The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-02-16
ELECTION CHECKS
MARTIN TRIAL
No Morning Session Was Held at
WiIkes.Barre.
WiSHNISKl PICKS OUT DEPUTIES
This witness states That Sherih
Martin Fires the First shot ana
That n Man Three Yards Away
Fell 10 the Earth--He Also Identi-
fes sixteen Men Who Acted as
Deputies at Lattimer.

Wilkes Barre, Feb. 15.-There was no
morning session of the Martin trial TO-
uay because of the election.
When the hearing was resumed this
afternoon John Platek told 7bout the
march to West Hazleton and said thar
the sheriff nourishel his revolver very
freely and told the strikers they hau
better 90 home or there would De
trouble. When they arrived at Lattl-
MGR the deputies were waiting for them
with their guns ready. When the
shooting commenced the witness sald
he stood still and was so frightened
he could not move for minute or tWo'
Then he started to run but had gone
oniv about two hundred yards when
he was shot in the left leg, the BAH
passing through his calf. He eNnlDlteu
the wound to the jury. He said ne
saw a number of men fall, most Oh
them in the ditch alongside the rail-
road track.
When asked if the sheriff did any
shooting he said: He had revolver
hut what he did with it 1 could not
say"
The cross ss-examination of Platei
brought out the fact that the Harwood
men stopned work upon the order or
their bosses who said that as soon as
the McAdCo strikers approached they
should leave the coliery. They did so.
The McAdoo men were armed with
sticks. He also said that as one of
the committeeman he proposed going
over to Lattimer alone but as some of
the strikers said they would beat him
il he did. he went with the crowd.
\ POSITIVE WITNESS.
Casper Wishniski sworo that the
sheriff fired the first shot and the man
he fired az fell. Witness was about
twenty yards away at the time and
says the sheriff stepped to the side of
the road, aimed his revolver and fired.
A man standing about three yards
away fell. ! do not know the mans
name.
The witness ran away and reached
a point nearly two hundred yards away
from the deputies before being hit. He
then got a bullet in the left leg, below
the knee and one in the right thigh.
Neither wound was serious. Asked if
he knew any of the deputies who did
the shooting at Lattimer he said he
could pick out some and, walking down
TO where they sat, he indicated sixteen
of them. They are Schuyler Ridgway,
Frank Clark, Thomas Hall, A. E. Hess,
Stephen Jones, George Ferry, James
Ferry, Joseph Sobers, AlonZo l.. Dod-
son, r.. c. Jones, John Turner, Henry
Manley, a. NJ. Eby, John Cook. A. p.
Platt and Charles Houck. He also
pointed out the sheriff. Then he
showed, using a gun similar to those
furnished the deputies, how the depu-
ties had aimed them at various strik-
ers as they fled. The cross -eXamina-
tion failed to break down any of the
evidence about the sheriff firing the
first shot and hitting a man, but it did
break up much of the force of the evil
dence about the deputies, the witness
saying that when he pointed them out
he did not mean that they were shoot
ing, but that they We're there-at Lat
timer
John Bunk, of Cranberry, said he was
shot in the head while two hundred
yards away from the deputies. The
ball carried away the bone alongside
the head from the ear to the eye and
there is no bone there now. The course
of the bullet is clearly marked by a
depression along the side of the head
NO DISCRIMINATION.
Hazleton, Pa, Feb. 15.-Mine Fore
man John Beach, at Harwood, when
seen regarding the alleged discharge OF
strikers who testified against the depu-
ties in the Martin trial at Wilkes
Barre said today: II have positively
made no DISCHARGES of men who took
part in the strike or witnesses in the
case. Andrew Scovar and Martin
Locher, two of the prosecutions mosI
prominent witnesses, are now at work
No man has been discharged for any
part taken in the strike. Out of the
bosses under me at Harwood sever
are Hungarans. two Americans, two
Italians, one Lithuanian and one Pole
50 that you can see these men are not
being Disseminated against"