POLICE PERSECUTON IN PHILADELPHIA
Report by Will Quirke.
I stayed last night at one of Uncle Sam’s workingmen’s shelters. I was arrested yesterday afternoon in Franklin Square for speaking without a permit. I was discharged this morning by Magistrate Eisenbrown. The Church folks held a meeting in this square. After their meeting concluded, I addressed the crowd for about ten minutes before the police came on the scene. As I refused to stop speaking, they removed me from the Square. I immediately returned and was placed under arrest.
I pointed out to the Magistrate the intolerance of allowing the Church people to monopolize the square to the exclusion of others; that I would refuse to leave men of the low mental calibre of the ordinary policeman, to dictate to me on what I should speak, and that I would use my own judgment, so long as I kept within the bounds of the law, and as to where and how, I should sneak in public when I felt inclined to do so. The magistrate, after advising me to get a permit, in order to avoid trouble, dismissed the charge.
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