Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1898-03-25
THE LATTIMER MASSACRE.

The Latt1iner butcher SneIlH has DSSu aS4ui'-
ted We are not surprised. We only wonder
that the sheriff and his deputies were arrested.
The whole thing was farce. All CT the twelve
men who tried the Lattiiner executioner admit
ted that they had prejudice against foreigers.
The defense mad twenty-four peremptory chal-
lenees, and the prosecution had four. The pre-
siding judge was tool of the coal companies
and, through his family, is interested in the coal
mines. The sheriff and his deputies were tools
of the coal companies. The miners who were
murdered were foreigners. packed court
against few despised foreigners could do moth
ing else but acquit, but there are lots OF other
people in the United States who do not acqut,
and the Ac1TAToR is among the number Ne
declare that marching on the highway is no
crime, and the shooting of even foreigners Tor
so doing is mprovoked murder.
The Lattimer massacre is unparalleled i'll the
annals of crime.
No reliance can be placed upon newspaper
reports where the interests of corporations are in
question, and, therefore, the charge that the
miners are ignorant and brutal-the scum OF
creation-is wholly unreliable. But, admitting
that the miners belong to low class, there is
still no excuse for their being shot as long as
they were peaceaple. 1t does not follow that
the miners are bad lot because the papers so
said. We might assume the reverse and be
nearer the truth. There was no evidence be-
fore the mock court to show that they were bad.
Poles and hungarians love life, liberty ard the
pursuit of happiness the same as other people
These very same people who caused the shoot
ing of the miners brought them to America,
expecting to force them into wage slavery. The
desire to live and be happy on the part of the
miners was unlocked for, and exasperated the
mine owner There must be bood-letting.
Those men who were shot in the back, and fell
dead, will not again trouble the companies.
A dead miner, like dead Indian, OF a dead
Negro, is good.
The attempted condoning on tie ground that
the miners were foreigners, and Ignorant and
vicious is the old excuse for outrage and muir
der The "sand-lot'' crowd in San Francisco
butchered the heather Chinese because they
were foreigners and ignorant and vicious.
In the Southern states, in some localities,
the Negroes get into trouble because they
arel ignorant and vicious. Once in while,
the Indians come in for share of outrage and
violence. 1t is all more or less true that Chi
nese, Negroes and Indians are ignorant and
vicious, but that is far from sufficient ground
for numbering them; and no band of Chinese or
Negroes in America have ever been guilty of
as cold-blooded murder as were the Lattime1
sheriff and his deputies.
In America, lots of people are ignorant and
vicious who are not foreigners or Negroes, and
there are lots of Americans who are not ignorant,
but who who are indescribably vicious. These
coal.mine companies are in the last-named class
The robber members of corboratons never get
into trouble, although, in sense, they are al
ways on strike-not openly, but in secret con-
clave; not on highways, but in halls; not for
their rights, but for plumber; not for living
wages, but for millions. They are not foreign
ers, Negroes or Chinese, and they are wise.
Happy are they whom the corporations obey.
It is no harm to be vicious if only you are
wise, or are backed by vicious wise men, The
whole thing, in word, is that ignorance and
yiciousness, coupled, are bad, and viciousness
and learning, coupled, are good. The ignorant
and vicious are to be shot in the back, and the
vicious and wise are to be lodged in kings pal
aces.
This continual howl raised by plutocracy
against the working classes is premeditated Gus
seduess. Ignorant people are necessarily VIC