Bloody Williamson

by Paul M. Angle

  They were quick to use it. Announcing that henceforth he would devote his entire time to defending any miners who might be indicted, A. C. Lewis, a lawyer of Harrisburg, Illinois, charged the “organized wealth of the nation” with “poisoning the minds of the public” and with trying to create “a public sentiment which will prevent these men from receiving a fair trial.… It is apparent,” he continued, “they have raised and are spending fabulous sums of money, not for the purpose of bringing the guilty to justice, but with the intention of seeking victims in the hope that … they can in some measure discredit organized labor.”

  Behind the prosecution [asserted the Illinois Miner, official organ of the Illinois district], crowding it, whispering to it, pointing a dark finger now at one point of labor’s defense front and now at another point, is the allied employing class.… They advocate more things than conviction. They talk solemnly of the “inalienable right of every man to work, wherever he will, at whatever wage he will.”

  Such pronouncements as these led Philip Kinsley, level-headed representative of the Chicago Tribune, to write from Marion on September 1: “The murder charge will be lost sight of in the trials of the rioters and the cause of the open shop versus labor will be the central issue.”

  Appearances to the contrary, Illinois officials had not turned their backs on the Herrin killings. Two days after the massacre, representatives of the Attorney General were in Williamson County interviewing county officers and leading citizens. Three weeks later Brundage offered a reward of one thousand dollars for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the murderers. Moreover, Judge Hartwell had summoned a special grand jury for July 9 in the expectation that it would investigate the mine riot, only to be told by the prosecution that it was not yet ready. Consequently, only routine cases were presented to the jurors, and the county officials suffered charges of neglect and nonfeasance in silence.

  By the end of August the prosecution had gathered its evidence. The judge, having called one grand jury prematurely, wanted to defer the investigation until the September term of court, when a jury called in due course would be available, but the State’s Attorney insisted that a special grand jury be called at the earliest possible moment. Judge Hartwell yielded, and issued his summons for a venire to be present at the courthouse in Marion on August 28.

  At the roll call that morning twenty-six men came forward. Four were excused for personal reasons, so one more was selected from the panel to make the necessary twenty-three. Philip Kinsley classified twenty-one of the group as farmers, one as a furniture and lumber dealer, and one as a part-time farmer and coal miner. “All,” he wrote, were Americans “of the normal back-country type of Anglo-Saxon-Celtic descent through the southern mountains … a little harder of eye, perhaps, than the average farmer of the corn belt.”

  The judge delivered his charge with the utmost informality, standing with one foot on the railing of the witness box, leaning forward, and speaking as if in conversation. His words, however, contradicted his nonchalance. He reminded the jurors that they had not been summoned to settle a labor dispute, and that they represented neither operators nor miners. They owed allegiance only to the people of Illinois; their guide should be their oath to inquire “fully, fairly, and impartially” into the facts.

  “I do not mean to lecture you,” Hartwell said. “A good many of you are older than I am. I am not going to indulge in any moral sermon. You and I live in this county. You and I have enjoyed the protection of its laws and of the laws of the state and government.…”

  He concluded with quiet impressiveness: “There comes a time in the life of all of us when a man will have to take a stand. If a man stands for the things he believes to be right, who can complain? With full confidence in you, I now ask you to go to your jury room to commence the performance of your duty as grand jurors.”

  Within two days, the grand jury returned its first indictment, charging Otis Clark, farmer and miner, with murder. Hearing of his indictment, Clark came to Marion and surrendered before the sheriff could serve the warrant for his arrest. Frank Farrington, president of the Illinois District of the U.M.W.A.; Harry Fishwick, vice-president; Walter Nesbit, secretary-treasurer; Hugh Willis, subdistrict board member; A. W. Kerr, chief counsel for the defense, and associate counsel George R. Stone and A. C. Lewis ostentatiously escorted him from the courthouse to the county jail.

  At intervals throughout the next three weeks the grand jury returned additional indictments. By September 23, when it recessed for thirty days, it had brought in a total of 214—forty-four for murder, fifty-eight for conspiracy, fifty-eight for rioting, and fifty-four for assault to murder.

  Before recessing, the grand jury filed a report. After reviewing what had happened on June 22 and the preceding days, the jurors made some pointed observations. The sheriff—“holder of a card in the Miners’ Union and a candidate for county treasurer”—had refused to ask for troops and had taken no adequate measures to preserve the peace, although he could not have been unaware of the strikers’ plans to attack and close the mine. The Adjutant General’s office had tried to shift responsibility to the sheriff, and had not taken decisive action to prevent disorder. The laxity of the police in the towns where stores were looted for firearms was deplorable. John L. Lewis’s telegram advising that members of the steamshovelmen’s union be treated as common strikebreakers was quoted in full, and although no comment was offered, the jury pointed out that preparations for the attack on the mine followed its publication. The Southern Illinois Coal Company had been within its legal rights in resuming operations, but “was either woefully ignorant of the danger of its operations or blindly determined to risk strife and conflict if profits could be made.”

  In view of the fact that the labor press was to make much of the grand jury’s failure to indict anyone for the killings on the day before the massacre, one paragraph of the report deserves quotation in full:

  On the first day of the attack upon the mine two union miners were killed by the answering fire from the men in the strip mine and another so seriously injured as to die subsequently from his wounds. It has been difficult for this grand jury to determine who fired the shots from the strip mine which caused the deaths of the Union miners. When asked to present evidence to the grand jury which would tend to fix responsibility, counsel for the Miners’ Union announced they would lend no aid to the Grand Jury.‡

  To the press of the country the action of the grand jury and its outspoken report came as a surprise. Editors who had condemned Williamson County and the state of Illinois for inaction reversed themselves overnight. Delos Duty (“splendid name”), Attorney General Brundage, and the members of the grand jury deserved the thanks of the entire country for their “noble vindication of the law.” What was more, the law could be expected to operate effectively in the trial of those against whom indictments had been brought. “America is still America,” the New Haven Journal-Courier proclaimed “… and the flag lifts its drooping folds.”

  Labor and the labor press, on the other hand, were bitter. The grand jury had played into the hands of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and other organizations whose purpose was not to bring murderers to justice but to smash union labor. A. W. Kerr, chief counsel for the defense, struck the keynote in a statement that he issued two days after the grand jury filed its report. That document, he charged, bore “all the ear-marks” of having been prepared by the Attorney General in collaboration with the officials of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce. The Attorney General had taken “so-called massacres” in different parts of the state with complacency: not until violence took on a capital-labor aspect did he become aroused. And the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, Kerr charged, was an organization “whose only record is that of an effort to destroy organized labor; to break the morale of those organizations; to take little children out of school before their time; to give less food to the wives and children of Illinois.”

  Labor papers repeated Kerr’s theme. “A
merican capital is getting ready to stage a bloodier orgy than ever was staged on the industrial arena of this country,” one editor announced. Another sneered: “It’s a Roman holiday for the union haters and all talented folk who can get their feet in the slush fund.” Still others pounced on the failure of the grand jury to return indictments for the killings on the day before the massacre. The Illinois Chamber of Commerce had obtained 214 indictments against workers, commented The Worker, of New York, without “one indictment being returned against a mine owner or any of his retinue,” while the Minneapolis Labor Review pointed out caustically that “this grand jury that indicted the union miners refused to indict those, who on the day previous to the engagement at Herrin, had shot down and murdered unarmed unionists, who were attempting to reach the mine officials for a conference”—ignoring the grand jury’s statement that the miners’ attorneys had refused to offer any evidence on which indictments might be based.

  Herrin made its attitude toward the indicted men plain by actions rather than words. When the defendants were arraigned on September 25, Judge Hartwell announced that eight would be held without bail, while the others would be released on bonds ranging from five to twenty thousand dollars each. Eighty-six citizens of Herrin promptly stepped forward and signed bonds aggregating $410,000. Writing down their names, the judge remarked that it was like taking the census.

  One week after the arraignment Ignatz Kubens, a Lester employee from Chicago who had been shot at the powerhouse fence, died in the Herrin hospital, bringing the total number of massacre victims to twenty-three—three union miners and twenty guards and strikebreakers. His death led to forty-eight additional indictments when the grand jury convened in late October for its final meeting at the end of its month’s recess.

  In the Williamson County jail the eight defendants who were held there escaped the worst rigors of confinement. The Illinois miners’ union furnished fans to keep them comfortable; a Herrin local donated a Victrola and a supply of records. From time to time friends brought delicacies to supplement the prison fare, and the wives of the married prisoners took turns at cooking chicken dinners with all the fixin’s.

  * This name, Lithuanian in origin, appeared in all kinds of variant spellings in the press of the time. I follow the form recommended by a Lithuanian friend of mine, although he suggests that it might have been shortened to Pitkewicis, or even Pitkewics.

  † When I visited the site in the summer of 1951 no sign of the graves could be seen.

  ‡ A lawyer who has read this chapter comments as follows: “I wonder if you couldn’t be accused of bias in quoting this without explanation. It was not the duty of the union to present the evidence. It would have been better if the grand jury had also indicted Lester for these homicides. He might not have been guilty but there was certainly some evidence to indicate his guilt. The entire story should have been brought out.”

  IV

  TWO TRIALS AND AN INVESTIGATION

  November 1922–June 1923

  The murder charge will be lost sight of in the trials of the rioters and the cause of the open shop versus labor will be the central issue. Philip Kingsley in the Chicago Tribune, September 2, 1922.

  ON THE morning of November 8, 1922, crowds pushed into the Williamson County courthouse as soon as the sheriff unlocked the doors. Long before ten a.m., when the trial of eight men charged with the murder of Howard Hoffman, Lester mine guard, was to begin, spectators had filled the circuit courtroom on the second floor. If they noticed their surroundings at all, they saw nothing incongruous in features that visiting correspondents were describing in dispatches sent out to the entire country—the cracked plaster of the walls and ceiling, the flyspecked campaign poster of President Harding draped with a far-from-fresh American flag, the signs admonishing against spitting hanging over cuspidors that resounded with an almost continuous fusil-lade of tobacco juice. In this room justice had been measured out, by local standards, for more than thirty years, and the people were used to it.

  As the clock struck ten the bailiff called for order. Judge Hartwell, youthful, debonair, casually but immaculately dressed, walked from his chambers to the bench and asked the regular panel of jurors to come forward. Before there could be a response the state requested an hour’s recess for the purpose of preparing a motion. At eleven o’clock, when court reconvened, the motion was made and granted: indictments against all the defendants except Otis Clark, Bert Grace, Peter Hiller, Joseph Carnaghi, and Leva Mann were nol-prossed. Court adjourned until afternoon.

  After lunch—“dinner” in the Marion of 1922—the first panel of veniremen stood before the bench, and the attorneys began to ask their interminable questions. This man was rejected because he had formed an opinion in the case, this one because he did not believe in the death penalty, this one because he was a relative of a defendant, this one was challenged peremptorily. The day dragged to its close without a juror in the box.

  Many such days followed. The defendants, keenly alert in the beginning, read newspapers or dozed in their chairs, the clerk of the court lost himself in adventure magazines, the court reporter studied the Ladies’ Home Journal until even the new styles lost their interest. But one by one, jurymen were accepted. On December 8, exactly one month after the trial began, and after 220 veniremen had been examined, the jury was completed. Judge Hartwell set December 13 as the date for opening statements.

  On that morning the defendants were brought into the courtroom early. Otis Clark, forty or thereabouts, of medium height and weight, bearing himself with habitual soberness, looked as much the insurance salesman (which he had been) as the miner (which he was). Bert Grace was all animation, calling to his friends and exchanging jokes with them. Neatly dressed, his thinning hair prematurely gray, he could have passed for a traveling salesman as easily as for a coal miner. Peter Hiller, young, round-faced, stolid, bore himself like a garage mechanic on a Sunday outing, and with no more concern. Joe Carnaghi’s black hair and olive skin confirmed his Italian parentage; his pleasant, good-humored expression explained his popularity in the community. By contrast, Leva Mann’s grave face seemed almost misanthropic as he sat with one knee in his big muscular hands waiting for the proceedings to begin.

  “There is little to tell about them [the defendants],” Philip Kinsley wrote, “because they are ordinary men and have led ordinary lives. They are Americans, proud of their country, proud of the power of their union. There is no tinge of ‘red’ about them. They are not of the bolshevik persuasion. They are not ‘wild, ignorant foreigners.’ They are conservative and commonplace, an indistinguishable part of the herd washed from the main current by accident.”

  Conservative and commonplace, too, were the jurymen whom State’s Attorney Duty faced when he rose to make his opening statement. One of the twelve was a miner; the others were farmers, though two had worked in mines. The youngest was twenty-seven, the oldest fifty-six; their average age was forty-four. Such names as Swanner, Weaver, Riddle, and Cox testified to their “American” lineage.

  Duty opened by reviewing the events of June 21 and June 22. Not until he outlined what the state expected to prove did his high-pitched voice become tense. The state would show, he asserted, that Otis Clark was one of the two men who led McDowell to his death, and that he was the leader who gave the order to fire, by the fence in the powerhouse woods. It would show that Bert Grace took part in the hangings and shootings in the Harrison woods, and that he was the man in the Herrin cemetery who threatened to shoot anyone who should attempt to give water to the wounded. It would show that Leva Mann, Joe Carnaghi, and Peter Hiller were participants in the killings at the cemetery, and that it was Hiller who cut the throats of the dying strikebreakers.

  Kerr rose to reply to Duty. Heavyset, fatherly, he had endeared himself to union labor by his defense of the copper miners in the Calumet strike of 1913; the defendants and the miners’ union looked to him with complete confidence. As he described the early days of coal mining in Illinois�
�the low wages, long hours, hazardous working-conditions, the uphill pull of the diggers to better themselves—the intensity of the zealot supplanted his customary graciousness.

  “In that battle,” he shouted, “at every step these determined workers were met with the powerful forces of organized capital.… Private armies of gunmen in the employ of the organized operators directed their guns against the breasts of the workers. The miners fought on against all the power of the organized employers of this state until finally they won for themselves an organization.… And now in this case they are assailed for wanting to protect and conserve this organization.…”

  Kerr described Lester’s operation, his violation of his agreement with the union, the provocative acts of the guards.

  “We will show,” he promised, “that their avowed purpose was to assault, abuse, intimidate and, as a last resort, to kill and murder in order to make tremendous profits and break up the Miners’ Union. For remember, that other operators all through the country were watching the progress of the efforts in this county with the keenest interest. If Lester had been successful in his attempt to mine coal during the strike his tactics would have been adopted by other operators and the strike would have been broken.”

  Against these tactics the citizens of Williamson County rose in defense of their homes. In the sequel some of the “invaders” lost their lives. The killing of Howard Hoffman, for which the defendants were on trial, was “homicide and not murder.” “Some day and in some courtroom,” Kerr predicted, “a jury will say that the time has come to stop that importation into peaceful communities of this type of men. I believe that day will come in this trial. I believe that it is this jury that will immortalize itself by freeing all communities for all time from the sinister influence of the American gunman.”