THE REX BOOED

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 135, 4 December 1935, Page 11

THE REX BOOED

COMMUNISTS MARCH

AT LINER'S SAILING

Answering a call by the Communist Party in an issue of the "Daily Worker," about 350 of its members paraded to Pier 58, at the foot of Sixteenth Street and the North River, to make a demonstration against Mussolini and Fascism at the noon sailing of the Italian liner Rex for Naples, says the "New York Times." The ship carried 117 young Italian reservist volunteers returning to fight for their country. A large police force—two captains, ten sergeants, ninety patrolmen, forty mounted men, and fifty detectives' under the command of Deputy Chief Inspector Alexander C. Anderson— guarding both sides of West Street from Fifteenth to Nineteenth Streets, prevented any trouble.

The Rex was berthed on the south side of Pier 59, at the foot of Eighteenth Street. When the Communists marched down with waving banners, Deput^ Chief Anderson ordered his men to keep the crowd, at the corner of Sixteenth Street. „ I BANNERS ASSAIL FASCISTS. The signs carried by the demonstrators read: — "Long Live Italy Freed From Fascism." ... •.-.;-■■. . i : •_ ;,;-....: ■ ■

••Fascism Destroys Liberty, Freedom."- ■ ■ - ' - ■

•No War Materials for Italy/ •Defend Ethiopia, Fight for Peace." 'Negro and White, Unite for Peace."

The cheers of about 750 enthusiastic Italians on the pier with the band of the Rex playing the national anthem and the Fascist hymn drowned the shouts and hoots of the Communist demonstrators. They were herded some distance from the bow of the liner, where the volunteers on deck stood shouting, "Viva, Duce!" and raising their right arms in the Fascist salute, "Aye, Aye."

Detectives questioned some of the visitors who went to the pier to see the Rex off. These were admitted to the pier through one side of the gate. The other side was closed to prevent a rush. There was no \rouble in the street or on the pier. Deputy Chief Inspector Anderson said, the fight on the night of the Bremen riot had not been forgotten by the Communists. ■ Commendatore Gaetano Vechiotti, Italian Consul General in New York, was on board the Rex to see the 117 volunteers away. He said they were all Italian citizens and bachelors. No citizens of any other nationality were accepted, although about 1100 applications were received at the consulate. NOT SMALL. Besides the 113 enlisted men and four officers sailing to join the army there were 194 ordinary passengers on board the Italian liner when she moved out into the Hudson River. She had 20 first, 31 special class, 60 tourist, and 200 third class passengers. Italian line officials at the pier explained that the list was not unusually small for the season of the year and said that about 50 per cent, of those sailing, exclusive of the reservists, were American citizens. Apparently most of these had Italian names and thirty of them were priests going to Rome! Mrs. Carl Osterfeld, of 2 East Eightysixth Street, one of the passengers, said she believed the President's proclamation was justified, but she felt no anxiety. "I don't hold my Government responsible for anything that might happen to me," she said. . "I don't think that anything will happen. I realise that I am travelling on an Italian ship, and am going direct to Rome, where I have many friends. 11 know the Italians and I love them."

Police were called to the office of Dr. Carld de Franchis, Italian Vice Consul in Newark, to eject a delegation of Anti-Fascists who called to protest against the Italian-Ethiopian War. Twenty-five men and wom;n were in the group, which was headed by Mrs. Amelia B. Moorfield, of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and the Rev. Jay Wright, State Organiser for the American League Against War and Fascism. Dr. de Franchis refused to see the delegation.