Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1900-06-19
-FOUR MENAREKILLED
ST. LOUIS RIOTERS SHOT BY
DEPUTY SAERiFFS.
Citizens Posse Engages in Pitched
Battle with Mob OF Strikers and Sym
pathizsrs-Bloody Day in the Street
Car Trouble.

-Four dead, one fatally injured, eleven
severely hurt four cars derailed by dyna-
mite and the temporary dismantling of
two car lines by wire cutters make up the
results of Sundays strike rioting at st.
Louis. A hundred incipient riots We're
quelled by the police in various parts of
the city.
Five hundred strikers and a company
of deputy sheriffs fought pitched battle
at Washington avenue, near Sixth street,
the heart of st. Louis. The strikers, in
the uniforms of conductors and motor
men. were returning from a meeting in
East st. Louis. They marched up Wash
ington avenue with band at their head.
The garrison of deputies appeared at the
front door of their barracks to view the
parade. A crowd assembled at each cor
ner to watch it. Then somebody threw
brick through the window of Lindell
avenue car that was passing. Capt.
Webster of the First regiment, Missouri
National Guard, rushed into the street TO
arrest the man who threw the brick.
Capt. Webster had his repeating shotgun
in his hands, and as he approached the
car tracks pistol shots resounded, as if
coming from the ranks of the marching
strikers
The band stopped playing instantly. 4
deputy standing on the sidewalk took
deliberate aim at the pistol shooter and
began to fire. In an instant the whole
column of strikers was on the defensive.
Pistols were drawn and the men backed
up on the north sidewalk, where they
seemed prepared to do battle. The sher-
ifs came rushing pell-mell from the bar
racks to the south sidewalk with weapons
ready, but loath to fire upon a silent OPP
ponent. Then somebody standing behind
the embattled strikers fired five shots in
quick succession at the group of deputies,
and the response was a roar of shotgun
detonatiOns that put the strikers to al
most immediate flight and brought a
crowd of many thousands rushing toward
the scene of battle.
I When the street car men ran away four
lay dead upon the sidewalk. Most of the
deputies fired high and the glass fronts
of the stores on the north side of the
street were shattered.
The fact that the strikers who We're
armed had only pistols is supposed to
account for the fact that no deputies
were MT. IL Is uOL Known now many
strikers were wounded, but the scatter
ing effect of the buckshot from the depu-
ties repeaters is supposed to have injur-
ed many who escaped in the hand-tO-hand
melee which followed. No sooner did the
deputies see that the strikers were in
full retreat than they charged them from
the rear clubbing their guns and beating
down the few who resisted the charge.
Desultory pistol shots marked the retreat
of the strikers, and the deputies aban-
doned pursuit after driving the rioters
three blocks in all directions. Fifty
mounted policemen with drawn pistols ar
rived on the scene ten minutes after the
fight and the streets leading toward the
barracks were quickly placed under
guard. Many wealthy st. Louisans were
in the squad which fought the rioters.
A trail of blood marked the retreat of
the strikers, and there is no doubt that
many were injured who preferred to es-
cape rather than fall into the hands of
the authorities. Deputies, however, cap
tured sixteen prisoners, most of them in
the uniforms of street car men. The pris-
oners were led into the basement of the
barracks, which is a vacant store directly
opposite the Lindell Hotel
From shotguns and pistols about 200
shots were fired. During the fight crews
of passing cars which started the trouble
abandoned their cars and fed for safety.