Picnic at Peekskill

It was to be an orderly, "peaceable" demonstration, protesting the appearance of Communist-tuned Singer Paul Robeson at a picnic ground outside of Peekskill, N. Y. True, the veterans of Westchester County had brought along enough brass bands to drown out a full opera company and enough pickets to keep any traffic from getting through. But there was to be no rough stuff, the leaders promised. Then the veterans, 500 strong, started down the road leading to the picnic grove itself.

In the gathering darkness, the early arrivals among the audience locked arms in front of a large truck, defiantly burst into the chorus of the old radical marching song, We Shall Not Be Moved. Suddenly chunks of a wooden fence railing sailed into the ranks of the defenders. Hurling stones and brandishing clubs, the veterans charged.

The mob burst through the woods and into the open-air concert area, smashed the stage, set fire to the camp chairs lined up around it and burned the sheet music. In the surging tumult that followed, at least eight automobiles were overturned, scores of women ran screaming into the woods for safety. The veterans threw up hasty roadblock's but new arrivals piled into the fight until the battle grew to a slugging, shouting riot involving some thousand persons.

By the time police reinforcements broke it up two hours later, traffic was snarled for miles in every direction. At least eight were taken to the hospital for treatment, one of them stabbed in the side, another suffering from a brain concussion. Singer

Robeson himself was warned of trouble, stayed away.

The Communist-line Civil Rights Congress, sponsors of the concert, quickly denounced the sorry affair as an attempt to "lynch Robeson." It was hardly that. But it was an example of misguided patriotism and senseless hooliganism, more useful to Communist propaganda than a dozen uninterrupted song recitals by Paul Robeson.

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