THE SLAUGHTER OF STRIKERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6126, 12 March 1898, Page 6

THE SLAUGHTER OF STRIKERS.

THE HAZLETON TRAGEDY. The Hazleton incident arose out of a - strike of miners, mostlyof Polish and Slav . origin, who were employed in Pennsyl- . vania mines. On Sept. 10 a large party of '. miners started to march from Hazleton to '" the neighbouring town of Lattimer, with the object of inducine the miners there to join the strike movement. On the outskirts of Lattimer they were met by the Sheriff of Luzerne County and a force of deputies who were drawn np across the < road and barred their further progress. . On the> Sheriff callinglupon them to disperse the strikers halted, but instead of ' obeying the Sheriff's summons, sullenly stood their ground. The officer thereupon read the Riot Act, the purport of which probably none of the men comprehended, as it is doubtful whether . any of them understood English. ;They listened quietly, but their atti- . tude of sullen determination remained unchanged, and at the conclusion of the • reading a low murmuring was heard in their ranks. Immediately after they once ■ more began to move forward, seeing which, .. the Sheriff, taking a few steps towards them, and addressing them in a determined • voice, again forbade them to advance. A moment later he was struck, and the . deputy sheriffs then fired into the mob. Eleven of their number fell dead and fif ty others were wounded, of whom ten sub- ; sequently died. The strikers were taken completely by surprise, and on seeing their comrades fall they raised cries of dismay and terror, and at once fled in all directions as fast as possible, carrying many ■ of their dead and wounded comrades with them. There appears no doubt that, although.. the strikers ran away, : directly the first shots were fired the depu- ; ties still went on shooting them down, as , it was ascertained that with the exception of five, all the dead and - wounded were shot in the back. A school principal who was an eye-witness to the event, saw the Sheriff pushed into a ditch, whereupon the first shot was fired, apparently without any order to fire being given, but after this the .hooting was kept up for several minutes} The Sheriff's deputies pursued the men •is they fled and shot several. The witness did not see a single attempt of violence on the part of the strikers, and none ef them remained to face the deputies After the firing of the first shot. In a statement made after the affair, the Sheriff said that the leader of the men ignored his order to stop, and when he attempted to arrest the man the hitter's comrades closed about him, jostled him roughly, and finally knocked him down, kicked him, and trampled upon him. The deputies were unable to help much, and believing that he would be killed, he called to the deputies to fire in the 'air. This, however, had no effect. The strikers only became bolder and rougher, and surrounded the deputies as they had done himself. The deputies were then ordered to shoot at the mob if it was necessary in defence of their lives. At first only a few scattered shots were fired, and then a volley. He concluded by saying that he hated to order the shooting, , but he acted as his conscience die- ' fcated, in view of the fact that the .trikers were violators of the law. In a later interview, the Sheriff admitted that the strikers were on the public road, and had not committed any overt act when he commanded them to stop. Despite his former statement, he said in his second interview that he himself did not order the firing, but that someone else did so. The Sheriff made a further statement on the following day, in which he declared that most men would have acted under the circumstances aa he had done. He had no Idea of shirking his duty. He had been parleying with the mob for four days, but it had done no good. The strikers were gradually getting the best of the situation, and iin another twenty-four hours matters would have become much more serious. It was noticed that the Sheriff bore no marks of violence, but one of the deputies received a shot in the arm. The Sheriff and a hundred and two deputies were arrested at the instance of the United Hungarian Societies.