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WE NEVER FORGET
The Hammond Massacre of September 9, 1919
Headline from Hammond’s Lake County Times of September 9, 1919:
From the Locomotive Firemen’s Magazine of September 15, 1919:
The Hammond Strike
At Hammond, Ind., four strikers were killed and two score or more seriously wounded in a fight on September 9, in which, according to press reports, the steel company’s armed guards and city police fired more than one hundred shots.
The strike at Hammond started on August 18, when approximately 2,000 of the Standard Steel Car Company’s employes demanded the eight-hour day, recognition of their union and that their pay be raised from the present rate of 42 cents an hour to 50 cents an hour. On August 21 eleven companies of militia were quartered in Hammond and these state troops remained there a week, leaving on August 28. There was no disorder until September 2, when strike breakers were put to work and the strikers picketed the plant.
Mayor Brown of Hammond determined not to ask for state troops again, press reports state, and relied on policemen armed with sawed-off shotguns, and armed guards employed by the Standard Steel Car Company to maintain order.
