You ought to be out raising hell.
This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Monday November 20, 1916
Pennsylvania Justice: Leslie Marcy on “Law and Order”
From the International Socialist Review:
“The Law and Order Mob” in Pennsylvania:
MORE “LAW AND ORDER”
By LESLIE MARCY
ON Thursday, September 15 [Thursday September 14], two hundred and sixty-two union miners were arrested at Old Forge, Pa., and taken to Scranton where they were thrown in jail, charged with inciting to riot, unlawful assembly, and disorderly conduct. Seven honorable aldermen tried the prisoners in batches and bail was fixed aggregating one million five hundred thousand dollars.
These miners, most Italians, Polish and Lithuanian, were members of Local 511, I. W. W., and at the hour of their arrest were in open union meeting—enjoying their constitutional privilege of peaceably assembling together. Forty thousand local miners in the district were on strike in sympathy with the Minnesota iron miners and noon-hour meetings were held daily at many places.
The Law and Order mob was led by Sheriff Ben S. Phillips, who was heroically assisted by a dozen deputy sheriffs and a squad of state troopers, better known across the country as “black cossacks.” In order to be a cossack one must have a “good moral character” and “be able to ride.” Among the deputies were “leading business men” and one mine owner. All were heavily armed with business-like looking revolvers and riot clubs.
All the leading Scranton papers carried graphic front page display stories of the raid. It was a regular Law and Order red-letter day and the kept press celebrated by columns. A few samples from the Scranton Republican run as follows:
Urging their horses at top speed, the troopers, moving in double file, rode over fields, jumped ditches and fences until the hall was reached. * * * For an hour the I. W. W.’s were hemmed in like cattle.
Inside the hall the miners were held up and searched, but no fire arms were found. The minute book of the local was torn up by a trooper. Outside hundreds of men, women and children gathered around the conveyances. Women with babes in their arms shouted good-bye to their husbands, with tears streaming down their faces. Boys and girls looked on with a curious gaze at their brothers and fathers being taken to prison. Some women remained stoically silent during it all, seemingly awed at the business-like manner in which the small number of officers controlled the mob. Trucks of Scranton’s business houses, privately owned automobiles, coal wagons were comandeered.
Never before in the history of the state has there been a raid of such wholesale proportions.
As the long procession of prisoners were driven to Scranton, thousands of men, women and children lined the roadways and streets, hooting and jeering the police, uttering threats and chanting revolutionary songs. The prisoners joined in the singing.
Five prisoners were placed in each cell. Ordinarily the jail will accommodate 300 prisoners, including the women’s ward, but a count revealed 402 within the prison.
Sheriff Phillips was profuse in his praise of the good work done by the troopers. And he did not forget to praise the county deputies who played their parts in good fashion, and the city police force for their co-operation and good work. “I can’t say too much for the troopers,” the sheriff said. “The way they worked today was something marvelous and shows the kind of men that are in the organization. Our own deputies and the city police officers also did good work.”
Scores of women and children walked all the way from Old Forge the next morning; many carrying a babe in arms as well as edibles for their husbands. They plodded their way to the county prison, where the warden refused to admit them.
After being held from one to three weeks in jail the grand jury unanimously adopted a report exonerating the miners from all charges. District Attorney George W. Maxey in an interview which appeared in the Scranton Republican, said:
Sheriff Phillips and his score or more of deputies presented no legal evidence against any one for rioting, or for unlawful assemblage, or related offenses, and consequently the bills had to be ignored…. We called the sheriff himself before the grand jury, and found that his testimony was worthless…. These cases were so important that I took the precaution to have the testimony taken down, and after the testimony was all in, all parts that the jury desired to have read to it were read…. There was not a man on the jury who was not disgusted with the way Phillips had handled this entire matter…. The sheriff’s evidence not only failed to make out a case of the graver crime of riot, but failed even to make out a case of the pettiest misdemeanor known to the law.
Sheriff Phillips blundered all through this matter. Any official clothed with a little brief authority can make raids, but when such an official makes raids with out legal cause, he himself becomes a law breaker and subjects himself to the law’s pains and penalties.
The motive behind the raid is a desire on the part of the coal mine owners of Pennsylvania to break by force of arms and legal machinations the growing solidarity of the miners. Industrial Union principles, as expressed in the I. W. W., have been traveling as fast as prairie fires during the past few months. Hence the enthusiasm of Law and Order to stamp out this militant organization. How eagerly the business men in any strike zone form mobs to raid and fight organized labor!
Speed the day when every working man will realize the full meaning of industrial organization. The revolver, the riot club and the jail are the last resorts of the rulers.
[Details from cover photograph added.]
SOURCES
The International Socialist Review, Volume 17
-ed by Algie Martin Simons, Charles H. Kerr
Charles H. Kerr & Company,
July 1916-June 1917
https://books.google.com/books?id=SVRIAAAAYAAJ
ISR Nov 1916
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=b6s9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA261
“More ‘Law and Order'” by Leslie Marcy
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=b6s9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA269
The Scranton Republican
(Scranton, Pennsylvania)
-Sept 15, 1916
From page 1-
Photo: “Unloading I. W. W. Prisoners at County Jail Yesterday.”
Headline: “Troopers Bag 262 at I. W. W. Meeting, Jailing All Here.”
https://www.newspapers.com/image/48842601/
IMAGE
ISR Nov 1916, Scranton Republican Sept 15, 1916, IWW Miners
-and details.
https://books.google.com/books/reader?id=b6s9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&source=gbs_atb&pg=GBS.PA257
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~