Mr. King goes on to state that the address of Albert Rhys Williams at this meeting was read from a typewritten text, and a carbon copy handed by him to a reporter of the “Washington Post.” The falsification of Williams’ remarks by the “Post” was therefore deliberate.
At this same time Max Eastman was touring the country, addressing enormous meetings. The meeting in Los Angeles was reported by the “Examiner” as follows:
RADICAL’S TALK BRINGS POLICE
Max Eastman Stops Address When Disgusted Auditors Leave and Officers Arrive
Cutting his lecture short, when many of his auditors left Trinity Auditorium in disgusted anger, probably saved Max Eastman, editor of a radical Socialist publication, from a police intervention last night.
Before the speaker had entered far upon his subject, “Hands Off Russia,” his remarks were deemed so unpatriotic and his unwarranted attack upon the administration so vitriolic that scores left the auditorium and telephoned the Federal authorities and the police, denouncing Eastman and demanding his arrest.
Apparently scenting trouble, Eastman effected a sudden diminuendo, his anti-climax coming when he left the rostrum to conduct a canvassing of his audience for prospective subscribers to his magazine and purchasers of stock in same. When the police officers appeared on the scene, nothing of treasonable nor anarchistic nature was heard.
Eastman’s address contained many statements so preposterous that even the most gullible refused to believe them. He demanded that Eugene Debs, Thomas J. Mooney and all I. W. W.’s in jail should be freed and advised his hearers to emulate the Russian Bolsheviks and rise in revolution.
Only a scant audience heard the address.
As it happens, I do not have to ask the reader to take either my word or Eastman’s about this meeting. Here is part of a letter written to Max Ihmsen, managing editor of the “Los Angeles Examiner,” by Rob Wagner, artist and author of “Film Folk.”