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:
