As Terzani Goes to Trial
Beffel, John Nicholas
As Terzani Goes to Trial By John Nicholas Beffel ATHOS TERZANI, young anti-Fascist, is the newest prospective victim in our long notional history of labor frame-ups. He is to go on trial in Long...
...One will take place at 1 p. m. in Brownsville Labor Lyceum, 246 Sackman Street, Brooklyn...
...HEAVY SOCIALIST GAIN IN CORNING pORNING, N. Y.—W...
...Notable...
...And if anybody thinks we can't do it," he said, "look at Hitler and Mussolini...
...Speakers will include Norman Thomas, Carlo Treses, Girolamo Valenti of La Stampa Libera, Herbert Mahler and the General Defense Committee of the I.W.W., Phillip DeLuca of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and Arturo Giovannitti...
...for the killing of his comrade Anthony Fierro, who was shot in the back while defending a friend who was being thrown out of a meeting of the fascist Khaki Shirts of America in Astoria, L. I., no July 14th...
...General" Siani, chiropractor, used his medical knowledge to aid Fierro...
...Arthur Garfield Hays is chief defense counsel, assisted by Harry Sacher, Morris' Shapiro, A. C. Weinfeld, A. S. Cutler, Joseph Brodsky, and Leon Pomerance...
...A local undertaker was chairman...
...He is to go on trial in Long Island City on November 27...
...Labor is not given representation on the code authority, although this authority would have the power of life and death over unions and conditions affecting workers...
...he was obviously dazed, but kept fighting gamely...
...Smith Dreams of Power Love of guns and force to achieve power had frequently been manifest in Smith's utterances to press and public...
...Vellona kept talking...
...Meanwhile dozens of spectators quit the hall by way of a fire escape...
...And solely on the fascist commander's word Terzani was Jailed, and the accused Khaki Shirts' member was permitted to go free...
...We want the facte...
...In Yonkers, William Schwager-man polled 1,100 votes for Mayor, a gain of 400 over two years ago...
...WESTCHESTER DOES WELL MOUNT VERNON, N. Y^-Top veto this year was 869 for Harry Davie, bettering last year's Thomas vote...
...Loscalzo has never explained why he took such arbitrary action that night...
...The union last week warned that a general strike of 26,000 gasoline station workers in the metropolitan area was imminent unless discrimination against union help ceases and the companies show a disposition to confer with the union o nthe basis of its demands...
...But the great majority were Italians in Philadelphia...
...General" Dominic Siani lc"ir> flecking...
...Khaki Shirt guards grabbed Vellona, rushed him to the back .door, and another one threw him down stairs...
...Moreover,' the unions have generally established a 40-hour week...
...Fort Vellona, cartoonist and reporte- for La Stampa Libera, anti-Fascist daily, got up and attempted to explain the interruption—"we don't like Mussolini because of the wrongs he has done to the working people...
...Suddenly a shot sounded and Fierro's body straightened, went limp to the floor...
...On Smith's.word also the latter was held for a stabbing of which he was cleared a few days later...
...The fighting stopped all at once...
...Ho asserted that the "police and the radicals" had plotted against him...
...Here Help Defense Terzani will put his case before the people of Philadelphia at a mass meeting in the Labor Institute, 818 Locut Street, on Friday night, November 24...
...One hundred or more persons eame to* Columbus Hall on the night of July 14, to hear speeches by "General" Smith and his chief officers, who had arrived in automobiles...
...There was a scuffle, in which Smith nsed his riding crop, snd the Italian's spectacles crashed on the floor...
...L. affiliate, in a complaint to the Regional Labor Board of the NRA...
...Assistant District Attorney Joseph Loscslso, to charge of the inquiry, accepted Smith's word, turned the identified Khaki Shirts' member loose to leave the state, and ordered Terzani and Palumbo jailed...
...The Construction League replies to the charges in detail, denying each contention that is made...
...For behind the prosecution of Ter-sani is that strutting soldier of fortune, "General" Art J. Smith, commander of the Khaki Shirts, which, with their subtitle of "U...
...New Rochella doubled the vote of two years ago, and White Plains maintained last year's vote...
...W. Ar-^ land, veteran Socialist, polled the sensational vote of 701 for City Judge...
...Intimidation, transfer of workers to outlying points and outright discharges are attributed to gasoline companies in New York City by the Gasoline Station Workers' Union, an A. F of...
...but his life flickered out quickly...
...Two Terzani mass meetings will be held in New York Sunday, November 26...
...The committee comprises delegates from the American Civil Liberties Union, the General Defense Committee of the I.W.W., the International Labor Defense, the Italian Defense Committee, and the Socialist Party...
...Medals for bravery in action were bestowed by Smith in September upon eight of the Khaki Shirts who took part in the Astoria affair, including himself...
...Fierro Dies Aiding Friend While Vellona was still struggling with the commander, Anthony Fierro, seated nearby, had sprung to his defense...
...In Steuben County, Comrade Otto F. Vollgraf polled 869 votes for Sheriff, a gain of 826 over the last election...
...Khaki Shirt members removed the interrupter...
...Other wounded on both sides were aided by those who knew something about first aid...
...Much more than the liberty of one worker is at stake in this case...
...Michael Palumbo, another eyewitness, who met Terzani for the first time that night, also identified the Khaki Skirt as the killer...
...He referred to Mussolini, and a listener booed...
...It was Smith's strident voice that sent Terzani to jail on the night of the tragedy...
...The other is set for 3 p. m. in Irving Plaza Hall, 16th Street and Irving Place...
...A demand is made for a separate code for the building industry...
...Norman Thomas is chairman...
...SPOKESMEN for the Building *^ Trades Department of the A. F. of L. charge thst bosses in the construction industry are trying to nullify the Recovery Act...
...S. Fascists," have been the most notable of the proponents of Mussolini and Hitler doctrines in this Country...
...Some of these men were war veterans with grievances about unpaid pensions and bonuses...
...The Sobol Company was also charged with forming a company union...
...textile strike in Lawrence, Mass...
...Fierro was a pre-medical student in Long Island University...
...Be was missing four days, then came back, surrendered on a fraud charge, and declared that he would rehabilitate the Khaki Shirts...
...The code would permit the code authority to decide which are and which are not unions and the character of collective bargaining...
...Smith fled from his headquarters early on October 12, after members of his general staff mutinied against his suddenly announced plan to take over the city of Philadelphia and seise three armories praliminary to a march on Washington that day...
...Instead he stayed beside Fierro, and when the police arrived, Terzani pointed out one of the Khaki Shirts as the slayer...
...As Terzani Goes to Trial By John Nicholas Beffel ATHOS TERZANI, young anti-Fascist, is the newest prospective victim in our long notional history of labor frame-ups...
...Through one of his generals there, Smith learned that Queens County In New York offered a fine opportunity for recruiting...
...President Green of the A. F. of L. asserts that the proposed code fixes a 48-hour week, which is absurd considering that 80 per cent of the workers in the industry are jobless...
...Commander Smith strode from the speaker's table to where Vellona stood, and "bawled hint out...
...STORIES of the NRA Do you know of any eaeee of nibbling at the NRA in a code industry f We recently aeked our reader* to report eaeee of violation...
...Blood flowed from wounds in his head...
...Objection is also made that a minimum wage for the unskilled is fixed but none for the unskilled...
...Here are a few report* from the NRA front...
...District Attorney Charles & Golden promised August 88 to make a new inquiry into the Fierro murder, but evidently thst was only a gesture...
...Did he foresee himself on the tide of a successful fascist prosecution into the office at county judge T It is well known that he has ambitions in thst direction...
...Do not rely on goetip and do not exaggerate...
...No representative of Colden's office has ever interviewed s msn in Philadelphia whose name 1 is long been in his possession and who could give vital information...
...Last year Louis Waldman polled 414 votes in the entire county, and the two Assembly candidates received 469 votes...
...Last June he was claiming 7,000,000 membership, and he boasted that the Khaki Shirts were getting ready to march on Washington, sweep aside the federal government and set up a dictatorship...
...Money poured into the Smith treasury from thousands of men, for |2 membership fees and for khaki shirts, pants, trench coats and spiked helmets...
...And he led them to the piano, opened the key-cover, and disclosed the hidden murder-gun, a 25-caliber Colt automatic...
...The vote in past years has been about 110 to 120...
...Contacts were made, and a meeting was arranged in Astoria...
...Before July ended a united front Terzani Defense Committee was organized—the strongest labor defense alliance since the Ettor-Giovannitti murder trial in the 1912 I.W.W...
...The union, through its counsel, William Karlin, named the Shell Eastern Petroleum Products, Inc., and the Star Service Station of Brooklyn as practicing anti-union discrimination, in violation of Section 7A of the NRA...
...Smith Boasts of Killing Before 1,000 persons in Philadelphia on July 28, Art Smith boasted that his men "killed one radical snd sent 19 others to a hospital in New York...
...Reel Skyer Turned Loose But Commander Smith called them liars, snd accused Terzani of the crime...
...The trial will be a test of how far Fascism is to be permitted to go in this country in ita endeavor to silence opposition, even with guns...
...About 1,60Q,000 building workers are organised and their charges involve the administration of the master code in the construction industry...
...Two eyewitnesses had identified a member of the Khaki Shirts as Fierro's slayer, but Smith insisted to the authorities that Terzani fired the death-shot...
...In announcing that gathering, the defense committee makes the direct charge that Art Smith "is an accessory to murder because he has shielded the real killer ever since the crime...
...If he had sought even-handed justice, Terssni's defenders argue, Loscalzo would have held both accused men that night and let the grand jury sift the facta...
...Terzani could have gone, too, if he had been the murderer, his friends aver, for it was several minutes before the police came, and only the few in his own group knew him...
...The code would permit boys of 16 to work, while the workers demand an 18-year age limit...
...Agsin Smith used his riding crop, snd other Ihaki Shirts struck at the boy with clubs and fists...
Vol. 16 • November 1933 • No. 21
