Rioters and Regina Police #1 Photograph Taken on July 1, 1935 of the Conflict Between Trekkers and Regina Police During the Regina Riot
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Rioters and Regina police #1 Photograph taken on July 1, 1935 of the conflict between trekkers and Regina police during the Regina Riot. Who was to blame for the Regina riot? © Public Domain. City of Regina Archives Photograph Collection, CORA-RPL-B-392 | the critical thinking consortium Newspaper report on the causes #2 of the riot Who was to blame for Excerpt from an article published in the Montreal Gazette on January 17, 1936. the Regina riot? Comments in brackets are not part of the original document. They have been added to assist the reader with difficult words. The Montreal Gazette and informed him “anything might January 17, 1936 happen.” Regina. January 16 – Hints there was Early that evening he received a tele- going to be “plenty of activity” in down- phone call and was informed strikers town Regina on Dominion Day came to planned to concentrate at the Capitol him from “well-informed sources,” In- Theatre. During the rioting a crowd spector John Chesser told a commission appeared outside the Union Station. investigating activities of unemployed “Someone gave an order and they all relief camp relief camp strikers.…. started back to the Stadium, where police were outnumbered.” He was in charge of a force of 80 police officers, he said. These men he deployed Other witnesses to give evidence in- about the Union Railway Station, the cluded Cornelius Rink, former mayor railway power house and the telegraph of Regina, J.C. Malone, barrister, offices. Each constable carried a re- and Lance-Corporal Lemieux, of the volver but no ammunition. Shells, he R.C.M.P., Regina detachment. said, had been withdrawn early in the evening. Mr. Malone told of driving his car into a lane near the Alexandria Hotel on “It was in the atmosphere something Hamilton Street. He found the lane was going to happen on that night.” He “full of rioters,” armed with bricks and told the Commission. His information rocks[.] As the police approached they came from telephone calls and from rushed out “and let fly.” strikers he knew personally. Several strikers were arrested in the railway Mr. Rink [Mayor of Regina] told of a yards. Each carried a carved stick. “threat” made by a delegation who de- “They are all making them,” was the an- scribed themselves as strikers, the day swer police received when the men were after the trekkers reached Regina from questioned. the West. He had information the strikers planned One of them said “everything will be to attack the Union Station, other rail- peaceable if we get what we want. If way property and the Hotel Saskatch- we have to have three feet of blood in ewan. He telephoned Col. S. T. Wood, Regina we will have it.” Assistant Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police at Regina, The Montreal Gazette – Jan 17, 1936 “Warning of Regina Riots Given Police: Witness Tells Commission of Phone Call from Strikers He Knew Personally” pp. 3. the critical thinking consortium First notch—Estevan 1931; Second notch—Regina 1935 #3 Cartoon published in The Worker on July 9, 1935. The cartoon refers to the 1931 Estevan riot, during which three striking coal miners were killed and many others injured during battles with the Who was to blame for RCMP. the Regina riot? “First Notch—Estevan 1931: Second Notch—Regina 1935.” In The Worker, 9 July 1935. In All Hell Can’t Stop Us: The On-to-Ottawa Trek and Regina Riot. Calgary: Fifth House, 2003. Pp. 222.15. the critical thinking consortium Comments in brackets are not part of the original document. They have been added to assist the reader with difficult words. not part of the original document. They have been added to assist the reader Comments in brackets are Testimony of Clarence Mason for the #4 Regina Riot Inquiry Commission Transcript of the testimony of On-to-Ottawa trekker Clarence Mason published Who was to blame for as part of the records of the Regina Riot Commission in December 1935. The the Regina riot? Regina Riot Commission was created in order to analyze the causes of the riot. Comments in brackets are not part of the original document. They have been added to assist the reader with difficult words. Q. Can you tell me whether or Q. Did you go to a meeting? not the leaders of the trek A. Yes. said anything to you with ref- Q. I want you to tell me what erence to Communism? happened and what you saw A. No. that evening, briefly. I am Q. Did they say anything to you not interested in the general at any time with reference to story, but only in specific overthrowing the Government details that you saw. of Canada by force? A. Well when I arrived at the A. No. meeting Mr. Toothill was just Q. Or with reference to the finishing up his speech, and kidnapping of any officers of he finished and there was a the Government? gentleman by the name of Mr. A. No. Winters. He called for dona- Q. What was your understanding tions to help support the Re- of the purposes of the trek? lief Camp Strikers, and when A. To see if—to take it before he was about half way through the Supreme Court of Canada, with his appeal, there was a and the object of the trek was— whistle blown by some indi- the main object was work and vidual—I don’t know whom—and wages. I was unemployed myself. someone yelled, There is the THE CHAIRMAN: - You mean the Police. Government of Canada. A. Yes, I mean the Government I looked towards the Police of Canada Station and I saw the police- MR. CUNNINGHAM: -All right. men was charging the Square When did you first know that …. there was to be a meeting on Market Square? Q. How long a time was it af- A. That afternoon. ter the whistle blew that you Q. On July the first? saw Evans [On-to-Ottawa lead- A. That afternoon. er Arthur “Slim” Evans]? Q. How did you learn it? A. About a minute. A. I was told by a group cap- (continued on next page) tain. the critical thinking consortium Testimony of Clarence Mason for #4 the Regina Riot Inquiry Commission (continued) Who was to blame for the Regina riot? Transcript of the testimony of On-to-Ottawa trekker Clarence Mason published as part of the records of the Regina Riot Commission in December 1935. The Regina Riot Commission was created in order to analyze the causes of the riot. Comments in brackets are not part of the original document. They have been added to assist the reader with difficult words. Comments in brackets are not part of the original document. They have been added to assist the reader with difficult words. Q. Where was he, just what was there I yelled to Evans what he doing? to do, and he yelled Nothing A. There was a crowd of plain [no punctuation]. There was an- clothes police around him. other plainclothes, who shoved Q. How many? me—he said: Do nothing Evans. A. Oh, it is very hard to es- Q. Anything else happen after timate. I don’t know the exact that, that you saw? number—I never paid any par- A. No, not in particular, un- ticular attention to them. less it goes on from there Q. They were around him there— when I was taken to the jail. what do you mean by that? Q. What did you see on the way A. Well they were surrounding to jail? him at that time. A. Well, general confusion Q. What was he doing? round [sic] the Market Square A. Well, he was doing nothing at that particular time. from what I could see. Q. By the way, how did it hap- Q. He was standing still? pen that you were taken to the A. He was standing and I was jail? on the outside, and I was just A. When I went in there and looking in and I could just this fellow, he shoved me, barely see his head—he is a I says, I asked him who he tall man. thought he was shoving, and Q. How far away were you from he said, It is none of your him? damned business, [no punctua- A. Oh, maybe twenty-five feet. tion] and he closed in on me Q. And what happened after and he pinned my arms to my that? side. A. Well I ran over in that gen- eral direction—I figured that I Saskatchewan Archives Board. F 415 Records of the Regina Riot Inquiry Commission fonds. R-255 B. Record of Proceedings. had better get off the Square, Volume XXV.Source: “Testimonies,” ‘Stopped in their tracks’ if possible, and while going by The 1935 Regina riot, http://1935reginariot.blogspot.com/p/testi- monies-in-aftermath-of-riot-on.html (Accessed August 29, 2011). the critical thinking consortium Testimony of John L. Smith for the #5 Regina Riot Inquiry Commission Transcript of the testimony of On-to-Ottawa trekker John L. Smith published Who was to blame for as part of the records of the Regina Riot Commission in December 1935. The the Regina riot? Regina Riot Commission was created in order to analyze the causes of the riot. Comments in brackets are not part of the original document. They have been added to assist the reader with difficult words. A. There was a few of us there and was a City Detective. I just saw we decided to go to the Stadium.