WE NEVER FORGET: Four Standard Steel Car Strikers Gunned Down by Company Gunthugs & City Police of Hammond

Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, Ab Chp 6, 1925 ———-

We Never Forget, ed Sept 9, 1919, Hammond IN, 4 Strikers Killed ———-

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.

The fight in which the four men were killed occurred on September 9. According to press reports the trouble began when the police tried to disperse a crowd of strikers who, led by an ex-soldier in uniform, a lieutenant in the world war, carrying an American flag, sought to persuade some strike-breakers to refrain from going to work. When the police advanced, press reports state, an order was given for the policemen and company guards to fire. A volley of about a hundred shots followed. Press reports state that the policemen and guards “sprayed” the crowd with their sawed-off shotguns and other firearms. With the breaking away of the ranks of the strikers four of the killed were found in the street, together with the severely wounded.

Millionaires and Misery

And all the misery brought about by these deaths and the sufferings of the wounded and the anguish of grief with which the hearts of the loved ones of the dead and injured are torn is due to the determination of the steel magnates to become possessed of more and still more millions of dollars and to wield the autocratic and absolute power that the possession of this vast wealth gives them, aided and abetted as they are by servile public authorities in the acquiring of this wealth and in the exercise of such despotic power.

In the eyes of the steel barons who are wallowing in wealth the great crime of these strikers was their temerity in organizing so they could the better support their demand for the eight-hour day and 8 cents an hour increase in wages. This would raise their pay to 50 cents an hour, which every one who knows anything about living conditions realizes is hardly enough on which to eke out a bare existence……

[Emphasis added.]
[Newsclip added is from Hammond’s Lake County Times of September 9, 1919]