why there’s such a deal with releasing bodycams and dashboard cams.
In fact, one other lesson is, with the good labor exercise at this time, that they stand on the shoulders of the individuals from the previous who sacrificed a lot. And that’s why I’m blissful individuals can watch this movie proper now on PBS.org, all over the place within the nation. And, after all, the e-book has the oral histories of all eyewitnesses and lots of the activists who have been wounded.
AMY GOODMAN: Greg Mitchell, director of Memorial Day Bloodbath: Staff Die, Movie Buried.
And that does it for at this time’s present. Due to Tia Potenza Smallwood and Susan Hughes right here in Cambridge. Additionally due to Denis Moynihan and Hany Massoud. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for becoming a member of us.
