MURDEROUS STRIKE MOB

Evening Star, Issue 18046, 14 August 1922, Page 6

MURDEROUS STRIKE MOB

BLOODSHED IN AMERICA. MASSACRE OF PRISONERS.' HUNTED THROUGH "WOODS. The outbreak of armed lawlessness by the striking miners of Herrin, Illinois, was the most serious episode in the history of a country notorious for rioting. It developed into a brutal massacre of workers and their guards at the Strip mine who had , como from Chicago. The casualties, including wounded, numbered seventy-two, of whom eight were stinkers. The battle, which was a resumption of an attack when, two were killed, started when an army of 1,000 union miners and sympathisers marched to the mine. Hiding behind coal cars and in the mine shaft, thirty-five men attempted a defence ; but the superior numbers of the attackers swept over the embankment like a line of infantry going over the top, firing as it went. Almost by a miracle the little band of defenders escaped with their lives. They raised the white flag of surrender to the accompaniment of a hail of lead. When the imported workers were surrounded the strikers dynamited the mine virtually out of existence. They dynamited the battery of steam shovels, burned the company’s offices, and set fire to a long line of freight cars containing coal. SURRENDER TO THE MOB. The slaughter of the strike-breakers occurred after they had surrendered to overpowering numbers. They were herded together and started toward Herrin, where, according to the shouts of the victors, the captives expected to be “ shipped out of the country.” Jabbed and beaten by the rioters, the prisoners were marched into the woods just outside Herrin. As the march proceeded, Mr C. K. M'Dowell, superintendent of the mine, who was handicapped by his artificial leg, lagged. When ho protested he could not make any better speed the mob beat him to death.

Mr James Shoemaker, a brother-in-law of Mr William Lester, president of the coal company, protested against the attack on Mr M'Dowell. Then the rioters shot him to death. He had been employed as the company’s civil engineer. There were said to bo several hundred men and boys in the cavaloade which started from the mine for Herrin, with the forty-four men in front. When the column reached a point about halfway to Herrin, where it passes through the woods, the massacre began. Strikers say that the prisoners, apparently at a jfeairanged signal, made a dash to escape, and that they were pursued and killed. Most of the strike-breakers are said to be Italians. There is a large foreign element in the local mining population, from wnich the union men came. ONE MAN HANGED. The positions of the bodice indicate that four of the prisoners were shot to death as they stood at the tree where one had been hanged. The bodies of the other dead and the wounded were scattered in the woods on the opposite side of the road. Women with children in arms w|ro found beaten to death as part of the frightful scene which the strikers left behind them. The bodies of four women were found in a heap under the hanging body of a fifth near the Southern Illinois Coal Company’s premises. As soon as the forty-four strip employees surrendered a cry went up for the lives of the captives, states one account. The cooler element, however, advised that the prisoners be marched into town, paraded before the townspeople,, and then sent away. 1 The cooler element marched just behind the prisoners, who were at the head of the procession, and the disorderly elementflocked behind -and beside them.

There were cries of “ Beat it,” which grew into a chorus, bub the leaders withstood the demand until they arrived at a wooded section. There tfie clamor increased, and the mob pressed around the fear-stricken prisoners, some of whom mumbled, apparently m prayer. Witnesses say the leaders, feeling unable longer to resist the crowd’s clamor, said to trie prisoners: “Yes, you’d better beat it.” MURDEROUS MAN HUNT. Between the road and the woods on Die right side there was a barbed-wire fence. Most of the prisoners, probably thinking vaguely that it would bo something to have the fence between them and the mob, began climbing through the fence. They had difficulty with their suit cases. There were shouts of “Drop your suit cases; you don’t need them,” which appealed to the humor of the jeering mob. Muse cf the prisoners dropped their suit cases and scrambled through and scurried into tho woods.

Tho shooting was under way and the, kiilbir was on. Men were running and dodging, and the crowds were following and shooting them. When one fell the crowd closed in and fired a volley into the prostrate form. The throats of two were cut.

As tho men were shot down crowds gathered and watched them breathe their just, jeering and scoffing. A witness says he saw a knife jilunged into tho throat of a wounded man, wlio, in his dying breath, gasped a pica: ‘ln the name of ray mother, in the name of your mother, in tho name cf our God, give me water,” only to receive laughs and jibes such as “Where you’re going yon won’t see water” as a reply. Mothers carried babies into tho morgues and up to piles of bodies in tho roads with such remarks as “ Take a look at what your papa did, kid.” The strike-breakers were members cf .ie Steam Shovellers’ Union, which, according to a Miners’ Union official, had been “ outlawed.”