Bloody May

To old-fashioned people, May Day means flowers, grass, picnics, children, clean frocks. To up-and-doing Socialists and Communists it means speechmaking, parading, bombs, brickbats, conscientious violence. This connotation dates back to May Day, 1886, when some 200,000 U. S. workmen engineered a nationwide strike for an eight-hour day.

This year, Europeans were especially observant of the anniversary.

In Paris. "You join our party or we will get your two children on May Day!" This threat, whispered by Communists over and over to simple Thomas Testa, Parisian factory worker, so preyed on his mind that last week, mad with fear he rushed into the Metro (subway), dashed through the ticket puncher's wicket, flung himself off the platform before an oncoming train. The cars only took off one of his legs.

With Thomas Testa for an object lesson, Prefect Jean Chiappe of the Paris police took extraordinary precautions to make May Day in Paris peaceful. He mobilized cavalry, infantry, machine gunners; arrested and temporarily detained nearly 3,400 people before they could start a-Maying.

In Berlin. Berlin's Police President Karl Zoergiebel forbade all outdoor demonstrations on Der Tag. All the more determined, Communist bands assembled early in various parts of the city. Leather-helmeted police swinging rubber clubs quickly cleared the Potsdamer Platz and Unter den Linden, but the Communists, acting according to a pre-arranged plan, concentrated in two suburban workers' districts, Wedding and Neu Koelln.

Taking possession of these two districts, the Communists tore down lamp posts, uprooted trees, built street barricades of overturned carts, paving blocks, sewer pipe. Snipers were posted in housetops and at upper windows.

It was magnificent opportunity for Herr Zoergiebel to display to French and English observers the legitimate uses of his excessively military police department, actually a little army. Systematically his men attacked the Communist barricades with clubs and fire hoses, then with pistols, then with rifles, finally with machine guns, armored cars. Airplanes flew overhead, spotting snipers.

Small bands of "Red Front Fighters," as the organized Communists called themselves, made sudden sallies against the police, darting out from grimy alleys, overturning trucks and taxicabs until police bullets exploded the gas tanks of the upended vehicles. Communist girls were observed among the "Red Front Fighters" with red handkerchiefs round their heads, flashing knives in their hands.

"Strassen frei, Fenster zu!! Clear the streets! Close the windows!" bellowed imperious policemen patrolling the battle-scarred districts in armored cars. After nearly 50 policemen had been wounded they warned that anyone appearing at an open window would be shot. Despite the warning, curiosity was too much for three old women and for Charles Eray Mackay, a newsgatherer from New Zealand. Reporter Mackay ventured out on the street, the old women out on their balconies. All four were shot dead by the watchful police.

Toll of four days of street fighting: 27 killed, more than 100 wounded.