NEW HAVEN, Conn. (UP)--Yale University students and "townies" joined forces tonight in an effort to overturn an automobile containing Earl Browder, Communist Party general secretary, after he had made a speech in a campus building despite opposition of veterans' organizations and refusal of other universities to permit his appearance on their grounds.
Young men crowded around the automobile as Browder was being driven away from Strathcona Hall, where he had addressed an audience of 600 persons, mostly students, some of whom showered him with pennies and interrupted his speech with guffaws and boos.
Rock Browder's Car
"Turn it over," some of the crowd shouted as Browder entered the automobile. The car was rocked from side to side, but the driver managed to start it before it could be overturned.
In the audience which Browder addressed under auspices of the Yale Peace Council, was District Commander Arthur Daley of the New Haven Council, American Legion, who opposed Browder's appearance but cautioned Legionnaires against violence.
Browder entered the hall by a back entrance because 3,000 persons jammed the two front entrances. As he spoke the crowd outside raised a bedlam, shouting "Viva Hitler" and "Go back to Moscow." The Communist leader several times had to raise his voice to make himself heard inside.
Hostile Audience
Occasional applause greeted his address but the audience appeared mostly to be hostile.
Browder declared the European war threatens to "blackout American civil liberties."
Recalling that the World War had progressed two and one-half years before he was imprisoned "for the conspiracy of opposing American entrance into the war," Browder said that "today, facing the new world war, there are projects under way to send me and others to prison, as preparation for entering the war."
Browder Hints Defense
He was referring to his approaching trial on charges of going abroad on false passports. Browder gave a hint of his defense when he said--
"As for the charge that I traveled, years ago, under pseudonyms, it will really be interesting when it is disclosed how many highly respected business men, jurists and statesmen have similarly traveled without ever having any action taken against them.
"And I feel sure that there will be some interesting disclosures if and when the Government establishes that it considers pseudonyms a terrible crime."
Browder declared that not only Communists, but reactionaries, "recognize that the working people are not going to suffer this war passively and meekly, that the war will put the Socialist revolution on the order of the day."
Of his meeting Browder said, "It was a model of orderliness and afterwards assembled students on the street cheered me on my departure.
Read more in News
The Puck Stops Here (?): Life as a Beanpot Goalie