In 1936 Pierce Power was back in town. He began speaking at unemployed meetings. Power hoped to pick up the unemployed movement where he had left off before the riot. The police watched him closely. They started to follow him and write down his words again. Power was upset by this. He had been treated like a criminal for three years. He had been beaten by police. Pierce still believed political action was the only way to change the lives of the poor and unemployed of St. John's. But he had learned that such action involves the risk of violence at the hands of the authorities.

Pierce continued to call on the people of the city to protest for their rights. "Get yourselves together and make history. Don't let history make you. You make it. Start in to sweep poverty away," he told a crowd at Beck's Cove on 10 June.²⁷ Six months later Pierce was on trial again-this time for slashing constable Michael Walsh.