Albert F. Hayden
Albert Fearing Hayden was an American judge who presided over the sentencing of people arrested during the May Day riots of 1919. This made him a target during the 1919 United States anarchist bombings when his house was bombed.
May Day riots of 1919
The May Day riots of 1919 were a series of violent demonstrations that occurred throughout Cleveland, Ohio on May 1, 1919. The riots occurred during the May Day parade organized by Socialist leader Charles Ruthenberg, of local trade unionists, socialists, communists, and anarchists to protest against the conviction of Eugene V. Debs.One of those arrested during the riots was William James Sidis. Sidis had graduated from Harvard University at the age of 15. Judge Albert F. Hayden in the Roxbury Municipal Court presided over his case. During the testimony Sidis was quoted as saying that he is a Socialist, a believer in the soviet form of government, that he believed in evolution, that he does not believe in a god, that his god is evolution, and that he believes in our form of government to the extent of the Declaration of Independence. Sidis and 11 other persons who were arrested during the May Day riots in Roxbury were given jail sentences, the so-called Harvard prodigy getting a year and a half.
During sentencing Hayden raged against the perceived foreign threat behind the riots, "foreigners who think they can get away with their doctrines in this country … if I could have my way I would send them and their families back to the country from which they came."