When the mob came up to the park, the first thing that they did was to holler, "Get your women out and we'll take you on." They made all sorts of foul remarks, and used very dirty language. Then they rushed us and I managed to get out of the park, but I had to do some dodging to get out. /s/ ELDON DISMUKE. Personally appeared before me this 14th day of November, 1939, Eldon Dismuke, 216 North O Street, Madera, California, who swears that the above statement is true and correct to the best of his knowledge and belief. O. W. Miner, Road 13, Madera, California, being duly sworn, deposes and says: Between 8 and 8:30 Saturday morning, October 21, 1939, together with about 25 other cars of pickets, I went to the Signal Service Station on Yosemite Avenue and Howard Road, and then we all went across the tracks and about a quarter of a mile up Howard Road, west of the tracks, we pulled alongside the road and parked. While we were parked, a car with a "G" license plate went alongside the caravan heading the same way and then turned around and came down Howard Road toward Madera. There were three heavy-set men in the car. One of the men sitting in the back seat had a badge on his vest. They parked opposite the caravan and opened their doors and sat there for about 20 minutes, just looking us over. Then a tall, slim fellow came out there in a Model A Ford and talked to us. He said he was sent out there by the Highway Patrol and told us to remain where we was, that there was a meeting going on between the CIO and the farmers, and that if they didn't agree at this meeting, the Highway Patrol would go on with us 100 per cent. In the meantime, there was some other fellow came along, headed from the west, and he said that the farmers was gathering at the Bonita Gin, about 400 or 500 strong. This was at about 9:00 A. M. This fellow said they was gathering up there to come down and beat us up. I called for his credentials to know who he was and he produced a CIO receipt. I called for some of the pickets to identify this man, but no one knew him. He kept his thumb over the face of the receipt, and if his name was on it, we couldn't see it. I told the boys we was on the spot right there, and I turned around to get back to the park to get information regarding what this man said. As I turned around in my car, I throwed the drive shaft clean out. A stranger came along, and some of the pickets asked him to push me into town and he pushed me all the way to the park. I went in and reported what the slim man told us to the committee on the platform as to what we had learned out on Howard Road. They said they didn't know anything about the caravan being held up. Then a boy took me to Fresno and I got a drive shaft and repaired my car. By the time I got back to the park it was about two o'clock. I remained in front of the bandstand about 10 minutes, then went up on the stand, when a commotion started out on the street. I saw some farmers gathering all around the park on all four sides. They was holding clubs, gas pipes, and different kinds of weapons and they all had white rags hanging from them. They was shouting, "Let's get the sons-of-bitches." I also heard them call the strikers "bastards" and other very vile names, and about everything they could lay their tongues to. They kept closing and crowding up to the bandstand when the under-sheriff, Pickett, came over to the stand on the west and by the stairway and said, "All right, get off of that bandstand." We tried to protest to him to let A us move the public address system out of the way, that we would get off. young girl about 24, who was on the stand, said to the under-sheriff, "Just wait a minute, (pointing to the equipment on the stand) 'til we can remove this stuff." Just then Pickett called to some men who were about 75 or 100 feet away to come to the stand. Then one of the fellows on the stand said to Pickett, "You'd better wait a few minutes 'til we get this stuff off." Pickett then turned around, and by this time there was a crowd of about 250 men approaching from the north, and Pickett shouted, "Come and get the sons-ofbitches!" Then Pickett stepped back and the men rushed up the steps and on to the bandstand. One of them threw a club and hit me right across the face, and one of the strikers standing next to me grabbed a chair and threatened them if they came up any closer. Then I grabbed a chair and we started shoving them, trying to get them off the stand. We knocked about four or five of them down with the chairs as they were coming up the steps. About four men were beating Anna Parker up on the other side of the stand. Right here I want to explain about a longshoreman who came to our meeting Friday night, October 20, 1939, and made speeches from the stand, and we thought he was trying to help us. Before the fight started on the stand, this longshoreman, whose name I don't know, was there and after the fight started this longshoreman shoved his way through the four or five farmers and said: "I'm with you, boys." Then turned around and came at me with a gas pipe. When he struck at me with the pipe, I knocked him loose from it with a chair and hit him over the forehead with it. When he dropped his gas pipe, he came after me with his fists. Then the police started throwing tear gas into us and just then a fellow by the name of Eldon Cady, a cotton farmer I worked for a couple of years who lives west of town, rushed through and struck me with a gas pipe with a piece of wood stick in the end of it, and hit me with the end of it in the left eye. After Cady hit me, he grabbed the loudspeaker and picked it up and slammed it onto the floor and grabbed these mikes and started jerking at them. After the gas started, I started to run off the stand and got my feet all tangled up in the wires on the floor and fell down. My wife was standing at the bottom of the east stairs and was screaming when she saw me fall. I got up and went off the west end of the steps and was so blinded by the lick in the eye and the gas that I couldn't see, and I staggered right out clear through the whole bunch of them to the end of the park. I felt around for my car because I knew about where I had parked it and finally found it. I got in my car and washed my eyes out with a bottle of water that I had there, and Eldon Cady come up to the front of my car and said, "Get the hell out of the county and take your whole God-damned outfit; and get!" About 40 or 50 other men gathered around my car while he was talking to me, and I told him that it was all right for him to talk to me now, that I'd settle with him later. These other guys made threats that they was going to upset my car and beat me up. I asked them why in the hell they didn't get started, what they was waiting on. They didn't bother me and I backed my car out, pulled around on the east side of the park and pulled up alongside the sidewalks, and hollered to my wife to come on and get in the car. She was standing on the sidewalk crying and gasping from the gas. My wife came in the car and we drove home. Later, my wife, whose name is Ellen S. Miner, told me that a woman beat her and that someone else held her, and that a man hit her over the head with a club. /s/ O. W. MINER. Personally appeared before me this 14th day of November, 1939, O. W. Miner, Road 13, Madera, California, who swears that the above statement is true and correct to the best of his knowledge and belief. My commission expires June 21, 1943. CHAS. F. PRECIADO, EXHIBIT 13073 AFFIDAVIT OF FRANK STAMBUCK COUNTY OF MADERA, State of California, ss: Frank Stambuck, General Delivery, Chowchilla, California, being duly sworn, deposes and says: Toward the middle of Saturday afternoon, October 21, (handwritten: 1939, F. P. S.) I saw the farmers lining up on the Yosemite Avenue side of the park. I was on Yosemite Avenue near the cut-off when I heard some glass breaking in some cars on Yosemite near the park. I went through the park off Yosemite towards 99, and along 99 through the east edge of the park, heading south, waking some people up who were asleep on the grass. I told them the park was being attacked, and that they should be careful. Then I went back almost to the court house, and there was a large group of farmers coming in, approximately 200, and they all had clubs, pipes, etc., pointed straight down. As the mass of farmers came through the park toward the bandstand, I told our people not to attack them. I was down near the front rows of benches within about 15 feet of the three steps leading up to the bandstand, and I saw the farmers starting up the steps, and the people on the platform raising chairs straight up. Just then some tear gas bombs exploded over the heads of the people on the platform, and at that moment something hit me on the head. The next thing I knew, I was attempting to get up off the ground. I got to my feet and looked behind me and didn't see any farmers. In front of me there was a few ladies, and I asked them to get out of the gas, and I followed along behind them. When I got to 99, I walked about one-half or two-thirds of the way across the road when some of the farmers said, "Somebody got the son of a bitch. He had it coming to him anyway." Then they started after me and said "Let's get him again!" I was too weak to run, but for some reason or other they didn't come after me. I wandered on down the street and went into a Dr. Daggett's office. He put three clamps on my head and sent me to the Madera County Hospital. He didn't take my name or anything about it. When I got to the hospital, X-rays were taken of my head and I was released. I went back (handwritten: to the hospital F. P. S.) Wednesday, October 25, (handwritten: 1939 F. P. S.) and was told by the man in the office that nothing could be done for me because I was a non-resident. They told me my X-rays were negative. After I left the hospital, I was worried about my head, so I went back to Dr. Daggett and he removed the clamps. /s/ FRANK STAMBUCK. Personally appeared before me this 16th day of November, 1939, Frank Stambuck, General Delivery, Chowchilla, California, who says that the above statement is true and correct to the best of his knowledge and belief. [NOTARY'S SEAL] My commission expires June 21, 1943. /s/ CHARLES F. PRECIADO. Notary Public. EXHIBIT 13074 AFFIDAVIT OF AUBREY WOLF COUNTY OF MADERA, State of California, ss: Aubrey Wolf, 936 Cross Street, Madera, California, being duly sworn, deposes and says: I was over in the Madera Park on the speakers' stand Saturday afternoon, October 21, 1939, when I saw the farmers coming into the park carrying bats, pick handles and other weapons. I went to the microphone and told the women and children to leave. I called to the Highway Patrolmen, who were standing nearby, and asked them to give us some help. As I was calling for the Highway Patrol, the farmers came right into the park where the seats were, and the fight started. At that time, I saw a Highway Patrolman taking movies. About 25 farmers came up on the stand and were fighting with us. By this time there were six or seven of us left, including two women, Anna Parker and Mrs. Lowrie. I recognized Sherman Thomas, D. L. Leach, Howard Baker and Ollie Baker among the farmers in the park. A few seconds after the fight started, I went down the right-hand side of the stand and three men closed in on me. One of them hit me on the back with a club, and they all started pushing me, saying that they would kill me if I didn't get out. As the three men pushed me, someone started shooting tear gas, and I went over to the corner of 99 and Yosemite. As I was standing there, a gas bomb came close by me and I got tear gas in my eyes. I left there then and took Grady Hawkins, who had been hit on the head in the fight, to Dr. Daggett. /s/ AUBREY WOLF. Personally appeared before me this 14th day of November, 1939, Aubrey Wolf, 936 Cross Street, Madera, California, who says that the above statement is true and correct to the best of his knowledge and belief. [NOTARY'S SEAL] CHARLES F. PRECIADO, Notary Public. My Commission Expires June 21, 1943. EXHIBIT 13075 [Copied from Madera Tribune of Saturday, October 21, 1939] MADERA STRIKE RIOT DISPERSED FARMERS IN ADVANCE ON LOCAL PARK California Highway Patrol Breaks Up Fierce Fight With Tear Gas Bombs NO SERIOUS INJURIES 150 Cotton Growers Storm Bandstand After Defy by Striking Union One hundred and fifty Madera county cotton farmers, carrying out their avowed intention to "clean the county park of radical strike agitators and agitation meetings," stormed the stronghold of the striking C. I. O. agricultural union at about 2:30 o'clock this afternoon to engage the strikers in a brief hand-to-hand battle before a California Highway Patrol squad entered the scene to break up the riot with tear gas bombs. Although no serious injuries were reported from the fracas, bitter fighting took place as the farmers advanced to take over the park, intentions they expressed by a messenger they dispatched to the bandstand minutes before they entered the park from the Yosemite avenue side. STRIKERS DEFY Defied by the strike leaders who told the farmers to "come on" and armed themselves with chairs, the angered growers who have seen their cotton harvest almost paralyzed by the current strike, charged the meeting place and were met with resistance by the unionists. 89562-41-pt. 71-12 After the patrolmen had cleared the park of the battling farmers and strikers, Sheriff W. O. Justice and his deputies took over control of the park, the chief law enforcement officer of the county saying "the situation appears to be well in hand with both parties dispersed and we are expecting no further outbreak of trouble." SEEKS MEDIATE Herbert J. Williamson, representing the State Department of Industrial Relations, met with a group of cotton growers this afternoon. He also talked with leaders of the C. I. O. strike committee. Williamson is here "to offer impartial mediation." While mediation efforts may be rejected by either or both sides of a labor dispute, Williamson urged both sides to meet with him to discuss the issues and to determine whether peaceful adjustment or settlement may be reached through a joint meeting of growers and pickers. D. HOSPITAL RECORDS OF PERSONS INJURED IN CONNECTION WITH THE STRIKE1 Date: 10-20-1939. EXHIBIT 13076 MADERA COUNTY HOSPITAL ADMISSION RECORD Out Patient Register No. 3454 Citizen (*) Alien (). Male (*) Sing., Mar. : Female ( ). Wid., Div., Sep. (Underline). Full Name (Write clearly and correctly): William J. Armstrong. Age: 42. Birth Date: 12-4-97. Native of Indiana. Race: White. Madera County: Occupation of Bread Winner: Laborer. Wages: $--- Employed: No. Property: None. Lodge or Insurance: None. Father: Clark Armstrong. Address: Deceased. Native of Indiana. Mother: (Maiden Name): Chloe (?). Address: Texas. Native of Indiana. Husband: Address: Native of Wife (Maiden Name): Mary Armstrong. Address: Above. Native of Texas. Children: Albert, 16; W. C., 14; Dolores, 7. Address of nearest relatives or friends: Status (Underline): Out In Accident O. B. Phone: Remarks (If injured state where and how): Laceration on scalp; 2 dermal I certify this to be a true copy of the original record on file at the Madera County Hospital. MADERA COUNTY HOSPITAL, /s/ C. BAKER, Superintendent. Documents in this section were received from the files of the Madera County Hospital under subpena. |