Beneath the starry banner
Though they came from foreign lands,
They died the death of martyrs
For the noble rights of man.
-Anonymous
From The Hazelton Daily Standard, September 17, 1897:
The Ballad of the Deputies
How proud the deputies must feel
Who took so brave a part
In that conflict where their rifles
Have pierced the manly hearts
Of honest fellow workmen
Without pistol, gun or knife,
Without the smallest weapon
To defend their sacred life.We cannot forget the bravery
Of those noble warlike men,
Who after shooting victims down
Took aim and fired again.
Oh, noble, noble, deputies
Our heads are bent with shame,
We shake with fear and blush to hear
The list of cowards’ names.
Though the press of Philadelphia
May uphold the Sheriff’s name,
It makes the crime no lighter
And it lessens not the shame.
The crime you have committed
Leaves a stain forever more
On the fair name of Hazelton
Such as was never known before.
The region is in mourning
For the victims who have died,
In trying to maintain their rights
The rights they were denied.Beneath the starry banner
Though they came from foreign lands,
They died the death of martyrs
For the noble rights of man.
Oh, noble, noble deputies
We will shout the news aloud,
The Sheriff was a coward
And he led a cowardly crowd.Can you still live here and witness
The destruction you have wrought,
Where you’ll hear the little orphans
Mourning o’er their fateful lot?
And hear their widowed mothers
Crying for the ones they loved,
And praying prayers of vengeance
To the Mighty One above.If the courts of justice shield you
And your freedom you should gain,
Remember that your brows are marked
With the burning brand of Cain.
Oh, noble, noble deputies
We always will remember,
Your bloody work at Lattimer
On the 10th day of September.
SOURCE
Blog: Being But Men, We Walked Into the Trees
(-for poem and for review of the excellent book by Michael Novak)
http://beingbutmen.blogspot.it/2013/03/on-september-10-1897-luzerne-county-pa.html
See also:
The Guns of Lattimer
-by Michael Novak
(search: ballad deputies)
Transaction Publishers, Jan 1, 1996
https://books.google.com/books?id=rBal2LDs8EYC
Tag: Lattimer Massacre of 1897
https://weneverforget.org/tag/lattimer-massacre-of-1897/
Lattimer Massacre – Van Wagner
“Their hearts were filled with freedom
And their lungs filled with coal.”