Crushing students' free speech: 1935-36

Director Sidney Lanfield's film Red Salute (1935) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026919/fullcredits starring Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Young is not a film that's likely to make anyone's Top 10, but just possibly it deserves to be remembered.

"One of the complications of the story, which Hearst's newspaper characterized as 'merry,' involved the girl's father working in cahoots with an immigration official to remove the radical student from the campus by trumping up a false charge against him of inciting a riot."

Pizzitola, Louis. Hearst Over Hollywood: Power, Passion, and Propaganda in the Movies. NY: Columbia University Press, 2002. 337.

Police very kindly arrested students protesting the film. Excepts from articles below:

"Eleven youths and seven girls were arrested on charged of unlawful assembly last evening when the police broke up a picket line of thirty students and unemployed persons protesting against 'Red Salute,' [...] Several thousand persons jammed the sidewalks and overflowed into the street, causing a traffic jam as a score of patrolmen and detectives and an emergency squad charged the pickets. [...] The police charged that those seized had obstructed pedestrian traffic, had refused to move on and had interfered with persons desiring to enter the theatre. The charge is a misdemeanor that carries punishment ranging from six months to two years in jail if they are found guilty.

"The mass picketing, which began and ended abruptly shortly after 5 P. M., was the second protest against the motion picture yesterday. In mid afternoon two men in the audience hissed and booed the picture so vociferously that the management summoned the police.

"Patrolman Charles Huber placed them under arrest on a charge of disorderly conduct, asserting that they had refused to leave the theatre and had resisted him. The prisoners said they were George Edwards, 21 years old, of 16 Bank Street, and Joseph Lash, 25, of the same address, who is executive secretary of the Student League for Industrial Democracy and editor of The Student Outloook."

"18 Assailing Film Seized at Rivoli; 11 Boys and 7 Girls Arrested After They Snarl Broadway Traffic by Mass Picketing." N.Y. Times. September 29, 1935: 24.

"The students, who ranged in age from 16 to 21 years, are members of the National Student League and the Student League for Industrial Democracy.

"According to the police, the three ringleaders, all of whom were arrested on the charge of unlawful assembly, were George Watt, 21 years old, of 857 Broadway, president of the National Student League; Robert Joseph, 20, of 12 East Nineteenth Street, and James Wechsler, 19, of Charles Street, former editor of The Columbia Spectator, daily newspaper of Columbia College.

"At 8 o'clock, the students, who were attending a meeting of the two leagues in the Union M. E. Church, 229 West Forty-eighth Street, left their meeting and marched toward the theatre. They were met by the police who warned them that they were only allowed two pickets in front of the theatre."

"125 Students Seized Picketing a Movie; Arrested as They Protest Film at Rivoli Theatre—Traffic on Broadway Tied Up." N.Y. Times. October 5, 1935: 8.

Sennwald, Andre. "On the Anatomy of Americanism; 'Red Salute' Suggests That in the Cinema It Is Well to Be Wary Of the Film That Doth Protest Too Much." N.Y. Times. October 6, 1935: 159. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F0CE4DF1F3DE53ABC4850DFBF66838E629EDE

"Police arrested sixteen young men and three young women tonight, ten of whom said they were delegates to the Congress of the American League Against War and Fascism, in breaking up mass picketing [...] The picture had incurred the opposition of liberal and radical organizations. Hand bills being distributed were signed 'The Young Circle of America' and 'The Young People's Socialist League.'

"In an address at today's session of the anti-war Congress, the Rev. Dr. Harry F. Ward of the Union Theological Seminary of New York criticized the Chamber of Commerce, the Liberty League and the Hearst press.

"'The real Fascists are mobilizing,' Dr. Ward said. "He said that the only way fascism could be 'stopped from coming to power in this country is to unite all those who, for any reason whatever, are willing to defend the democratic process before the forces of reaction can consolidate their power."

"19 Anti-War Pickets Jailed in Cleveland; Police Arrest 16 Youths, 3 Girls Outside Thetre—Dr. H.F. Ward Tells League of Fascists Here." N.Y. Times. January 5, 1936: 31.