St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-10-14
PROVING A BOOMERANG
Gov. Rusk and His Friends Becoming
Sorry That They Raised the
Riot ISSUE"
As an Investigation Shows That the
Militia Fired on Peaceable March
ing Workingmen,
In Whose Ranks There Was Not a
Man Who Believed in Anarchy
or Communism,
How Rusk Got Himself in Print
"Factng Thousands of Iufuri-
ated Workmen.''
The wisconsin ..1siot Issues

Special to the Globe
MILWAUKEE, Oct. 13.-The political
campaign in Wisconsin is somewhat mixed.
as there are four regular tickets in the field,
but at present the outlook is that the Demo-
Gratis will overcome the usual Republican
majority and elect their ticket. The reason
for this belief among posted politicians is
because the Republicans present no issue
IN their platform except the so-called s'riot
issue" which has proved a boomerang to
them. AT the time of the shooting at Bay
View last May there was general desire
to sustain the troops, although their action
was clearly Illegal, and those newspapers
that were posted said as little as possible
about the matter, contenting themselves
with an Endorsement of Gov. Rusk in gen.
eral terms. If the governor and his
advisors had known as much abopt
the real facts of the May troubles
as the reporters did, they would have never
INDUCED in the grand eloquent talk. thew
did. and forced the issue on the state bv
claiming that vote for any other man ex-
cept RuSk was an Endorsement of anarchy
and in direct opposition to law and order.
This mistake of insisting that the Republi-
can party had a
PATENT RIGHT ON ALL THE LAW
and order in the state and that Rusk was
the only bulwark between the people and
the horrors of communism. led thinking
people to investigate the facts, and the
truth has come out that when the troops al
Bay View fired on the so-called mob, il
vas procession of workingmen
marching peacefully along pub
lie highway 1900 feet from
where the militia were quartered; that no
civil officer ordered them to halt or dispense,
and that all the warning the people re-
ceived that they would be fired on was by
an officer waving his sword when he found
them to be too far away to hear his voice.
No red flag was carried, and the crowd
bore no arms. There was not believer in
anarchy or communism in the procession.
as it was composed entirely of Polish work
men, who are devout Catholics and utterly
opposed to any of the theories of anarchy.
There had been some trouble the day be-
fore, and might have been afterwards; but
at the time Of the firing it was
UTTERLY WITHOUT JUSTIFICATION,
except on the plea that there were indica-
lions of riot and that it was good policy
to shoot while the trouble was in embryo.
With such f1imSy justification as this for
the killing of citizens, Gov. Rusk and his
foolish friends determined to make it the
issue Of the campaign. and it has become so
weak that now they have the amazing cheek
to turn around and say that the issue was
forced on them; that they would have pre-
ferred TO forget so sad blot on the his
tory OF the state, and go into the campaign
on party issues if the wicked Democrats
had not insisted on condemning the COVER
nor. The fact is that the Demo-
Gratis did not force any such
issue, and nobody knows it better than
Gov. Rusk. who paid the Chicago Times
for plcturlng him as facing thousands Of
Infatuated workmen," when, in truth, he
sat at telephone in the armory, guarded
by squadron OF cavalry, battery of ar
tlllery and two companies of infantry,
THREE MILES FROM THE SCENE
of slaughter. The riot ISSUE is fraud,
and is reacting on those who made it. The
night before the shooting the Haymarket
explosion had taken place in Chicago, and
the militia had read of it in the morning
papers, and to their distorted fancy every
workingman was an apostle of dynamite,
when in reality the people they fired at
were of that class of the community that
were Ignorant of anything more compli-
Gated than wheelbarrow or shovel. and
had, probably, Eever heard of dynamite OF
the Chicago explosion. But the dynamite
scare was on the soldiery, and they had to
either shoot and kill somebody or drop thei1
guns and run when they saw procession
1,500 feet away. True, the Polish are tur.
bulent people and are dangerous rough
and-tumb!e fighters. but that is DO excuse
for shooting them like wild beasts and then
insisting on a reelection as Justification
of the act And this is the view thinking
people are taking of it.