REPRODUCED AT THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES. DECLASSIFIED Authority Statele fer lahz By ME, NARA Date 2498 The attached memorandum gives the immediate background on the occurrence, which has caused considerable consternation by its novelty in Costa Rica.
The purpose of the series of meetings, as set forth in the memorandum, was ostensibly to mobilize opinion of the working classes in favor of projects establishing a minimum wage and contemplating unemployment relief. The police were given strict instructions that all participants in the meeting scheduled for Saturday night would have to remain inside of the meeting hall, as required by the law which forbids open air meetings, parades, et cetera, except under special permission from the Government.
The administration had declared that it would not countenance any public demonstrations, parades, and the like. Speeches were in progress when some sort of altercation began and the Chief of Police injured by a flying bottle.
According to the police, they were simply obeying orders by keeping the crowd off the street, and enforcing quiet, when they were suddenly set upon.
They had also been forced to listen to gratuitous insults from the speakers who made disparaging references to their presence, et cetera. The leader of the communists, Don Manuel Mora Valverde, gave an entirely different story, to the effect that the whole thing had been prearranged between the President and the police, and condemning the brutality with