Jack Samuels (obscured), Howard Fletcher and Michael Patrick Ryan, 1 August 1930

Samuels, Harold Fletcher and M P (Mick) Ryan were three of twenty men and one woman arrested at an International Anti-Imperialism Day demonstration in Martin Place, Sydney, on 1 August, 1930. A report on the Martin Place demonstration in the Sun tells how police arrested the leaders before the demonstration truly got started (‘REDS IN MARTIN PLACE / POLICE NIP DEMONSTRATION IN BUD’), claiming to have commital warrants against them. Only four of those arrested were subsequently charged however. (The warrants related to a squatting case in Clovelly, which was to be a forerunner to the more famous eviction battles in Newtown, Glebe and Bankstown) The Sun reports that as the police van drove away, ‘lusty strains of the Red Flag were heard from within’.