Content description:
Clipping on the back of photo reads--"Sep. 5, 1951--Longshoremen and other waterfront workers picket the Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco, to protest the Coast Guard security screening program to President Truman." Photo shows men holding signs walking in front of the hotel, man leading the column holding a large American flag. Cars parked on the street, newspaper reporter standing on a step on the far side of the protesters. From the Oakland Tribune September 4, 1951, article titled "President Picketed On Dock Screening": "Pickets paraded today in front of the Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco, where President Truman is quartered, to protest the Coast Guard security screening of waterfront workers. A member of the group of about 30 said they represented half a dozen waterfront unions and declared that the security screening was 'political intimidation.' Signs, most of them addressed to 'Mr. Truman,' said: 'Is there a Coast Guard dossier on you too?', 'Why screen us and not the influence peddlers?' and 'Do you screen the deep freezers?'" **President Truman was staying at the Fairmont Hotel and was in San Francisco to give a speech at the opening session of the Japanese Peace Conference held at the War Memorial Opera House. **The security screening program these waterfront workers were protesting was a program enforced by the Coast Guard under which a sailor or longshoreman who was suspected of having Communist sympathies could be barred from the industry (meaning waterfront work). This photo was not used in the Oakland Tribune.