Sherriff Smith Quotes in Cesar Chavez (2014)

Sherriff Smith: You mind telling me what's so funny?

Cesar Chavez: Sir, we're Catholic. How can Catholics be communists?

Sherriff Smith: Come out with this er... this newspaper. Got this beaner character in there named Don Sotaco. There he is... kind of funny.

[chuckles]

Bogdanovich Senior: Well, it's a cartoon, but I'm not sure it's funny.

Bogdanovich Junior: Who cares? Most of our workers are illiterate.

Bogdanovich Senior: Yeah, but you can understand a cartoon without being able to read. So this Don Sotaco... he informs the workers about their rights. And this is what... a weekly?

Bogdanovich Senior: Mm-hmm.

Bogdanovich Senior: Thank God it isn't a daily... although 52 weeks a year, that is a lot of rights, Sheriff.

Sen. Kennedy: Who told you they were gonna riot?

Sherriff Smith: [thrown offguard, shifty pause] The foremen. Right out there in the fields. The ones we were talking to said that if we didn't stop them, they were gonna cut their hearts out. So rather than let things get out of hand, we just removed the cause.

Sen. Kennedy: This is a most interesting concept, I think. That you suddenly hear talk of somebody who's gonna get out of order, perhaps violate the law, and so you go in and arrest the intended *victim* of the crime, and they haven't done anything wrong.

Sherriff Smith: Cesar, you got a permit for this march?

Cesar Chavez: It's not a march, Sheriff. It's a pilgrimage all the way to Sacramento. And our families are here just to say goodbye.

Sherriff Smith: [to policemen] You hear that? They don't like working for a day's wage, but they will walk over 300 miles for free.