STATE AND BOSTON OFFICERS CALLED
NORWOOD, Dec 4 — State and Boston police were called upon to aid the Norwood police today after striking tannery workers and hired guards clashed in a fight that sent eight men to hospitals with injuries from which one may die.
Soon after the riot Atty Patrick. J. Walsh, representing the strikers; in a legal action in the superior civil court at Boston, told Judge Stanley Qua that Frank G. Allen, former governor of Massachusetts and owner of the tannery involved the strike, had imported “truck-loads of thugs from New York”
The situation in Norwood became so tense that the Norwood police appealed to the Boston police and the state police for aid. A detail of 10 patrolmen and one sergeant was dispatched to Norwood with squad cars and riot guns and 20 state troopers mobilized at Foxboro to await further orders.
Daniel Needham, commissioner of public safety, ordered the mobilization and said the troopers would move into Norwood as soon as Gov. Joseph B. Ely authorized them.
The police here reported that automobiles containing the guards were stoned as they drew up to the Winslow Brothers & Smith tannery morning. Later, the said, three carloads of arrived in front of the hall in South Norwood, been used as a headquarters by the strikers. The guards got out and, the police said, the guards immediately attacked the strikers in front of the place.
The battle became general, with the guards using long nightsticks and the strikers using their fists and any available stones. Some of the guards had their clothes torn from their bodies and John Davis, a striker, suffered a fractured skull during the melee, while two guards, Joseph Rogenstein and Nolan Maguin, both of New York were among the eight taken to the hospital for treatment. They were cut on the head.
As soon as the fight subsided and the guards left the neighborhood the strikers hurried to their homes and returned armed with baseball bats and clubs. It became so apparent to the Norwood police that further hostilities were in the making that they sent out their appeal for aid.
Atty. Walsh represented the strikers a hearing in a petition for an injunction sought by the company to prevent strikers from interfering with anyone seeking to work in tannery.
Walsh told Judge Qua that former Gov Allen had brought in the New York guards and the Norwood police helpless situation. “The police are helpless” Walsh said, because Gov. Allen controls the town. These hired thugs from New York with their nightsticks control Norwood after dark and they are responsible for the outbreaks of trouble.”
After counsel for each party had said there would be no intimidation, Judge Qua dismissed the petition.
Mon, Dec 4, 1933 – 1 · The North Adams Transcript (North Adams, Massachusetts)