Hellraisers Journal: St. Louis Streetcar Strikers Shot Down by Sheriff’s Posse; Eugene V. Debs on Law and Order

Quote EVD, re St Louis Streetcar Strike Massacre, LW p1, June 23, 1900 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 24, 1900
St. Louis, Missouri – Streetcar Strikers Shot Down Returning from Picnic

From the Duluth Labor World of June 23, 1900:

ST. LOUIS OUTRAGE HOMESTEAD
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HOMESTEAD AND HAZELTON PALE
INTO INSIGNIFICANCE.
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Street Car Men Returning Home From a Picnic
Cruelly Shot and Murdered by Posse of Deputy Sheriffs-
Debs’ Strong Letter-Says No Strike is Ever Lost-
The Lesson is Worth the Cost.
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The St. Louis street car strike is still on and will be, perhaps, for some time, as the St. Louis Transit Co. have positively refused to accept any proposition for arbitration whatever. Since then the St. Louis Central Labor Union has determined to fight the street car company to the bitter end, and adopted the following proposition for the election of a committee of 50 to form immediate organization and proceed to raise a fund of at least $100,000 to carry on the strike until it is won, the fund to be raised by an appeal to organized labor throughout the world, by personal appeals to every kind of organized bodies in St. Louis, and by such other means as may be deemed proper, closing with an appeal to the people of St. Louis to refrain from riding on the Transit cars, and to organizations, societies and associations of every kind in St. Louis, in sympathy with the movement, to make the street railway strike a special order of business at all their meetings, and to appoint committees to raise funds and continue to maintain an iron-clad boycott until the victory is won.

Mr. E. V. Debs was requested to come to St. Louis, but on account of illness was unable to do so. He however sent a very strong letter, which sums up the situation in a true light. The following from his letter will not be without interest:

The turbulence incident to the St. Louis strike has excited the usual flow of capitalistic comment. Of course they claim that the strikers are responsible for all the trouble. It is so easy for people who live out of the labor of others to talk about law and order. If only they were compelled to run a street car through crowded streets for nine or ten weary hours, for a paltry wage, they would not wonder why honest and peaceable men are driven to extremities, in which fine points of law as to what their conduct should be, is simply a mockery. As a matter of fact, they are not striking for their rights, but against tyranny and exploitation, and as the struggle involves not only their means of living but their very lives, and the lives of their wives and babies, it would be strange indeed, and far more to their discredit, than acts of violence incident to the strike, if they did not exert all the means at their command to prevent defeat and degradation.

The St. Louis strike is an important battle in the great warfare for the liberation of the working class from the oppression and robbery of capitalism. Whatever may be the outcome, it will be a victory for labor, for no strike is ever lost.

I do not doubt this strike has opened the eyes of many of the working class to the power of capitalism in such crisis. All departments of government are subjected to the orders of the class which owns the means of production. Only the capitalistic class can secure the issuance of injunctions, call into action the posse comitatus, swear in deputy sheriffs, call out the militia, and command the federal troops to commit the crowning acts of despotism. The working class have only to submit, or to be either jailed or shot down. But, surely, such object lessons are not in vain. The Transit company in its blind cupidity, is hastening its own doom. Collective ownership is the lesson taught, and the demand for it will spring spontaneously from such a situation.

I wish to tender my profound sympathy to President Mahon in this trying hour. I know him well, and there is not a more able nor more courageous leader of the working class. I have seen him tried, and he has proven himself worthy of the confidence and esteem of all men. Under his leadership the men at St. Louis have made and are making a brave fight, and most heartily do I wish that complete victory will crown their struggle. The Central Labor Union, and the organized workers of St. Louis generally, can not be too highly commended for their loyal support of the strike. They have given to the country an exhibition of devotion to the cause of labor worthy of universal emulation.

Mrs. Debs, who is writing this for me, and all our family, unite in the earnest wish that victory may come to the striking comrades.

Yours fraternally,
EUGENE V. DEBS.

The crowning dastardly act of the strike occurred last Sunday evening [June 10th], when a body of street car men were returning from a picnic, and were peaceably marching homeward, when they reached a point opposite a temporary barracks in which were a posse of deputies. Here they were attacked by a band of deputies there stationed and several of the union men were being roughly handled when a sergeant dropped his pistol, causing its discharge.

It served as a signal to the posse, and from the guns of those face to face with the strikers and from the doors, and even the second-story windows of the barracks a deadly volley was poured into the ranks of the union men killing two outright, fatally wounding two and inflicting dangerous injuries upon three others, from the effects of which they may die. A dozen or more were also wounded, but fearing greater slaughter ran from the scene before the details of their injuries could learned.

[Drawings added from The St. Louis Republic of June 11th.]
[Emphasis added.]