The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-09-12
RIVER AT s A. NJ.
uFRDER BY INJUNCTION.

MI RIDER by RNO NJ kOiN'
After the first shock Of the horror at
Hazleton. Pa, has passed, the people
begin to inquire where rests the re
enonsihiIity for the death of dozen
men shot down in cold blood in the
public highway. Every one of our mill
ions wants TO know whether the KILL
ino of these men was murder or exc
cu+ion. If the former there is stern
penalty that must be paid AS far as
the reports sent in explain the matter,
there was no adequate occasion ana as
little justification for the act OF the
sheriff and his deputies. We do not
know as yet how far the strikers re
sorted to violence. We do know, for it
seems not to be questioned on either
side that they refused to recognize the
authority Of the law, or to obey it's
mandate. They were halted in their
progress, the proclamation ordering
them to dispense was read to them
and they declined to submit. This, tech
nically construed, puts the men in the
attitude of actual rebellion against
their government. We do not need to
add that rarely and almost never, eX-
cent in the midst of actual rioting, is
the reading Of such proclamation fol-
lowed UP instantly with rifle shots.
When there is actual mob rule in a
city, and it is a desperate necessity
either to shed blood or to see all law
and order torn to shreds and cast to
the winds, a military commander is
reluctant TO give the dread order,
Fire. In d case like this, where a
small body of men is marching along
q country highway, the quick response
of the bullet to an unwillingness of
the men to dispense is a brutal out
rage.
The statement made by Sheriff Mar
tin himself seems to cut away from
under his feet the last preteXt for his
hasty action. He admits that the men,
when he met them, were on the public
highway, and that they had not COM
mitted any overt sact or conducted
themselves other than peaceably. At
one time he says that he gave the sig
nal to fire, because he was in danger
of losing his life at the hands of the
strikers; and again he says that it was
not he, but SOM one else who gave
the fatal signal Putting all these cir
cumstances together, it appears plain
that the shooting vas a rash and I'M
warrantable act even although the
victims invited it by their refusal to
obey the laws of their country
We have to so back of this but one
step, however, to fix the real response
bility for the murder of twelve inno-
cent men, and the arousing of feeling
of desperate anger and revenge that it
will take years to overcome. In reali-
ty it is neither Sheriff Martin nor the
marching miners who ought to bear
the responsibility of this fell deed. The
stigma Of it is fixed as a red badge of
shame upon the courts whose infa-
NOUS injunctions are the direct cause
of this unhappy occurrence. 1t is net
district where this murder was done,
who ought to be brought for trial
before the court over which he is ac-
customed to preside. 1t is from the
lets sped which have done these men
10 death; for, truthfully speaking, they
were absolutely within their rights
when they were marching along the
public highway, and the order to them
to dispense. although sanctioned by a
court. was an utter violation of the
rights guaranteed to every American
citizen by the federal constitution.
They were not trespassers; they
were not disturbers of the pub
lie peace. They We're exercising
the universal right of assemb!age, and
Of passing to and fro upon the public
thoroughfare. They had committed no
act of assault upon the person or the
property of others.
That they may have intended to in
t"rfere with the personal liberty of 9TH
er miners, and to compel them tc leave
their posts, cannot be urged in :extenu-
alton. 1t is but a cover for that
vile and vicious system of using the
courts to punish intentions, instead of
acts, that has stained the ground of
Pennsylvania with the blood of these
men. It is the courts that have so
5arcd to usurp the place Of laws, and
ic build up an unknown and hated
6cspotism in this land, at which the
!inScr of public scorn and condemna-