$10,000 DAMAGES AS COHEN GROUNDS ON SQUARE ISLAND

While distributing the Socialist circular "Welcome to MacDonald" in Harvard Square early yesterday afternoon, Lawrence B. Cohen, Jr., a Sophomore, President of the Socialist Club, was arrested for violating a city ordinance, brought to the Brattle Square police station, divested of his batch of hand-hills, and finally set at liberty, after being promised a summons to the Third District Court, East Cambridge, for next Thursday.

Police One Up On Socialists

This followed the Club's decision to send only one representative to spread abroad their "welcome" to the British Premier, instead of putting the distribution in the hands of the entire membership, with the idea of ascertaining the police's attitude on the matter. That was succinctly voiced by Captain Michael Brennan of Station One, when he said to a CRIMSON reporter yesterday: "Well, he drew a big crowd and he wanted us to lock him up, but we were on to him, so we didn't."

The Cohens and the Kellys

A cab-driver, whose stand is at the subway island in the middle of the Square, told the representative of the CRIMSON the story of the arrest as he had seen it. "Cohen," he said, "was giving out the posters, with a crowd of people around him. He was standing by the traffic box when I saw him, and once he offered a poster to the cop in the box." It has since been determined that Kelly is the name of the officer who was then directing traffic.

Kelly, according to the taxi-driver, who for reasons of his own having to do with the police, preferred to remain anonymous, refused the tendered manifesto, and nothing happened for a few minutes. "Then," he said, "another traffic cop passed by, and Cohen offered him one of his sheets. The cop took it, and about twenty minutes later the Sergeant came up from the station and hauled in both Cohen and his batch of papers."

Coheny Ireland in the Square

Cohen himself said he started his distribution at the gate opposite Leavitt and Pierce's at exactly 1.15 o'clock, and mentioned having posed for a Pathe News photographer. He diminished his stack of "Welcomes" by five hundred in less than three quarters of an hour, he said, and then changed his stand to the side-walk in front of the Coop. He also mentioned having posed for a Herald photographer.

"I drew a crowd," he said over the telephone, "by having two or three fellows run out into the middle of the street when traffic was stopped and take pictures of me. The most amusing incident of the whole afternoon occurred when a minister took one of the handbills and read till he came to the word Socialist which is near the top of the page. Then, handing it back to me, he said: 'Socialism! Young man, you should be in jail!'"

Charge of the Ten Thousand

The law he infringed is included in Chapter 47 of the General ordinances. It says, in part: "Nor shall any person distribute in a public street. . . hand-bills. . . circulars, or papers of any kind, except newspapers. Whoever violates. . .this ordinance shall be punished by a fine not exceeding twenty dollars for each offence." Captain Brennan pointed out that Cohen gave out about five hundred circulars, and, construing each as an offence, he should have been fined $10,000.