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[[start page]] [[underlined]] San Francisco [[/underlined]] [[margin]]Labor [[underlined]] Parade [[/underlined]][[/margin]] Hittells to call. The family were out except Carlos the artist & he took us into his workshop where studio properties in form of old guns, horns, & other curios were suggestion material. In the fire he climbed to the top of a church tower with a hose. [[margin]] Labor [[underlined]] Parade [[/underlined]] [[/margin]] As we came out of the house we heard the screeching of an engine in the Labor Parade - something like traction engine carried in the parade. From our distance we could see the glow of ^ [[insertion]] red [[/insertion]] calcium lights that envelope the parade. When we got down to the car lines we found that no cars were running, the cars standing blocks away from the line of the parade, some abandoned by conductors or motormen in well grounded fear. H who had been in S.F. on Labors Day when there were 9 riots in different parts of the city, & the car men had been the targets of the mobs, said with deep feeling that they had all his sympathy, marked men in uniforms, without arms - two men to a mob - helpless. He then told us of the day when he came into S.F. just as the strike breakers - who had been imported to man the street cars & who had not been upheld by the people so that their arms had been taken from them by the police & had forced them out - were [[end page]] [[start page]] [[underlined]] San Francisco [[/underlined]] [[margin]] [[underlined]] Labor parade [[/underlined]] [[/margin]] being sent back to their homes - were gathered at the station to take the train. Detectives of the labor party had ferreted out the hiding places of these men & knew when they were to be sent away & the mob had gathered. As H entered the ferry house he saw that something was happening in the black mob & then he heard shrieks for mercy, shrieks that he would not have believed it possible for human beings to utter & that he could not get out of his ears for weeks, & answering shouts of "To hell with them!" & the awful sounds of crushing bones of [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] bodies being broken on the stones of the pavements. On Labor Day when the 9 riots occurred H & E stayed in, & when the shrieks of the engine, the shouts of the parade, the cloud of red calcium lights rose. I wished that [[underlined]] we [[/underlined]] had stayed at home. As our way home lay parallel to the line of the parade we could not escape it, & did not know what moment it might turn up our street, & as the street car lines with their standing cars ^ [[insertion]] some abandoned [[/insertion]] were crossed & men came out of the darkness. H wanted to turn in to a Jap. store that stood open, but it was on a corner with a car standing on it's track & its decks (show windows) were closed for fear of action [[end page]]
