Washington sentinel., 1898-02-05
Trying the LattImer sh erifr.

In a court room in the mining
town OF Wilkesbarre, Pa, there is
now beginning the trial ot cause
which is big with Importance to
the Liberties Of the American peO-
pie.
The complainant is the people.
The defendants are sheriff and
eighty-two deputies. The chargeis
OF shooting and killing twenty-five
miners and wounding fifty more.
In ieverish age, in time when
and in a nation where outlawry
under guise Of law, and invasion
Of popular rights under color OF
enforcing order are so common to
scarcely cause remark, the facts Of
the massacre at Lattimer, in Sep
tember. 1897, may have passed
from the minds OF many men. Let
us recount them:
A strike was in progress among
the miners of the neighborhood.
Men sOrely underpaid and cozened
out of much they honestly earned
determined upon that peaceful re-
volt which is labor's only method
OF deience--a sadly inadequate one.
The men in a mine at Lattimer
did not join in the strike. The
strikers sought to influence them
bV marching to the mine in body
much as in a political campaign
some months earlier men sought
to influence others to vote for one
candidate or another by marching
in the streets with banners. Two
little boys carrying flags led the
marchers--led them until the now
indicted sheriff and deputies were
encountered, heavily armed, clos
ing the public highway to the un-
armed and peaceable procession.
There was a brief colloquy. joined
in only by the men in the front
rank. Suddenly, in fit of frantic
cowardice or unreasoning passion,
the sheriff gave the word to FIRE.
The all too-wIlling deputies obeyed
--obeyed with such bloodthirsty
zeal that many OF the miners were
shot in the back as they turned to
fee from an unprovoked and muir
derous attack.
That is in brief the story Of the
Lattimer massacre. Not to be told
here is the tale Of what it means to
have death brought to twenty-five
poverty chilled homes in a little
hamlet; fifty bare and famine
stricken cabins made more DESC
late, more iamished by the bring
ing home, mutilated and bleeding,
of the man who supported the fam
lily and who went out to plead tor
his right to a living wage.
For this execrable crime eighty
three men are arraigned at the bar
oijustice. In their trial areinvolved
the rights OF peaceable assemblage
and procession. the right to use
argument to influence one man to
join another in any given course
of conduct. the right of a sheriff to
employ the weapons of death to
enforce what may be his own
stupid construction Of the law.
There has never been any diff
Guilty in securing the punishment
ofrioters. Justice has never moved
with leaden heel when pursuing
workingmen who were guilty Of
ofenses against order. Men have
beenhanged for in1iting proletarian
riots which resulted in murder. A
man is now under sentence of death
in California for crime COZ mitted
under the influence OF the passions
which the great Debs strike
aroused. Imprisonment Oi strikers
for breaches, real or false, oi the
law is as common as strikes them
selves.
The court at Wilkesbarre has
now the opportunity to show to a
working nation that there is one
law for rich and poor; that the
striker will be as thoroughly pro-
tected in his legal rights as will any
citizen whose legal rights the
striker proposes 20 Invade.