"Cleveland, Ohio, May 1.--An unidentified man was killed by a detective's bullet, eleven policemen were shot or badly beaten, and about 100 persons wounded, many seriously, in general rioting which brought a dramatic finale this afternoon to a Socialist May Day demonstration here. "About thirty persons, seriously injured, are in hospitals to-night, while scores of others, including women, were trampled by rioters or clubbed by police. "Socialist headquarters was totally wrecked by angry civilians bent on putting an end to the demonstration.... "A mob of several hundred threatened police headquarters when C. E. Ruthenberg, Socialist leader and former Socialist candidate for mayor, was arrested and for more than an hour the entire downtown section of the city was a warring mass of Socialists, police, civilians and soldiers, the latter riding down the rioters in army trucks and tanks. "Dozens of shots were fired in Public square, where more than 20,000 Socialists and sympathizers assembled for a May Day rally and to protest against the convictions of Eugene V. Debs and Thomas J. Mooney. "The trouble started in Superior Avenue, near East Ninth Street, when the head of one of the five Socialist parades, scheduled to meet in a mass meeting at Public square, was stopped, and Liberty Loan workers and an army lieutenant tore a red flag from a man at the head of the marchers, practically every one of whom were carrying red flags. "In less than ten minutes riots had developed at several other points, mounted and foot policemen being switched from one location to another to quell the fighting. "The trouble in the public square started when Lieut. H. S. Bergen, who served with the 80th Division overseas, demanded that several soldiers among the Socialists on the platform remove their uniforms or the red flags they wore on their breasts. "The soldiers refused, and C. E. Ruthenberg, scheduled as the principal Socialist speaker, interceded for the Socialists. "Lieut. Bergen, followed by Lieut. John Hardy of Detroit, thereupon mounted the platform and tore the red insignia from the khaki uniforms. The act was the signal for a grand rush by thousands of Socialist sympathizers."
On Sunday, May 4, 1919, serious trouble with the Socialist-Bolshevist element of Gary, Indiana, was narrowly averted. The account, as published in the "Chicago Tribune" on the next day, reads in part as follows: