Graham guardian., 1897-09-24
AN UNPRov0KED MASSACRE.

peared from the dispatches.
According to the published &C
counts, taking them together-even
including the sheriff's statement at.
tempting justification--the massa-
ere was one. of the most brutal,
cold-blooded, wholesale murders
that ever took place IN the United
States. 1t exceeded IN atrocity,
because entirely uuprovoked, the
slaughter by the Pinkertons of the
striking iron workers at Home
stead in 1892. The Hazelton mas
sacre was a vicious, premeditated
slaughter of inoffensive men, and if
there is any justice in Pennsylvan-
ia, they will be punished to the
full penalty that can be exacted
under the law.
The circumstances attending the
massacre did not justify the use Of
any kind of violence on the part Of
the sheriff and his armed deputies.
The men, according to the evil
dence, were marching unarmed and
in fairly orderly manner on one
of the public highways of Luzerne
county. They were not bent upon
the destruction of property nor did
they contemplate any act of vio-
lence to the person of any ore. So
far as appears in the reports of this
butchery, the men were only doing
what they had a perfect right to do
under the laws of the state and ma
ton as well as under the laws of
God. There was no occasion much
less provocation for the sheriff and
his deputies interfering with the
proceedings of the marching men
in any manner whatever, much less
was there the least justification for
the deadly volleys that carried
bloody wounds or sudden death to
hundred souls.
Ignorant many of them may
have been, probably were, but all
the more should they have been
delt with kindly, and with that
Christian spirit which is implied
in the parable-"in as much as We
did 1t unto one of the least of these,
my brethren, we did it unto me-"
From whatever fair and honest
point of view one looks at the
shooting down in ccld-blood of
these unarmed, unoffending miners,
the conclusion is inevitable that it
was a vicious murderous abdse Of
power in the hands of sworn of
ficers of the law, more reprehensi-
BILE, calling louder for punishment,
than if it had been the work Of
brigands bent on plumber or saw
o ges carrying out their cruel, in.
human instincts.
If it shall arouse the people of
this country to sense of the dan
ger to which liberty and the free
Institutions of the land are sub.
jected by the Vaccinations of the
soulless trusts and combines-"a
class of manipulators, who know
nothing about the art of building,
but have learned the art legalized
robbery will be wrought
out of evil. If it shall result in
awakening the people and causing
the spirit of the nation to demand
that the law, the courts and the of
icers of the law shall respect hui
man life and human liberty as more
precious than property, and that
she preservation of individual
tights and personal freedom shall
30 placed above the greed of cor.
'orate power, shall be more sacred
han the exacting claims Of grasp
ng monopolles-then the massacre
It Hazelton will help to work out,
n Gods own way, the salvation of
liberty and the republic.
That such a crime as that at
Iazelton could be perpetrated at
he close Of the nineteenth century.
n civilized America, in the com. I
made sacred by the
memories of Penn and Franklin
nd the sufferings for liberty at
alley Forge, shculd startle the
)untry from center TO circum.
renee, and drive every patriotic
tizen to earnest search for an eff
ctive remedy for the conditions {
lat brought it about. The rem
ly cannot be found and applied
10 speedily.