The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1897-11-03
Debs' Opinion.

Now that he realizes the enormity OF
his crime and the popular Indignation
it has aroused, Sheriff Martin is ex-
planning how he and his deputies
came to fire upon body of peaceaDle
and defenseless miners on the road
leading to Latimer and committing
wholesale murder.
The sheriff's explanation simply does
not explain, and such of it as would
furnish a shadow of justification is
proven to be false. Instead of preserv-
ing the peace and upholding the law,
the sheriff and his murderOus deputies
provoked disorder, and then deliberate
" shot down the victims of their con-
spiracy.
Were 1 not unalterably opposed to
capital punishment, would say that the
sheriff and his deputy assassins should
be lynched Each of them is guilty Of
murder in the first degree, and, as
they totally defied the law they were
sworn to uphold in striking down their
victims, they have forfeited all right to
protection under law.
The men who have been shot down in
cold blood are Pennsylvania miners. For
years they have been robbed in count
less ways by the combines and CON-
panies which employed them, and now
that they have been reduced to fam
inc and rags they are murdered in the
public highway, as if they were so
many rabid dogs.
1 have been among them and know
by personal observation all about their
condition. Even now, I can see the
marching miners pursuing their endless
journey. They are hungry and the hot
sands blister their shoeless feet. Their
hOvel habitations are the abodes of
despair. Wives and half-naked chill
dren are in the grasp of starvation.
If by some magic the American peo-
pie could look upon the scenes in some
of the Pennsylvania mining regions the
bloody incident at Hazelton would pre-
cipitate a revolution.
The responsibility does not rest en-
tirely with the sheriff and his deputies
as they are but tools in the hands of
real murderers, for whom we must look
higher. AS a general rule the public
functionaries in the mining regions are
the spineless and subservient creatures
of the companies. They issue proc
1amations, read riot acts and commit
murder when ordered to do so by their
masters.
The miners who were murdered in
the name of law and order were per-
fectly peaceable. They were quietly
walking on the highway when the as
sassin authorities stopped and bullied
and attacked them.
Suppose man of wealth, coal oper-
ator, were stopped and killed under the
same circumstances. The whole coun-
try would be aroused in an instant, and
such papers as the Chicago Tribune,
supported by the Christian clergy, would
demand in thunder tones that all the
powers of the government be invoked
to crush out the whole body of work.
fngmen.
Wholesale murder has been commit
ted at the behest of corporate capital
by the public authorities in the name
of law and order. No amount of Jug
glery or sophistication can obscure the
Indictment
Is this an attack on government, or
is it government?
Is it an assault on "Old Glory" as
they declared when the Pullman strike
was on, or is it what the old flag now
symbolizes?
Governor Hastings ordered out the
troops. Was it for the purpose Of
shooting the murderers, or numbering
more miners?
The crime is so revolving that it is
difficult to keep within the bounds Of
reasonable statement
The twenty or more graves of these
murdered workingmen loom up before
us. What text for the Christian min
istry!
Have they raised their voices in as
solemn protest as If the strikers were
the murderers instead OF the victims
Of the authorities?
When I think of these hard-worked.
half-starved coal miners lying in the