About 1,000 men, women and children gathered at the parade grounds. The Committee condemned the relief system and made biting remarks about the Commission of Government. They showed the crowd a list of demands. The dole ration must be higher. Landlords must not be allowed to throw out poor people who could not pay their rent. Work must be created for the unemployed. The Committee also demanded the resignation of the head dole officer, Mrs. Muir. She was hated by the unemployed of St. John's. They said she was cruel to those who needed public welfare. She made sure as few people as possible could get the dole. The crowd clapped and cheered. They approved the demands. The Committee promised to give them to the Commission of Government.

The commissioner for justice was worried now. Trouble with the city's poor would make the Commission and the British government look bad. The chief of police, P.J. O'Neill, said he'd look after it. Power and the other members of the Unemployed Committee were followed by police almost every day. Their families and neighbors were questioned. Their words were taken down by undercover officers. They were written up in secret government reports. Everyone knew what the police were doing. They wanted to scare people away from the committee. But it did not always work.

"I followed Kelly and his gang down Duckworth Street... him and Smith pointed over at me several times and the crowd started to jeer me. I followed and the crowd started to hoot and jeer me," wrote an angry Constable Dwyer in a report to the chief of police.¹²

Snitches were hired to hang around with Power and his friends. They pumped them for information. The Unemployed Committee called them stool pigeons. One snitch sent handwritten notes to the chief of police almost every week and sometimes every day. He signed his notes "One X". Another informant called Pierce an agitator. "He is very clever. Anything he says or does the mob is right behind him," says a note written on August 15, 1934.

For Pierce Power, the constant police activity became a very personal matter. His younger brother Mike had been hired by the constabulary after the 1932 riot. Mike was a "good, steady, sober, reliable police officer." He worked at the East End station at the end of Duckworth Street. Mike didn't follow the Unemployed Committee. But Pierce's actions caused him "plenty of embarrassment." He told a fellow officer "he had one desire.., to get Pierce's head under his baton."¹³