Friends, Neighbors, Communists:

San Francisco Police Respond to Labor Strikes, 1934 to 1940

by Carolyn McNulty  

Between 1933 and 1935, New Deal legislation sanctioned the right of industrial employees to form unions and bargain collectively. In 1933, code section 7a of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) granted workers the right to organize and bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, free from the interference, restraint, or coercion of employers. Following the 1935 Supreme Court decision declaring the NIRA unconstitutional, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Wagner Act, a congressional bill sponsored by New York Senator Robert Wagner. This legislation established the National Labor Relations Board and threw "the weight of government behind the right of labor to bargain collectively, and compell[ed] employers to accede peacefully to the unionization of their plants." Thus, as Colin Gordon has written, the move from the NIRA to the Wagner Act embodied the federal government's effort to tie basic representation and bargaining rights to federal law rather than the vagaries and inconsistencies of industrial codes.[1]

Since the 1920s had represented the heyday of the open shop and company unions in American industry, many employers resisted their employees' efforts to organize unions independent of company control. In San Francisco, some unions struggled to organize against intractable employers. For example, in the city's shipping industry, passage of the NIRA resulted in massive desertions from company unions to the AFL affiliate, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA). Immediately following the establishment of the NIRA, waterfront employers reacted to the desertions by firing employees who did not belong to the company union, triggering a five-day wildcat strike by longshoremen in October 1933. In response, the National Recovery Act board stepped in, ordered the reinstatement of the fired men, and admonished the employers to cease discriminatory practices against ILA members. The NRA action strengthened the ILA's position and emboldened its members to challenge employers for control of hiring and to seek other concessions.[2] However, many shippers remained obdurate, and even proved willing to suffer financial losses in order to destroy the union.[3] Burgeoning union forces arrayed against intransigent employers set the stage for labor conflicts involving not only dock workers and employers, but the municipal government, city residents, and both local and state armed forces.

During this period of business-labor contention, between 1934 and 1940, San Francisco's police consistently served anti-union business and political interests. Despite class and religious similarity between a largely Catholic working-class police force and unionists, the city's police adopted a view of labor strife which enabled them to separate radical unionists from their friends and neighbors in the labor movement. According to Chief of Police William Quinn, the enemy was not the working man from the policeman's own neighborhood, but communist infiltrators of the labor movement. Maritime employers, the mayor, the press, and police leaders all demonized labor agitators, and encouraged police officers to believe that when they crushed alleged Communist Party influence in otherwise legitimate unions, they squashed a communist threat to their way of life.

Political leaders supported business interests by beefing up the police force in response to the perceived communist threat, hiring more officers, and arming them with more powerful firearms and chemical gases. Municipal leaders made decisions which favored the continuation of business as usual, rather than addressing the objections of workers against unfair employment practices. In San Francisco, attacks on suspected communists began in earnest during the 1934 General Strike. Business leaders used the threat of communism to deflect attention away from labor issues which might have been negotiated to the benefit of workers. By branding strikes "communist-inspired," employers did not have to negotiate in good faith with the unions, the mayor did not have to support the workers in negotiations, and the city government used all the police and arms necessary to crush strikes forcefully rather than seek negotiated settlements. This anti-union alliance among business interests, municipal leaders, and the police department continued in the major strikes up to World War II. During this period, San Francisco police reacted to business-labor clashes intending to maintain normal business operations. In order to achieve this goal, the city's police consistently sided with employers against workers and, if necessary, even favored one union over another.

The San Francisco Police Department's pro-business stance became apparent in the spring of 1934. On 9 May 1934, San Francisco longshoremen joined a strike in progress against west coast port employers. All Pacific locals of the ILA demanded a six-hour day, thirty-hour week, minimum wage of one dollar per hour with a dollar and a half per hour for overtime, a closed shop, and union-controlled hiring to replace the "shape-up" system.[4] The infamous "shape-up" required hopeful workers to convene on the docks daily to be chosen by foremen for a day's employment. One had to be a member of the company union and in good standing with management to be chosen, but even this did not guarantee selection. To remedy this condition, ILA locals sought a union hiring hall. By demanding that they make work assignments, unions hoped to eliminate a system in which workers routinely bribed foremen to ensure hire. Unwilling to give such powerful recognition to the union, port employers recruited strikebreakers, offering them full police protection and living quarters. Aiding the employers'efforts, San Francisco police mounted officers and motorcycle squads supported strikebreaking efforts by driving strikers away from the docks to allow strikebreakers to unload the ships.

Early strike conflict occurred at the hiring halls, and inconsonate reports by San Francisco dailies of these disturbances highlighted the tensions between strikers and strikebreakers. The city's papers described the strike's early events in disparate ways: as riots complete with menacing strikers armed with bats breaking the police line to rush the scab hiring hall, or as non-violent attempts by strikers to intimidate strikebreakers by gaining permission from the police to parade past the hiring hall "booing."[5] The police apparently considered the situation riotous and claimed that strikers started the disturbances by hurling missiles. Local 38-79 of the ILA promptly countered, blaming Captain DeGuire, the officer in command of the Embarcadero for his "stupid blundering in handling a tense and serious situation. . . . His encouragement of brutality and the use of clubs by the police under his supervision was directly responsible for the outburst."[6]

On 18 May police decided to enforce San Francisco's anti-picketing ordinance, an ordinance which, passed in response to previous city strikes, had been considered impractical and never before enforced. This decision exacerbated tensions and ultimately produced more violence against strikers. Witnesses claimed that "among the police [enforcing the ordinance] there were company men hired by the shipowners, dressed up like policemen . . . not caring where they hit us."[7] On 28 May, 500 policemen "massed at strategic points on the Embarcadero, following a personal command by Mayor Rossi to Chief of Police Quinn to 'put every man in the department on the Embarcadero if necessary to preserve peace and order.'"[8] Armed with sawed-off shotguns and tear gas bombs, police clashed with strikers, shooting one in the back. Captain DeGuire called the shooting justified, and described "Patrolman Emmet Donohue . . . order[ing] him [the victim] to drop the brick, and fir[ing] into the air."[9] Captain DeGuire did not explain how a bullet shot into the air hit a striker in the back.

Lieutenant Mignola claimed that policemen were struck first. His account appeared in the major dailies:

Other observers offered a different version of events. According to The Christian Science Monitor, strikers were careful not to give the police reason to retaliate, "organiz[ing] their own policemen with blue brassards labeled 'strike peace committee' who effectively curbed the small group within the unions which might have enjoyed an occasional fight."[11] A striker claimed that as soon as the picket parade crossed to the east side of the Embarcadero, plainclothes police jumped out of the marching line, pinned on badges, and, joined by police in squad cars, began clubbing strikers.[12]

During the strike, San Francisco police also directed violent behavior toward suspected radical groups. The police denied a youth group a Memorial Day permit to march in observation of National Youth Day. According to participants, 250 people had already convened at the march site when a young man climbed onto another's shoulders and announced that there would not be a parade. Without waiting for the crowd to disperse, police waded into the gathering and indiscriminately began to club the young marchers. According to one account, "Police admit that 515 armed officers were massed on the Waterfront and 250 young people of both sexes were about to receive a message from their leader."[13] The evidence does not show whether the group was about to march in disregard of the police prohibition, or whether the march was truly being called off, because the melee started before the youth leader could begin speaking to the crowd. The communist Western Worker and the "Committee against Police Brutality" documented sixty-three casualties; six of the most badly beaten were thrown in jail, and two were beaten to death, including one who died in his jail cell from his wounds. A fifteen-year-old testified to the committee that he was beaten by plainclothesmen and thrown in jail. A twelve-year-old girl claimed she was clubbed and left lying in the street while a mounted policeman rode over her. According to witnesses' testimony, a policeman shot a seventeen-year-old boy from a distance of five feet and a police car reportedly knocked two young girls to the sidewalk.[14] The San Francisco Chronicle claimed that it was a two-way war and called the youths "reds" and "communists," but even this anti-union source conceded the fierce brutality exercised against unarmed women and youths by policemen who:

On 7 June the Teamsters joined the growing strike by refusing to handle cargo placed on the docks by strikebreakers. After a period of relative peace, violence erupted anew in early July. On 2 July, police guaranteed strikers that no freight would move during the night. The strikers left a small number to keep watch, and the police kept their word. However, the next day Lt. Hoertkorn led a police caravan to the docks, declaring "the port is open."

Chief Quinn replied that keeping the Embarcadero clear of all pedestrians was impossible and that pedestrians had the right to access. Governor Merriam called in the National Guard, claiming the San Francisco Police had admitted they were incapable of handling the crisis.

After a quiet Independence Day, conflict resumed on 5 July as the police increased their already high level of violence by hurling tear gas bombs at the strikers, hitting and bloodying at least one person. The day became known as "Bloody Thursday" when two men were shot dead in what many observers described as an unprovoked attack. According to witnesses, a car drove up to an intersection and a man got out of the car and shot into the crowd, hitting three people; two died. Police reported that they were surrounded by a howling mob threatening to kill them, belting them with rocks and bricks, and threatening to overturn their police car. Harry Bridges, leader of the local ILA, challenged the police version, telling the coroner that he saw no bricks thrown until after shots were fired. A churchman who was present also claimed, "there had been no provocation, verbal or physical; no warning was given us; and there was no retaliation."[18]

Strikers marked the spot where the two men died with inscriptions "2 ILA men killed-shot in the back" and "Police Murder." Police responded by kicking flowers lain at the memorial into the gutter while scuffing out the inscriptions. The 9 July funeral for the two men turned public opinion against the employers. Strikers asked that there be no police for the funeral. The police agreed, but with the condition that there be no banners, and no communists. Mike Quin wrote of the significance of this decision:

The spectacle of this solemn funeral of forty thousand silent marchers presaged the four-day general strike of one hundred thirty thousand workers which began on 16 July.

Police violence toward strikers escalated during the course of the 1934 Maritime Strike, resulting in the deaths of several strikers and onlookers, and numerous injuries for police and strikers, including fractured vertebrae and skulls, gunshot wounds, and assorted cuts and bruises. At least one labor union alleged that much of this police violence was premeditated; designed to force strikers into negotiations or to create riotous situations which the dailies could report to discredit the strike. The Marine Workers Industrial Union (MWIU) accused the police of starting the 28 May riot : "Police reported their forces had been concentrated for just such an expected outbreak. . . . The unprovoked attack by the police and the selling of an extra edition of the Examiner, less than 20 minutes after the fracas"[20] led the union to suspect that the violent police response was planned.

In at least two other cases increased police activity followed aborted settlement offers, suggesting that police wanted to frighten strikers into negotiating. In late May, Joseph Ryan, the International President of the ILA, flew in from New York with a proposed settlement. On Saturday, 26 May, the ILA local rejected his offer. Following the union's action, Communist Party district organizer Sam Darcy noted that on Monday morning "the police launched their fiercest attack on the picket line that had yet been witnessed. As a result of this attack at least two are known to have been killed, and scores wounded."[21] A similar sequence of events took place when Ryan returned on 16 July and signed an agreement with the employers. Although the union rank and file rejected this agreement on 17 July, the press claimed the strike was over, and Darcy noted "several hundred new police were sworn in to help carry it [the agreement] through."[22]

San Francisco police answered the strikers' use of bricks and rocks as missiles by equipping their officers with more powerful weapons. They began with nightsticks, but quickly turned to riot guns, tear gas, revolvers, and police aircraft. Chief Quinn requested $160,225 for additional men and expenditures, having already "$15,000 worth of gas equipment from the Lake Erie Chemical Co., and . . . $14,000 worth from the Federal Laboratories, Inc. This last order amounted to three times the quantity of gas equipment in the hands of the entire National Guard of California."[23]

Elaine Black Yoneda, who worked on the strike defense committee, contended that police also used wholesale arrests to break the strike, a contention supported by police records.[24] The mayor demonstrated his support for a vigorous police response to the strike by increasing the police force by five hundred officers in preparation for the General Strike. Although police arrested large numbers of strikers between May and the end of July, over seventy percent of the cases were subsequently dismissed. According to Lt. Frank DeGrancourt, excluding "reds," as of 31 July five hundred seventy-four strikers had been arrested. By the end of July, four hundred nine cases had been dismissed.[25]

The San Francisco police gave suspected communists particularly close attention. The police initiated a "red squad" similar to those Richard Fried describes in Nightmare in Red, police squads established across the country to infiltrate radical groups for surveillance and to harass militant left-wing unionists on the local level.[26] The Anti-Radical Bureau, formed in July 1934, was responsible for the 17 July raid on MWIU headquarters described by Kenneth Howell:

Howell went on to relate that while police were beating one of the suspects, he recognized police Captain Molloy among the participants. As police herded Howell into the police van with the others, he guessed "Captain Molloy did not like the expression on my face so he told the uniformed police in the patrol wagon to 'break that bastard's [Howell's] nose! Fortunately for Howell, the policeman failed to obey Molloy's order.[28]

Although the major San Francisco dailies attributed repeated attacks upon communist headquarters and publishing centers to vigilantes, some observers implicated the Anti-Radical Bureau in the vandalism. According to Evelyn Seeley, writing in the August 1934 New Republic, "After an attempt to spread the story that the teamsters had attacked the Communists, the newspapers generally abandoned the pretense and gave the police the discredit that was rightfully theirs."[29] Seeley reported "The News alone refused to stoop to this. It declined to describe the raids as the work of union men, calling them simply 'police raids.'"[30] Seeley's article described policemen called to the scene of vigilante attacks continuing the destruction of typewriters, furniture, and windows rather than attempting to apprehend the vigilantes. Police allegedly had prior knowledge of these raids. A reporter claimed, "We were on the way to the scene of every raid in the wagon . . . before the actual pushovers started. It would be impossible to pull anything of that kind without the knowledge of the entire police force."[31] The ACLU called for a Department of Justice investigation of involvement by the SFPD in these "vigilante" raids.[32]

The Anti-Radical Bureau employed a variety of methods to control communists. On 16 and 17 July the Bureau raided apartments of suspected communists and arrested several without warrants. Arresting officers allegedly planted bricks and rocks in suspects' cars during searches.[33] During the 1934 strike, the Anti-Radical Bureau arrested more than three hundred alleged communists, including twenty-nine held for deportation.[34] The Bureau arrested most suspects for disturbing the peace or vagrancy, charges applicable to people loitering with no job. One affidavit claims that police even coerced an employer to dismiss a suspect who had been arrested, so that the vagrancy charge would stick.[35] Strikers also encountered police informants in their jail cells. These police agents tried to infiltrate ILA and communist organizations to gather information about suspects and activities. The Anti-Radical Bureau also ignored the Bill of Rights, attempting to limit communists' free speech and freedom of assembly by intimidating auditorium owners and managers into refusing rental to radicals.[36]

Though they had grown up in working-class families, police did not seem hampered by loyalty to workers when they opposed strikers. Jack Henning wrote of police-worker connections: "Waterfront workers and cops had enjoyed the camaraderie of the streets; often they were relatives. Whatever remained of that pre-strike rapport after two months of the strike had been finally shattered in the bloody violence of two July days."[37] Though some families had one son working on the docks and another on the police force, during the 1934 strike, police commitment to protecting employers' property transcended ethnic, religious, and family loyalties. Little existing evidence describes individual police actions and thoughts on the strike. One San Francisco officer reportedly showed his "common sense" while restraining strikers, allowing one to approach strikebreakers. The striker reportedly convinced strikebreakers not to go to work, and according to the Labor Clarion: "there was no violence and the sensible police officer had averted what might have been an unpleasant scene."[38] On 3 July another officer allowed a striker to "go down within the police lines and contact several groups of Belt Railroad men without interference from the police."[39] On "Bloody Thursday," Ray Seyden, had just finished the police academy. He remembered:

But this response was rare, or rarely reported. Despite reports of occasional police friendliness and wisecracks with strikers, San Francisco police seem to have displayed little compassion for union men, in contrast to the dozens of Portland police who were dismissed for exhibiting sympathy with the maritime strikers.[41] The major dailies reported the thoughts of officers who felt no inherent conflict in the job they had to do despite discomfort they reported in having to oppose the strikers:

Not yet unionized themselves, police did not hesitate to move uptown to escort "hot cargo" once the National Guard freed them from duty on the docks.[43]

Explaining the police response to labor disputes, Chief Quinn blamed communist activity for continuance of the maritime strike and for the outbreak of the general strike."[44] Reflecting back on the General Strike in July 1935, Quinn questioned the practice of strikebreaking because it could exacerbate anger and frustration among workers and turn them into communists. He argued for compulsory arbitration in all strike situations. Quinn praised the Wagner Act for its vitalization of collective bargaining. He also opposed hampering the police by "any volunteer organization or any local or state group whatever."[45] Quinn asserted that, in 1934, communists had tried to subvert the strike for improved work conditions and that the presence of communists justified the police action against the strikers. Finally, Quinn claimed that working conditions provided the main issue, but that forceful opposition of the police to communists proved necessary.

San Francisco police continued the pattern of cooperation with business established in the longshoremen's strike of 1934 until America's entry into World War II. Police planned their responses to minimize business disruptions; business and political leaders cooperated to increase the number of police officers and the level of force used in incidents of labor conflict. For the police, this meant acting as agents for employers by clearing pickets to allow strikebreakers access. Reports indicate that company men and police worked together in this task and sometimes fought side-by-side against picketing strikers. Police also provided tactical advice to employers. During the 1934 strike, the constant presence of strikers at the strikebreaker hiring hall had left strikebreakers afraid to apply, so the police advised employers to move the hiring operation to Pier 14, a navy landing pier. The Marine Workers Industrial Union claimed that police were even seen handing out slips to prospective strikebreakers.[46]

Following the 1934 strike, San Francisco police continued to react violently to gatherings of unionists. In 1935, the Voice of the Federation reported that orders were given by mounted police to disperse a peaceful union antiwar demonstration at the same instant that police crashed into the crowd swinging their clubs, allowing no time for union members to follow the order. Police singled out two of the seamen and beat them into bloody insensibility. "Both men were arrested and charged with 'resisting arrest' and 'failure to move on,' although both were set upon by overpowering numbers of policemen."[47]

The police massed a large force for the 1936 Warehouse strike and arrested fifty strikers, including ten women jailed under the anti-picketing law.[48] During this strike, the police department assigned two hundred additional police and twenty-two plainclothes officers as dock strike pickets, and Mayor Rossi declared a city emergency and canceled all days off for police. That same year, Harry Bridges took the ILA out of the AFL, renamed the union the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, and affiliated with John L. Lewis's CIO.

Occasionally, in order to maintain normal business activity, San Francisco police abandoned earlier allies. The longshoremen's eighty-five-day Maritime strike stretched from late October 1936 into 1937, and included brawls between the ILWU and the rival Lee Holman Union. Before the 1934 General Strike, when Lee Holman headed the ILA and installed officers of his choosing without elections, he used San Francisco policemen to remove dissidents from meetings.[49] Union members suspended Holman from office, prompting him to form his own union. Two years later, with Holman's union now opposing the ILWU, police conducted surveillance and raids of the Holman headquarters, where they confiscated weapons and arrested thirty-three men. "It is being used as an armory," police inspector John Engler said, adding: "Only three of those arrested were residents of San Francisco . . . their presence in the city means the continuance of guerrilla warfare."[50] Supposedly at organized labor's request, Police Chief Quinn ordered Lee Holman "to halt activities of his strikebreaking 'union.'"[51]

Although the Teamsters had supported the 1934 strike, by 1937 the AFL-affiliated Teamsters did not support the strike efforts of the CIO-affiliated ILWU. When teamsters attempted to bring three trucks to the North Beach warehouse of California Packing Corporation, in violation of a longshoremen and warehousemen picket, longshoremen overturned trucks of cargo that the CIO unions had declared "hot." The Oakland Tribune credited the dozen police who rushed out of the plant with prevailing upon the two sides to disengage and clear a path for each other. Captain John H. Casey admonished the combatants: "This is no way to settle the dispute. Let your leaders negotiate. Don't start any rough stuff."[52]

In April 1938, anti-CIO sailors picketed the CIO-affiliated longshoremen for continuing to work despite the sailors' strike of a ship that had a CIO crew. Because the employers wanted work to continue, police opposed the sailors, not the longshoremen. After one day of brawling, with police trying to keep sailors fifty feet away from the docks, Captain Coates permitted a picket line of twenty people. A Chronicle report conveyed a sense of the anti-labor tenor of San Francisco law enforcement in the thirties: "During the rioting one man swung at Lundeberg [the sailors' union leader] with an iron bolt wrapped in a newspaper. The man was seized by a watching policeman and disarmed and sent on his way with a kick and an admonition."[53] In May, a group representing organized labor investigated police brutality and recent beatings. In September, six thousand retail clerks went out on strike and pickets of twenty-seven major retail stores were met with police enforcement of the "anti-picket" law. Police escorted non-striking workers across the picket lines, parked police vans in front of the stores, and warned strikers that any who attempted to blockade the stores would be arrested.

Violence erupted again in May 1940 at the Euclid Candy Company. Police escorted strike-breakers and AFL members, and beat and arrested ILWU pickets, including several women, for disturbing the peace. According to the ILWU 1-6 strike committee, President Eugene Paton of the Warehousemen's Union "was slugged by Inspector Sidney Duboce without any provocation . . . while he was peaceably submitting to arrest in the custody of two officers."[54] In response, the union served notice of a suit against Chief Dullea for the beatings and charged that Dullea instructed his officers "to break [the] strike through violence, intimidation, and filing of false charges."[55] In October, sailors smashed the scalers' picket line, creating a melee in which Harry Lundeberg, the secretary of the Sailors Union of the Pacific, had a tooth knocked out and his jaw broken in four places.[56] The next morning, one hundred police, twenty on horseback, escorted strikebreakers into work.

The presence of suspected communists in several local labor unions prompted the San Francisco police to respond oppressively when those unions became embroiled in labor disputes. Whatever clashes of class, culture, or ethnicity most Americans experienced during the Depression and wartime period, they were largely unified in opposition to communism. The Communist Party never attracted a wide following in the United States, and few Americans felt the need to defend communist access to political rights in America. Communist participation in the waterfront strike enabled employers and local government to use public opposition to communism as a potent weapon against the longshoremen and sailors. San Francisco police shared the widespread aversion to communism and were determined to limit communist influence in the labor movement. The Police and Peace Officers' Journal, launched at the suggestion of the Chief of Police, to further "the interests of law enforcement, telling of the good things these men and women who make up this part of our civil life do," provided a vehicle for the dissemination of anti-communist propaganda.[57] In 1934, the Journal celebrated the formation of the Anti-Radical Bureau:

That same year, Chief Quinn "pleaded for public alertness for the next move of the Communists in our midst," and called the labor upheaval of 1934 "not merely a bitter strike, but rather a well planned revolution."[59] One year later, Quinn claimed "the Communists were working frantically to turn the strike into an actual revolution against national law and order."[60] So, despite the ethnic, religious, or class ties that bound many police officers to waterfront laborers in San Francisco, officers were willing to use violence to break legitimate strikes, to reduce a perceived communist threat to social order. Violence would remain the pattern for police action until World War II.

Wartime reduced contention between labor and employers. The severity of strike violence endemic to the 1930s was not replicated during the 1940s, as many employers gave up trying to destroy unions and made accommodations. With relative peace between employers and employees, police could reduce their vigilance against the communist threat.

While always opposing radicals, the police supported unions they believed to be conservative and "American." They pigeonholed labor unions into dichotomous categories based on the unions' ideologies: those which espoused radical communist ideas required suppression. For policemen in San Francisco between 1934 and 1940, unionists' acceptance or rejection of communist ideas became the salient distinction between dangerous and benign workingmen.

Carolyn McNulty, a master's candidate at SFSU, teaches high school history. She plans to finish her degree next year with a major in United States history and a minor in gender history. McNulty earned a bachelor of arts in history from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1988.

1. Colin Gordon, New Deals: Business, Labor, and Politics in America, 1920-1935 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 206, 207-39; William E. Leuchtenburg, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940 (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1963), 145, 150-52. For a further discussion of the NIRA and the Wagner Act, see Anthony J. Badger, The New Deal: The Depression Years, 1933-1940 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1989), 73-80, 88, 120, 134-37; Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 278, 288, 292-94, 298, 302-03. For a discussion of the limitations of the NIRA and the Wagner Act, and their impact on African-Americans, see Harvard Sitkoff, A New Deal for Blacks: The Emergence of Civil Rights as a National Issue: The Depression Decade (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 47-53.

2. For a discussion of company unions and the open shop during the 1920s, see Gordon, 37, 40, 87, 94-97, 115-16, 122-26; Lynn Dumenil The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill & Wang, 1995), 66-68. Bruce Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, & Unionism in the 1930's (Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 123.

3. Nelson, 126.

4. Elaine Black Yoneda, 1940 manuscript, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University. (Elaine Black Yoneda Collection, #86, Box number 2, Folder number 5: "Labor Trials/Bail/Defense General Strike, 1934 and July 5th "Bloody Sunday".)

5. San Francisco Examiner, 10 May 1934; San Francisco Chronicle, 11 May 1934.

6. The Labor Clarion (18 May 1934), 4.

7. Frank Perry, statement regarding Pier 18 events on 18 May 1934, Anne Rand Research Library, (ILWU Case 1934, File: "Testimonies from Strike Observers.")

8. "San Francisco Police Guns Halt Pier Riot, One Shot, 6 Hurt," San Francisco Chronicle (29 May 1934).

9. Ibid.

10. Mike Quin, The Big Strike (Olema, CA: Olema Publishing Co., 1949), 59.

11. The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, MA: 21 July 1934 quoted in "San Francisco Took Strike Calmly", Police and Peace Officers' Journal 13, no. 3 (March 1935), 11.

12. J.D. Shomaker, 30 October 1934 testimony, Anne Rand Research Library, (ILWU Case 1934, File: "Testimonies from Strike Observers.")

13. William F. Dunne, "The Great San Francisco General Strike," (New York: Workers Library Publishers, 1934), 6-7. Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University. (San Francisco Maritime and General Strike, 1934 Leaflets and Pamphlets File.)

14. "Preliminary Testimony Taken by the San Francisco Committee Against Police Brutality," San Francisco: New Economics Group. Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University. (San Francisco Maritime and General Strike, 1934 Leaflets and Pamphlets File.)

15. "San Francisco Chronicle (31 May 1934).

16. Mike Quin, The Big Strike (Olema, CA: Olema Publishing Co., 1949), 104.

17. "Harbor Board Asks Barred Zone for Docks", San Francisco Examiner (4 July 1934).

18. George Hedley, "The Strike As I Have Seen It," (address before the Church Council for Social Education, Berkeley, July 19, 1934), Anne Rand Research Library, (ILWU Case 1934, Box 3), 4.

19. Mike Quin, The Big Strike (Olema, CA: Olema Publishing Co., 1949), 127.

20. "Police Attack Strikers," The Foc'sle Head, Special Strike Bulletin, #1 (San Francisco: Marine Workers' Industrial Union, 30 May 1934). Anne Rand Research Library.

21. Sam Darcy, "The Great West Coast Maritime Strike," The Communist (July 1934).

22. Sam Darcy, "The San Francisco Bay General Strike," The Communist (October, 1934), 987.

23. Mike Quin, The Big Strike (Olema, CA: Olema Publishing Co., 1949), 143.

24. Elaine Black Yoneda, 1940 manuscript, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University. (Elaine Black Yoneda Collection, #86, Box number 2, Folder number 5: "Labor Trials/Bail/Defense General Strike, 1934 and July 5th "Bloody Sunday".)

25. ILA Defense Committee, "The ILA and the Courts During the 1934 Strike," Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University. (Elaine Black Yoneda Collection, #86, Box number 2, Folder number 5: "Labor Trials/Bail/Defense General Strike, 1934 and July 5th "Bloody Sunday".)

26. Richard M. Fried, Nightmare in Red (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 44.

27. Kenneth Howell, affidavit, ILWU Case 1934, File: Testimonies from Strike Observers", Anne Rand Research Library.

28. Ibid.

29. Evelyn Seeley, "War on the West Coast," The New Republic (1 August 1934), 309.

30. Ibid., 311.

31. O. A. Morris, ILWU Case 1934, File: Testimonies from Strike Observers", Anne Rand Research Library.

32. "Investigation Demanded on Police Raids," Western Worker 3, no. 3 (San Francisco: 8 August 1934), 2.

33. Frank Perry, ILWU Case 1934, File: Testimonies from Strike Observers", Anne Rand Research Library.

34. ILA Defense Committee, "The ILA and the Courts During the 1934 Strike,"Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University. (Elaine Black Yoneda Collection, #86, Box number 2, Folder number 5: "Labor Trials/Bail/Defense General Strike, 1934 and July 5th "Bloody Sunday".)

35. Benjamin Fee, "A Report from a Chinese Prisoner," ILWU Case 1934, File: Testimonies from Strike Observers", Anne Rand Research Library.

36. George Hedley, "The Strike As I Have Seen It," (address before the Church Council for Social Education, Berkeley, 19 July 1934), Anne Rand Research Library, (ILWU Case 1934, Box 3), 16.

37. Jack Henning, "The Spirit of '34", Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University. (File: S.F. Maritime General Strike, 1934.)

38. The Labor Clarion (11 May 1934), 4.

39. Document #1207, ILWU Case 1934, File: Testimonies from Strike Observers", Anne Rand Research Library.

40. Joseph Blum and Lisa Rubens, "Strike", California Living Magazine, San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle (8 July 1983).

41. Sam Darcy, "The Great West Coast Maritime Strike," The Communist (July 1934), 678.

42. "Thoughts of a Policeman on Strike Duty," San Francisco Examiner (3 June 1934).

43. Mike Quin, The Big Strike (Olema, CA: Olema Publishing Co., 1949), 123.

44. Opie L. Warner, "The Police Department and the Strike," Police and Peace Officers' Journal 12, no. 8 (August 1934), 8.

45. Chief William J. Quinn, "Mob Violence and Strike Disorders," Address before the 42nd Annual Convention of International Chiefs of Police, Police and Peace Officers' Journal 13, no 7 (July 1935), 22.

46. "Police and Courts as Strikebreakers," Foc'sle Head 2, no. 1 (28 May 1934), 4, Marine Workers Industrial Union, San Francisco. Anne Rand Research Library.

47. "Police Violence Flares on San Francisco Waterfront," Voice of the Federation (2 August 1935).

48. "50 arrested in Picket Line on Market Street," San Francisco Examiner (6 September 1936).

49. Bruce Nelson, Workers on the Waterfront: Seamen, Longshoremen, & Unionism in the 1930's (Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 120.

50. Oakland Tribune (24 January 1937).

51. "Police Leader Acts to Avert Any Bloodshed," Voice of the Federation (25 February 1937).

52. "Bridges Leads 500 into San Francisco Dock Battle," Oakland Tribune (31 August 1937).

53. "Longshoremen, Sailors Battle as Dock Gangs Crash Ship Picket Lines," San Francisco Chronicle (19 April 1938).

54. "Police Slug Warehouse Pickets, Arrest Gene Paton," Voice of the Federation (11 May 1940).

55. Ibid.

56. "Scalers Win Gains!", Voice of the Federation (19 October 1940).

57. "Police Journal is 21 Years Old," Police and Peace Officers' Journal 21, no. 5 (December 1943), 3.

58. Opie L. Warner, "Anti-Radical Bureau Formed," Police and Peace Officers' Journal 12, no 7 (July 1934), 11.

59. Opie L. Warner, "The Police Department and The Strike," Police and Peace Officers' Journal 12, no 8 (August 1934), 8.

60. Chief William J. Quinn, "Mob Violence and Strike Disorders," Address before the 42nd Annual Convention of International Chiefs of Police, Police and Peace Officers' Journal 13, no. 7 (July 1935), 22.