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Attack on Ukrainian Group Pressed from Washington
Square to East 67th St
POLICEMEN ARE BEATEN
Protest Marchers and Guards Struck Down
With Bottles--Nine Arrests Made
The New York Times, New York, New York,
Sunday, November 19, 1933, Front Page Story
Five persons were injured and nine arrested in street disturbances
that lasted for two hours yesterday morning, when 500 Communists
attempted to break up a parade of 8,000 Ukrainians from Washington
Square to the Central Opera House at Sixth-seventh Street and Third
Avenue.
Three hundred policemen, including a score of mounted men, were
called out to enable the marchers to reach the opera house and to
conduct a meeting there in peace. Held under the auspices of the
United Ukrainian Societies of New York and Vicinity, the meeting
adopted resolutions asking President Roosevelt to demand guarantees
from the Soviet Union that the famine in the Ukraine would be
alleviated. The resolutions charged that the food shortage was a
result of a deliberate plot by the Moscow government to starve the
Ukrainian peasants into submission.
FIRST CLASH IN WASHINGTON SQUARE
At 10 o'clock yesterday morning the Ukrainians began to gather
at the southeast corner of Washington Square, while Communists
collected west of the Washington Arch, almost diagonally across
the square. The Ukrainians had a permit to parade, but the
Communists had not.
The first clash occurred at the southern end of the square. There
was a free-for-all fight, during which Patrolman Edgar Denham of
the Mercer Street station said he was beaten and kicked by
Communists. Patrolman Denham arrested a man who identified
himself as Dolia Mishne, 31 years old, of 1,152 Crotona Parkway
East, the Bronx, a student and a graduate of Colorado State
University, on a charge of felonious assault in striking Denham in the
face with a club.
When the Ukrainian parade reached University Place and Ninth
Street, according to the police, a group of Communists attacked the
marchers. John Boychuk of 783 East Eleventh Street, who was
carrying an American flag in the parade, was reported to have
been set upon by four men, who beat him with milk bottles and
threw pepper in his eyes. According to the police, Boychuk told
them that his attackers threw grease upon the flag from the bottles.
FIVE SEIZED IN SECOND CLASH
The police drove off the attackers and chased them through side
streets. Some of the Communists ran to Fifth Avenue, where the police
caught up with them on the sidewalk near the Brevoort Hotel. After
a melee five men were arrested.
These prisoners identified themselves as Phillip Kaplan, 43 years
old, a relief worker for the city, of 551 Fox Street, the Bronx; George
Mitchell, 38, a laborer, of 324 East Twenty-sixth Street; Wayne
Herman Helin, 19, a laborer, of 2,070 Fifth Avenue; Leon Zartarin, 17,
a student at Washington Irving High School, of 501 175th Street,
the Bronx, and John Henchuk, 22, a restaurant helper, of 9 East
Eighth Street. All were charged with Felonious assault.
Kaplan was charged with striking Detective Thomas Jenkins of the
alien squad, who was badly beaten and had cuts over his eye, which
required three stitches. The other four arrested near the Brevoort were
charged with attacking Boychuk.
The parade continued up University Place to Union Square, up
Broadway to Twenty-third Street, and uptown. At Twenty-eighth
Street and Lexinton Avenue the policy again dispersed a crowd of
Communists who lined both sidewalks, jeering and throwing bottles,
sticks and brickbats at the marchers. Similar incidents occurred at
Thirty-fifth Street, at Fiftieth Street, and at Sixty-sixth street.
At Sixty-sixth Street and Lexington Avenue Patrolman Frank J.
Smith arrested a man who said he was David Crotts, 48, of 2,441
Sixty-fifth Street, Brooklyn, on a charge of disorderly conduct.
Patrolman Smith said Crotte called him a "rat" and resisted arrest.
The policeman was badly beaten, knocked down and kicked in the
back by several men who tried to get his prisoner away from him,
but he held on until another policeman rescued him.
Two others were arrested near the opera house on disorderly
conduct charges. They said they were Manual Riviera, 34, of 80
East 114th Street, and Edith Rubin, 31, a stenographer, who refused
to give her address. The complainant, against these two was Paul
Papura, a member of the executive committee of the United
Ukrainian Societies, who said he had been beaten.
A policeman, whose name was not learned, fell off his horse in
a melee with the rioters, but was not badly hurt.
The police established lines all around the opera house, keeping
a crowd of yelling Communists at safe distance while the Ukrainians
entered. During the five hours the meeting lasted the Communists
drifted away. When the meeting was over, the Ukrainians left the
opera house without being molested.
A large collection of iron pipes, chair rungs, milk bottles, pop
bottles, and glass jars, some filled with liquids and grease, was taken
from prisoners and found in the streets after the rioting.
Arranged in Night Court before Magistrate Goldstein, Rivera was
found guilty, but sentence was suspended. The complaints against
Crotte and Miss Rubin were dismissed.
Crotto was dismissed because the arresting officer was not present
to sign a complaint. The court was informed that the policeman had
been injured and was unable to appear. Miss Rubin was freed after the
policeman who arrested her admitted that he had not instructed her
specifically to move on, but had addressed the crowd in general.
The New York Times, New York, New York,
Sunday, November 19, 1933, Front Page Story
This historical material researched, transcribed and posted from
The New York Times on microfilm by the www.ArtUkraine.com
Information Service (ARTUIS).
FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC USE ONLY
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