Speech #670383629

The amount is ordinarily suggested by the prosecuting. officer or lixed by the judge after conference with him. and an intimation from him that bail ought to be reduced is rarely disregarded. Having. made the wholesale arrests with the deplorable consequences to which reference has been made. fallink upon the guilty and the innocent alike. the Department of Justice can not escape Its share of the responsibility for not making diligent inquiry as to whether multitudes of those held should not be admitted to bail in some nominal sum or allowed to go on their own recognizance. Even after orders of deportation had gone against them the Detroit committee " paroled " nearly half of those held at the Fort Wayne Barracks without. It would appear. the loss of a man. i The Attorney General assured the committee that he bad never heard of the horrible conditions prevailing In the Detroit jail and other detention quarters or of the action of the city council with reference thereto. though the metropolitan newspapers carried articles detailing them. the publication of which contributed to the public sentiment resulting in the appointment of the revisory committee referred to. It remains questionable whether his innocence is exculpatory or an aggravation of the wrong done through his official conduct. as It must be judged in the light of the humane view of our times touching the treatment due even.to convicts. Some advance has been made in that regardSince man first pent his fellow men Like brutes within an iron den. It will be Interesting to know about the character of the men and something about the women taken and held in these " raids." over 10.000 in all. and particularly about those eventually ordered deported. That some of them were dangerous characters. agitators. with abnormal or corrupt minds. trouble makers. enemies of law and order in every country. contemplating an Arcadia to be reached through turbulence and disorder. ready to " wade through slaughter to a throne " supported by what they call " the proletariat" is quite likely. Doubtless the nine eventually held at the Fort Wayne Barracks after the local. committee did its work. out of the thousand or more arrested in Detroit. were of that class. richly deserving deportation. but entitled nevertheless to the observance of the formalities required by the law in the proceedings against them. less tenderly regarded by it than persons accused of crime. however. heinous. In the more or less hysterical state of mind that prevailed when the raids were in progress and which to sonic extent still persists. it was popularly believed that all those taken were of that classthat they were all "red." It was quite natural that persons more or less remotely or feebly sympathetic with such should attend the hearings of the committee. as they did. so that the inquiry became known to the newspaper reporters as the " red " hearings. Indeed. anyone who challenged the proceeding. either from a legal or a humanitarian standpoint. laid himself open to the suspicion of being to some extent incarnadine. As a matter of fact. the great majority of those arrested. yea. even of those ordered deported. were perfectly harmless. deluded individuals. many of them unable to speak a word of English. with little or no comprehension of the principles or the purposes of the political party of which upon one consideration or another they had become nominal members. offenders against the letter but not the spirit of the law. In a report on cases submitted to him. speaking from the record. one of the lawyers called to aid the Detroit reviewing committee says : " The evidence in these cases tends to show a technical membership In a Communist Party organization. but utterly fails to show the character of the membership. No attention is given to the social. racial. and educational factors involved. and no attempt is made to determine whether the man is a member of a certain organization simply because of the restaurant facilities and the classes in reading and writing. or because he is. interested in the political doctrines which it represeuts.