3/1/2012:
Human blood spilled in the US Capitol when shouting and gunfire interrupted the proceedings of the US House of Representatives on this date in 1954.
House members had just decided to debate a bill to allow the U.S. to recruit Mexican farm workers. Suddenly, from the upper visitors’ gallery, a group of four Puerto Rican nationals opened fire with pistols. The group’s lone woman unfurled a Puerto Rican flag shouting “I want freedom for my country” while bullets rained on the legislators below.
30 rounds were fired, and five congressmen were wounded. North Dakota Representative Usher Burdick was on the house floor in the midst of the melee and recounted the incident to the Fargo Forum by telephone a mere 45 minutes later.
Burdick said, “We were there about to take a vote when one woman and three men – that’s what I saw – started shooting. The shots came so fast it sounded like a machine gun.”
Despite the previous hour’s horror, the affable Burdick displayed his characteristic humor when he added: “They were certainly coming fast and if I had had any sense I would have ducked. I didn’t know what happening. Why, I thought the Russians had landed! They were just shooting into the crowd. If they were shooting at individuals I probably would have been the first one hit. I’m certainly big enough for a target.”
Burdick was about 20 feet from Iowa Representative Alvin Bentley, who lay wounded. Again, his words: “I went over to Bentley and blood was running down both sides of him.
“Were you stunned at the time?” The reporter asked. “No, not at the time,” Burdick answered, “but I’m feeling a little shaky now.”
The shooters were wrestled by brave gallery visitors and disarmed by Capitol police. They served life sentences, commuted from the death penalty by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Today, chair-backs in the Senate and House are bullet proof. And, a walnut table still used on the floor bears marks from the attack – a reminder of when gun fire spilled blood on the floor of the United States Congress in the late winter of ‘54.
Dakota Datebook written by Steve Stark
Sources:
North Dakota: 100 Years (page 103) 1988 Forum Communications Co.
wn.com/United_States_Capitol_shooting_incident_(1954)