powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania – Gunthugs with Badges on Trial
On September 10, 1897, striking coal miners were marching peacefully behind the American flag when they were shot down in cold blood at Lattimer, a mining village near Hazelton, by Sheriff Martin and his deputies. Many of the 19 miners who died in the massacre were shot in the back. That sheriff and his deputies are now on trial in the Luzerne County Courthouse.
From the Appeal to Reason of February 19, 1898:
THE HAZELTON MASSACRE.
There never was a case in which the evidence was more direct, explicit and full that men had committed unprovoked murder than that being given in the trial of the sheriff and his 67 pals for the murder of the miners. Not only is the guilt practically admitted, but the evidence shows that the deputies boasted before what they were going to do and boasted afterwards what they had done. One of the most significant things about it is that the bail was given by a Philadelphia trust company putting up $340,000 in cash! All the corporations are showing their interest in clearing the murderers. I [J. A. Wayland?] clip these bits of testimony from the trial report as a sample evidence:
Returning to the witness stand, Yeager continued: “When the firing occurred, the miners began running back and across the road. At least eight or ten rounds were fired. Inside of five minutes the ground was strewn with dead. I did not say anything, but I looked at them to see who was killed. I personally knew and recognized Footguard and Cesla among the dead. The men ran toward the school house.
“I saw two deputies, after the volley, holding their rifles in the act of shooting. They stepped forward out of the ranks on the edge of the road, took deliberate aim at the fleeing miners and fired. One of these men is Henry Deihl, who has fled to South Africa. The deputies who did the shooting called on me to help them gather up the dead. I said: ‘you killed them; help them up yourself.’ The second man was a constable whom I did not know.”
Captain John Hampden, of the Coal and Iron Police, was then brought forward and identified by the witness as being present with a gun in his hands. It is asserted by the defence that the captain was in Hazelton and not present.
Clerk Thomas Hall, of the Valley Hotel, at Hazelton on the day of the tragedy, was next put on the stand. He testified:
“Deputy Turner said to me that he shot nine and killed five strikers.”
The effect of these words was thrilling. A shudder passed over the court room.
To Mr. Lenahan: “Deputy Turner was about the Hotel all Saturday and Sunday after the terrible Friday. Turner’s remark was made on Sunday.”
Hard upon the shock of witness Hall’s testimony came that of Christopher Brehm, a citizen of Cranberry village. He is a laboring man, but had an intelligent face and answered decisively. He swore:
“I was in the company’s store, where we have to trade or lose our job, and Deputy Bornheiser said to me. ‘Every one of the Hungarians ought to be shot.’
“I said the strike would benefit us all if the men got the fair wages and the other privileges they asked. He turned on me and shouted, ‘You’re a liar!’
PLANNING FOR A MAN HUNT.
“This was on Monday before the shooting, in which Bornheiser took part. I also heard Deputy Dodson, who lives at Cranberry, say with glee: ‘I’d like to shoot those Huns at a cent a head for I could make money at it.'”
A stillness fell on the eagerly listening throng. Every man was thinking hard and pinching himself to make sure that he was in Pennsylvania instead of Cuba or Dahomey.
The chief contention of the miners was that they ought to be allowed to buy their food and clothes where they could buy most cheaply and not be forced to deal at the company stores. The deputies’ interest were those of the company.
The final witness of the day was Joseph Costello, a young man of Hazelton, with an extra-ordinarily large chin. His evidence was corroborative of much that had preceded. He was no in any way identified with the strikers. He testified:
“I knocked off work at noon and went on the car to Farley’s Hotel. While I was drinking a glass of beer with some friends men came in bleeding, and told us they had been shot by the deputies. We saw a man dying in the woods. We walked up to Lattimer and saw ten or twelve wounded men. One we found in great agony; he had two terrible gunshot wounds in the back.”
Here an effort was made to introduce the testimony regarding Deputy Hess’s declaration that if the witness did not shut up he would treat him in the same way. Long argument fellowed, and the Judge said he would give his decision in the morning. This closed the day.
All this is what laboring men get for voting for sheriffs and tother officials who believe that corporations should be protected. This is what they get for voting for republicans and democrats. Will they do it some more?
———-
SOURCES
From The New York Times of Feb 2, 1898:
“Trial for Killing Miners”
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1898/02/02/102488462.pdf
Lattimer Massacre Project
https://lattimermassacre.wordpress.com/
Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen
-and Enginemen’s Magazine, Volume 24
Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen, 1898
https://books.google.com/books?id=lY9IAQAAMAAJ
Edition of March 1898
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=lY9IAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA219
“Editorial Etchings: The Lattimer Massacre”
Re trial of Sheriff Martin and deputies:
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=lY9IAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA273
Description of Lattimer Massacre here:
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=lY9IAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA274
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Feb 19, 1898
https://www.newspapers.com/image/66970211/
IMAGE
Lattimer Massacre of 1897, Locomotive Firemens Mag, Nov 1897
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015075056435;view=2up;seq=806
See also:
J. A. Wayland
Julius Augustus Wayland (1854–1912)
http://spartacus-educational.com/USAwaylandJ.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Wayland
Appeal to Reason (newspaper)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_Reason_(newspaper)
Lattimer Massacre, wiki = NAMES & AGES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattimer_massacre
Locomotive Firemen’s Magazine, Volume 23
Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, 1897
https://books.google.com/books?id=ykEoAAAAYAAJ
From edition of Nov 1897:
“The Hazleton Slaughter”
-by W. S. Carter, Editor and Manger
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=ykEoAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA365
From The New York Times:
Feb 1- Mar 31, 1898
Re Trial of Sheriff and deputies
– NYT search: lattimer
http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/#/lattimer/from18980201to18980331/allresults/1/allauthors/oldest/
Sept 10, 1972
Lattimer Massacre Historical Marker
http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-3BA
Fall 2010
“The Martyred Miners of Lattimer”
-by Alyssa Murphy
http://pabook2.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/Lattimer.html
Sept 18, 2015
“The Lattimer Massacre: When an Entire Police Force Stood Trial”
-by Mark Hand
https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/18/the-lattimer-massacre-when-an-entire-police-force-stood-trial/