beach roundup

With summer pleasures once again at full-tilt, the harrassment activities of the various police departments in our coastal cities in illegally suppressing the American citizen is apparent. Reports from many parts of the country indicate that the "heat is on" in more ways than one. We can only hope that more people will begin to see the dangers of the situation as described by columnist Jack Kofoed in The Miami Herald for Tuesday, June 3rd.

Miami Beach police surged out on a series of raids Sunday, and arrested 47 persons on beaches and in bars. Those seized were engaged in no felonious activities. The John Laws accused them of vagrancy-a blanket charge like the 96th Article of War, which is a catch-all, and covers everything not included in other Articles.

The police made the raids in an apparent effort to curb homosexual activity, although the reason they advanced was that they wanted to know who the 47 were and what they were doing.

For a long time I've revised an idea that America is a free country. If cops can arrest anybody to satisfy their curiosity it isn't so darned free as we think. There are bums here, as anywhere else in the land, but unless they do something wrong, they have as much right to go their way as anybody else.

Not so long ago we had an illegal system known as "the Hobo Express." If a man was shabby and lacking in money, he could be arrested, though doing nothing more evil than strolling the streets in the sunshine.

Then, unless the person who had been pinched could prove he had a

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job, or a sufficient sum of money, the "express" went into action. All who had been picked up were taken to the county line, pointed north, and told to get going. Anyone foolish enough to protest that he was an American citizen, and had come to Miami, as any American has a right to do, looking for work, was given a club across the rear end.

Some thieves and no-goods were chased out, but so were honest people. whose only sin was that they were down on their luck. While the unlucky were given that kind of treatment, nationally known hoodlums were unmolested.

Are we returning to that sort of system? Can anyone be arrested, because he does not fit a cop's concept of what a visitor to Miami Beach should be? City fathers ought to take a searching look into that sort of “raid. ̈ Theoretically, those who do no wrong are protected against police action. If what happened Sunday is any indication, this theory doesn't seem to be accepted on the Beach.

The cops may have rounded up some undesirables they were looking for. This is no excuse for shame and inconvenience visited on others.

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