† If Lester made this statement—and the powder salesman testified under oath that he did—he made it for effect, and without regard for truth. His only experience in strip mining had been as a superintendent in companies controlled by R. H. Sherwood, now of Indianapolis. Mr. Sherwood tells me that no company of his has ever attempted to operate during an authorized strike.
‡ Since John L. Lewis has been accused repeatedly of precipitating the Herrin Massacre, the findings of Theodore Cronyn, representing the New York Herald, are pertinent. Cronyn wrote from Herrin on July 11, 1922:
“Officers of the union deny that Lewis’s telegram had any provocative effect whatever or that it was intended to have. Lewis has denied it; his whole organization has denied it. And men who are as free from prejudice as can be found in the county tell the writer that however the telegram may have been construed by those who read it the mine would have been Lewis sent his message.”
One “veteran of Williamson County” told Cronyn:
“Well, you can never make me believe John Lewis intended to have anybody go out and do some killing. I should say he was merely settling a disputed point in the routine of his business. But I will say that John Lewis was unfortunate in his choice of language. Everybody down here knows how the union miners feel about these things.… When Lewis officially told them that those fellows out at Lester’s mine were to be treated like any other strikebreakers I should say it was about the same as saying, ‘Hike out there to the mine and clean ’em out.’ I don’t believe that John Lewis gave the matter enough thought, or may be he didn’t know how bad conditions were down here.”
III
MASSACRE: THE AFTERMATH
June 1922–October 1922
Where whole communities openly sympathize with ruthless murder of inoffensive people in the exercise of the right to earn a livelihood, and where wholesale murder goes unpunished, it is imperative that public opinion should demand that the strong arm of the law, under fearless officials, take positive action. General John J. Pershing, July 4, 1922.
NO EPISODE in the history of American industrial warfare has ever shocked public opinion more violently than the Herrin Massacre. In country weeklies as well as metropolitan dailies, in papers all the way from Maine to California, editors flayed Herrin, Williamson County, and union labor. The events of June 22, 1922, constituted “the most brutal and horrifying crime that has ever stained the garments of organized labor”; the massacre was “hideous,” an “archdeed of savagery,” a succession of “bestial horrors”; those who took part in it were “unspeakable moral Turks.” “In justice Herrin, Illinois, should be ostracized,” wrote the editor of the Journal of Augusta, Maine, in a denunciation representative of hundreds, “shut off from all communication with the outside world and [the people] left to soak in the blood they have spilled … until they learn that this affair is everybody’s business.”
In the Senate of the United States, on June 24, Henry Lee Myers, Democrat, of Montana, read several newspaper accounts of the Williamson County killings and then declared: “German atrocities of the World War horrified this country from one end to the other; but I doubt if any German atrocities were perpetrated … that were more horrible, more shocking, more inexcusable, than the atrocities of which I have just read.…”
Two days later, in the House of Representatives, Wells Goodykoontz of West Virginia, a Republican, took the floor to say of the massacre: “There were no palliating facts, no mitigating circumstances. No crime ever committed could have been more inhuman or revolting in its nature.…”
If the people of Williamson County had any hope that such reprobation as this might soon lose its virulence, that hope was shattered by the coroner’s jury. After deliberating for a few hours the six jurors, three of whom were union miners, found that all the men killed on June 21 and June 22 except one—Jordie Henderson, a union miner whose death was attributed to Lester’s superintendent—were killed by unknown parties. They also found “that the deaths of the decedents were due to the acts direct and indirect of the officials of the Southern Illinois Coal Company,” and recommended that an investigation be undertaken to fix the blame upon those officers.
The verdict started a new wave of denunciation. Again Senator Myers took the floor, this time to refer to the Herrin killings as “anarchy pure and simple, ruthless defiance of the Federal government and State government … defiance of all constituted law and authority.…
“What is worse,” he concluded, “than the commission of the crime itself is the fact that the united populace of the county where it occurred appears to approve of it. The populace of Williamson County, Illinois, appears to be unitedly and one hundred per cent disloyal to the United States and its Constitution.”
Newspapers, equally bitter, saw similar significance in the finding of the coroner’s jury. The people of Williamson County, the Chicago Tribune asserted,
have recognized the conventions by holding an inquest and returning a verdict. Apparently that will be satisfactory to them. The fact that there has not been an arrest for the murders, that there has not been an indictment by the grand jury, that there has not been a charge of murder placed against any living man, means nothing but justification in such a community.
But it means more than that outside the community. It means that here in the heart of the state a community has set itself above the law, and that those within it, who are not party to the massacre, are so intimidated that they ignore the crime and attribute the guilt only to those outside the circle.
“Shall unionism be set above the laws of God and of man?” the St. Louis Times asked. “Can any red-handed murderer defend himself by saying: ‘If this had not been done, I would not have slit this helpless captive’s throat?’ ” Others saw in the coroner’s inquest “a travesty of justice … as appalling and as menacing as the crime itself,” “a piece of callous shamelessness and a deliberate taunt flung at the United States,” which “would be regarded as a joke if any humor could attach to the butchery at Herrin.”
In Williamson County many deplored the killings, but outsiders saw only sympathy for the rioters and scorn for the victims. At the funeral of Jordie Henderson a twenty-piece band, two thousand men on foot, and a row of automobiles more than a mile long followed the hearse. Four thousand mourners awaited the casket at the Herrin cemetery. A similar throng attended the last rites for Joe Pitkewicius,* also killed by strikebreakers’ bullets on the afternoon of June 21.
(While the funerals of Henderson and Pitkewicius were being held, sixteen bodies were buried in the potter’s field of the Herrin cemetery. As the rough boxes were lowered into graves dug by union miners, three of Herrin’s four Protestant ministers sang a hymn, and then each said a prayer. A few spectators looked on impassively. After the yellow clay had been piled on top of the caskets, the sexton marked each mound with a plain board bearing the simple inscription: “Died, June 22, 1922.”)†
More striking evidence of local approbation came from certain southern Illinois newspapers, which incautiously printed stories of the massacre before the nationwide revulsion had become evident. The following eyewitness account, by Editor Robert Drobeck of the Williamson County Miner, shocked millions when they read it in a pamphlet circulated by the National Coal Association:
At daybreak the 3,000 armed citizens [surrounding the mine] realizing that the future peace of their county was at stake, formed what has been termed by many, one of the neatest columns of troops ever seen in the vicinity, worked their way into the stronghold of the outlaws and captured those that remained alive. Several of those that were taken from the pit alive were taken to the woods near Herrin, where later they were found dead and dying. There were no riots, merely the citizens of the county acting in the only way left them for the safety of their homes. The faces of the men who were killed in the disturbance are horrible sights. Uncouth, as all crooks must be at the beginning, they were doubly unattractive as seen after justice had triumphed and the county had ag
ain resumed its normal peace-time behavior.
Visiting the region in mid-August, George E. Lyndon, Jr., representing the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, found Herrin and Marion “sullenly ashamed, but not repentant.” By local standards, as he interpreted them, the victims were outcasts. “They committed the cardinal crime, the unforgiveable treachery of selling their labor without the sanction of unionism. Theirs was a treason in the eyes of organized labor above and beyond the treason to country, even as the terrible vengeance of organized labor was above and beyond the majesty of the law.”
From the beginning, editorials condemning the Herrin killings had been salted with demands that the authorities—county, state, or national—bring the participants to justice. Day after day the Chicago Journal of Commerce ran a box on its front page headed: “Ten Days Since Herrin,” or: “Fourteen Days Since Herrin,” calling for the indictment of those who had taken part in the rioting. On June 29 that same paper reprinted several columns of editorials under the heading: “Press of Nation Demands Justice for Murders That Disgrace State,” and added its own assertion that “forty-seven states of the Union are looking to Illinois to administer justice to all responsible for the murder of workingmen, the torture of wounded, the desecration of the dead and the defiance to law and order on the part of the Miners’ Union at Herrin.”
As time passed without any apparent action, one organization after another demanded that something be done. The Chicago Association of Commerce passed resolutions urging that the offenders be brought to justice and that the officials whose negligence contributed to the disorders be disciplined. The Board of Directors of the National Association of Manufacturers chided the American Federation of Labor, in session when the massacre took place, for its failure to rebuke the mine workers, and called on every loyal American “to join in demanding the protection, by state and nation, of these fundamental rights of the citizen, that no man shall live his life by the consent of others, and no official shall refuse or neglect to guard these living truths of the day’s work.” In a letter to Governor Small the president of the National Coal Association charged that Williamson County officials had done little or nothing to punish the rioters, urged that the state use its law-enforcement agencies, and offered the Association’s resources to the prosecution. The Illinois Manufacturers Association sent its members a communication headed, “The Home of Lincoln Threatened with Disgrace,” in which it asked that they write or wire the governor requesting him to place Williamson County under martial law so that residents having knowledge of the events of June 22 could offer their evidence without fear.
In early August the National Coal Association distributed hundreds of thousands of copies of a thirty-eight page pamphlet entitled The Herrin Conspiracy. On the outside front cover were several excerpts from newspaper editorials, concluding with this from the New York Sun of July 6: “Until this coal mine butchery is legally avenged Americans can no longer boast that in the United States the Constitution is supreme.” The body of the publication was a reasonably objective account of the massacre and the events leading up to it—there was no need to color the facts—but its final paragraphs drove home its real point:
More than a month after the massacre scarcely a visible effort has been made to discover or punish perpetrators of the crime.…
Shall the assassins of innocent American citizens go unpunished?
It cannot be possible that Illinois will not take further official cognizance of these infamous acts, as the first and last tribunal of the country, our American citizenship, will demand that lawlessness, murder and massacre are not and never shall be permitted to undermine the security not only of the nation’s industries, but the very lives and homes of our people.
Prominent Americans made the same demands. At Marion, Ohio, on July 4, 1922, General John J. Pershing alluded to the Herrin massacre without naming it, called it wholesale murder that was as yet unpunished, and asserted: “… it is imperative that public opinion should demand that the strong arm of the law, under fearless officials, take positive action.” On July 13 Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, told delegates to the Elks’ National Convention that Herrin was “as atrocious a massacre [unclear]. as is contained in our annals” and reminded his audience that poor man and rich man were equal before the law. Reversing the usual emphasis, he declared: “The offender of great wealth must be brought to task for his iniquities, and the offender of small wealth must be brought to task also.” But the sharpest reproof of all came from President Harding. In the course of an address to Congress the President referred to Herrin as “a shocking crime” that shamed and horrified the country,” as “butchery … wrought in madness,” and asked for legislation extending the jurisdiction of the federal courts so that such “barbarity” could be punished.
The President’s address was read before Congress on August 18. On the following day he received a telegram from John H. Camlin, president of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, informing him that despite appearances the people of Illinois were determined that the mine rioters should be apprehended and punished, and that his own organization had taken steps to see that there would be an effective prosecution. “There is, of course, a conscience in Illinois which will not tolerate such a disgraceful thing,” Harding replied. “It will be very pleasing to me and reassuring to the whole country to know that this conscience is finding expression.”
In his telegram Camlin referred to a letter that his office had sent to each of the state’s 102 chambers of commerce two days earlier. In this communication the Illinois Chamber declared that neither State’s Attorney Duty of Williamson County nor Attorney General Edward J. Brundage had adequate funds for prosecuting the murderers, yet they were the only officials in the state who could take action. Contributions totaling at least twenty-five thousand dollars were requested, and a quota was assigned to each local chamber.
In this emergency the State of Illinois is on trial [the appeal concluded]. Our citizens visiting elsewhere have been compelled to hang their heads in shame. The world is asking us, “What are you going to do about it?” We believe the only possible answer is that the business men of this state will contribute of their funds to the utmost in order to prove to the world that justice still reigns and human life shall be safe in Illinois.
Williamson County in Relation to the Principal Cities of Illinois
On the day this letter was released Judge Hartwell summoned a special grand jury to convene at Marion on Monday, August 28, to investigate the Herrin killings.
All over the country editors commended the Illinois Chamber for its action, though many wondered why Illinois, one of the wealthiest states in the Union, had to depend on a private organization for the money with which to prosecute murder. (The reason was to be found in a political feud between Brundage and Governor Small. In 1921 Small had vetoed a large part of Brundage’s appropriation, leaving him barely enough money for the routine functions of his office.) Only a few Illinois papers spoke out in opposition, taking the position that it was the duty of the state in its official capacity to enforce the law, and not the concern of a chamber of commerce.
In some places, however, the action of the state chamber aroused more than theoretical dissent. Months earlier the Illinois Chamber had planned to make a tour of southern Illinois in late September. The schedule called for a half day in Marion, with a barbecue and a visit to a mine. After the massacre, the half day was cut to forty-five minutes. When the state chamber issued its appeal for funds, an officer of the Greater Marion Association asked that the city be omitted altogether. “I do not believe the average business man in Marion,” he informed the state secretary, “is in a proper frame of mind to make a genial host for your party.” The trip was abandoned.
Much more important was the reaction of the United Mine Workers of Illinois. Two weeks after the state chamber asked for contributions, Frank Farrington, the miners’ district president, and other officers conferred with the union’s lawyer.
After the conference Farrington pledged all the resources of the district for the defense of any union miner who might be indicted for participation in the Herrin riots. “We have a proper appreciation of the magnitude of the forces that have combined to convict our members,” he said, “and we shall leave nothing undone that will enable us to combat these forces.” What that meant became clear when the union miners of the state met in convention at Peoria early in September. There, in executive session, they voted a one-per-cent assessment on the earnings of all their members after September 1, 1922, and directed that the money be used for the defense of those whose indictments were expected.
Equally significant was the opportunity the action of the Illinois Chamber gave to the labor press.
The smoke of gunpowder at the powerhouse woods had hardly cleared before the Associated Employers of Indianapolis, an organization dedicated to the open shop, addressed a letter to its clientele calling upon “red-blooded citizenship” to urge Governor Small “to afford the fullest possible protection to life and property in the legitimate mining of coal, notwithstanding the miners’ union.” When President Harding, on the Fourth of July, proclaimed that “a free American has the right to labor without any other’s leave,” no labor editor, with public opinion as inflamed as it was, had the temerity to contradict him. When associations of employers—and particularly the National Coal Association—began to blanket the country with pamphlets, labor’s friends saw, or professed that they saw, an anti-union conspiracy. But not until the Illinois Chamber of Commerce made its financial appeal did they have what could be presented as convincing evidence.
Bloody Williamson Page 4