RIOT IN A CHURCH.

New Zealand Herald, 29 June 1914, Page 11

RIOT IN A CHURCH.

CLERGYMAN BADLY HANDLED.

[ntOM Ot'E OWN CORRESPONDENT.]

Ban Francisco, May 26. An extraordinary sccno occurred at tho Calvary Baptist Church, in New York, which is attended by Mr. John D. Rockefeller, on Sunday nioniing,' May 10, when three Socialists who interrupted the service and attempted to speak were roughly handled by ushers and policemen. Fistfights occurred inside the church and on the footpath outside. The three Socialists and their sympathisers outside were very roughly handled. One of them—Emmanuel Lopez, a Portuguese—was, according to the press account, " surrounded by tie police arid "beaten until several teeth had been knocked out, one eye was unrecognisable, and he stood helpless with blood running to the ground." The leader of the party that interrupted the church service was the Rev. Bouck White, a graduate of Harvard University, himself a clergyman, head of what he calls the Church of Social Revolution, a writer of note. He had given the pastor of the Calvary Church notice of Jiis intentions. and accordingly plain-clothes constables were ' scattered through the congregation. White got up at about tho middle of the service, and began to address tho pastor, who had just finished praying, Before he had uttered many sentences ho was seized by policemen and ushers and dragged along the aisle, clawing at every pew and pillar. The whole congregation was on its feet, and cries of "Let him talk," "Shame, shame,"Put him out,' 1 "This is j,hp House of God," were, heard throughout the church. White was pitched out bodily from the church vestibule to the- pi(k*walk. He landed on his face and hands. Similar treatment was accorded two other socialists who I were in tho church with him. White and Milo Woolman,' one of the latter, wero each sentenced to six'months' imprisonment for their part in the; affair. It was; White's tent ion to speak on behalf of the uncrnnloyed of New York. He has ben prominently identified with the Independent'WOrkmort' of tho World, an extreme and anarchistic organisation.