Beneath the starry banner
Though they came from foreign lands,
They died the death of martyrs
For the noble rights of man.
-Anonymous
Hellraisers Journal, Sunday April 24, 1898
Lattimer, Pennsylvania – Jury Finds Massacre of Miners Was Not Murder
The miners of Pennsylvania were marching peacefully when Sheriff Martin and his army of deputized gunthugs opened fire upon them at Lattimer on September 10, 1897; and yet the miners were not murdered according to the verdict of the jury as reported by The New Time magazine of April 1898:
Plutocrats’ Hero Acquitted-
THE ACQUITTAL OF SHERIFF MARTIN.
The acquittal of Sheriff Martin, the plutocratic hero of Hazleton, was to have been expected. Never yet in the history of the United States, or for that matter any other country, have the hired murderers of workingmen been brought to justice when arraigned before a court. The slaughter of the men at Hazleton was the most infamous act ever committed under forms of law. It has its parallel in the judicial farce which resulted in the acquittal of Martin and his cowardly and blood-thirsty deputies.
