Harris-Ingram Experiment

by Charles E. Bolton

  CHAPTER XIII

  TRIAL OF ANARCHY AND RESULTS

  George Ingram had scarcely disappeared in the darkness, when ColonelHarris fully comprehending the terrible situation at his works telephonedthe exchange to summon at once to his mills every physician and ambulancein the city.

  The Colonel then ordered his carriage, and taking Gertrude, rapidlydrove to the scene of the disaster. Great crowds had gathered, but thepolicemen, and the Harrisville Troop, already had established lines aboutthe burning steel mills, beyond which the people were not permitted topass. The police and fire departments were doing all in their power tosave life and property.

  Colonel Harris drove directly towards his office at the mills, but thishe could not reach as policemen guarded every approach. The two storybrick office had been completely wrecked by a huge piece of one of thefly-wheels, that had fallen through the roof.

  The night watchman whose duty it was to enter the office hourly waskilled, and his bleeding body was now being moved to a temporary morgue,which had been established in an adjoining old town-hall. Already overfifty mangled forms had been brought in and laid in rows on the floor,and more dead workmen were arriving every moment.

  The mayor and Colonel Harris were everywhere directing what to do. Scoresof the wounded were hurried in ambulances to a large Catholic Church, animprovised hospital. Here were sent physicians, volunteer nurses, beds,and blankets. Fortunately the seats in the church, being movable, werequickly carried into the streets, and on beds and blankets the sufferingmen were placed, and an examination of each wounded person was beingmade. Names and addresses were taken by the reporters, and ambulancesbegan to remove the severely injured to the city hospitals.

  Colonel Harris left Gertrude to minister to the wounded in the church,and sought out Wilson his manager, and George Ingram. Everybody workedtill daylight. Many wounded and dead men, and women and children werebrought up to the morgue and hospitals from the wrecked tenements thatstood near the exploded mills. Several bodies of the dead workmen, andthe wounded who could not escape from the burning works were consumed.When the sun rose on that dreadful scene, thousands of workmen and theirfamilies and tens of thousands of sympathizers witnessed in silence theawful work of anarchists. At daylight Colonel Harris rode with George andGertrude home to breakfast.

  In the evening press a call for a public meeting at 8 o'clock nextmorning of the prominent citizens resulted in the forming of an emergencycommittee of one hundred earnest men and women to furnish aid to theafflicted and needy work-people. The most influential people ofHarrisville were enrolled on this committee, which to be more thoroughlyeffective was subdivided. Every house occupied by the mill-people wasvisited, and every injured person was cared for.

  The women on the committee visited the hospitals and for a time becamenurses ministering to every want. Money and abundance of food were alsocontributed, and such kindness on the part of the rich the work-peoplehad never known before.

  The evening papers gave the authoritative statement that the totalnumber of those killed outright by the explosions at the steel mills wasone hundred and twenty-seven. Of this number eighty-six were workmen,fourteen were men who lived in the vicinity, but were not employed in themills, ten were women, and seventeen were children. The total number ofwounded was sixty-eight.

  A public funeral was decided upon by the committee. The Harrisville Iron& Steel Co. sent their check for $5000 to the committee and many otherscontributed money. The time fixed for the public services was Sunday at 2o'clock. Ten separate platforms for the clergy and church choirs of thecity had been erected on the same open fields where the great strikemeetings had so often been held. By 1 o'clock people began to assemble.Workmen came from all parts of the city, till over fifty thousandlaborers with their wives were on the ground. Most wore black crepe ontheir arm.

  Fifteen minutes before 2 o'clock solemn band music gave notice to thecrowd of the approach of an imposing procession. Platoons of police ledthe column who were followed in carriages by the mayor, his cabinet, andthe city council; then another platoon of police, followed by a long lineof hearses, the black plumes of which seemed to wave in unison with thesolemn tread of over a thousand workmen, acting as pall-bearers, walkingin double file on either side of their dead comrades.

  It was some moments before the speaking could begin. By concerted actionall the clergy preached on the "Brotherhood of Mankind," the text usedbeing, John XV.-12. "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, asI have loved you." The speakers were moved by the Holy Spirit. Theservices closed with the hymn, "Nearer my God to Thee."

  The funeral procession was several miles in length. Public and privatebuildings along the route to the cemetery were draped with the emblems ofmourning. Twenty-five of the bodies were given private burial. Over onehundred of the victims of the dynamite disaster were buried in one commongrave. Together they had died, and together they were buried. The mantleof charity covered them.

  Soon after the funeral, the press contained an account of a great meetingheld by the surviving workmen of the Harrisville Iron & Steel Co., and ofresolutions that were unanimously adopted:--

  "Resolved, That we, the surviving workmen of the HarrisvilleIron & Steel Co., hereby desire to express our deep sympathy with thebereaved families of our late comrades in toil.

  "That further we desire to contribute from the pay-roll due us the wagesreceived for two days' services, the same to be paid to the emergencycommittee, one-half the proceeds of which is to apply to the relief ofthe bereaved workmen's families, the balance to be used for the purposeof erecting suitable monuments over the graves of our unfortunatecomrades.

  "Resolved, That we, employees of the Harrisville Iron & SteelCo., extend our sympathy to the company in their great financial loss.

  "That we hereby declare ourselves as law-abiding citizens, and that weneither directly, nor indirectly, were connected in any manner with thelate dynamite explosions and fires which destroyed the plant of TheHarrisville Iron & Steel Co., and we denounce those acts as dastardlyand inimical to the best interest of labor and civilization."

  Following the resolutions were appended the signatures of over fourthousand workmen. It was also voted that the resolutions, and namesattached, should be printed in the press of the city, and that a copyshould be delivered to the president of the steel company. This actionfreed the atmosphere of distrust, and business in Harrisville returnedto its accustomed ways.

  At a meeting of the directors of the Harrisville Iron & Steel Co. itwas voted "Not to rebuild our mills at present." Manager Wilson wasinstructed at once to so advise the employees, also to dispose of all themanufactured stock and raw material on hand, and to clean up the groundsof the old mill site.

  Colonel Harris remembered the action of Herr Krupp of Germany when aletter once reached him, threatening to destroy with dynamite his vastworks at Essing. Herr Krupp immediately called a meeting of his tens ofthousands of workmen, and read the letter to them, and then said,"Workmen, if this threat is executed, I shall never rebuild." Thissettled the matter.

  The city council of Harrisville and the county commissioners offeredrewards for the arrest and conviction of the dynamiters. The sum wasincreased to $10,000 by the steel company, and notices of these rewardswere mailed far and wide.

  By aid of an informer of the band of conspirators, Mike O'Connor andhis confederates were arrested as they were about to embark for SouthAmerica. In the hotly contested trial it was disclosed that O'Connor haddirected the placing of dynamite beneath engines and boilers before thehigh board fence was constructed about the works, that electric wires toignite the dynamite had been laid underground from the mills to an oldunused barn, nearly half a mile distant, and that O'Connor was seen tocome from the barn just after the explosion. Within two months after thearrest, the whole band were convicted and sentenced for life to hardlabor in the penitentiary.

  It was decided that Colonel Harris and Gertrude should soon sail torejoin Mrs. Harris and party
in England, and notice of this decision wascabled next day to them at London. The colonel was busy examiningcarefully George Ingram's detailed drawings of a new, enlarged, andmuch improved plan for a huge steel plant. The improvements were to be upto date, and his plans involved an entirely new process of convertingores into steel. It was agreed that George and his father, James Ingram,should perfect their inventions on which both for a long time had beenzealously at work, and that later George and the colonel should make atour of observation of leading iron and steel works in Europe.

  Gertrude was now very happy. The selled together, concerning the properrelations of capital and labor, and since the explosion they studied thequestion more earnestly than ever. Their scheme involved not onlyimproved works in a new location, but also a plan to harmonize, ifpossible, capital and labor, which they hoped might work great good tohumanity. Gertrude told George Ingram that his golden opportunity hadcome, and she resolved to render him all the assistance possible.