The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1901-05-17
Rl0T0US DAY AT ALBANY

ANA~ AA5 oNcI IHE
Traction Company strike tina Governor
OdeH postponed the continuance Of a
trip to state institutions which he had
undertaken and returned to the execu-
tive mansion. Two thousand armed
soldiers are now within the city limits;
more are coming $500 are in read
mess to move to Troy when Governor
Odell oders. The streets are thronged
with excited men. women and children
and the otherwise quiet day terminated
IN bloodshed. A dramatic element was
added to the days features by the sud-
denth death of Adjutant General Hof-
man.
AS long as the Traction Company
does not attempt TO move cars or bring
in non-union men, the crowds on the
street remain good natured, except for
haunting the soldiers and police, but
the instant a n attempt is made to work
on the lines or bring non-union men in,
the crowd becomes frenzied and blood
he'd results.
Citizens Sahre-Slashed,
men with broken limbs and bloody
IdCSS. "OLltn dHu CnllOren IramDleQ
under foot. soldiers manned with fly
ing missiles and leaders in the crowds
beaten with muskets were some of the
results of the day.
Anticipating an attempt to move the
street cars in Troy Major General Roe
has ordered the Thirteenth, Fourteenth
and Forty-Seventh regiments of Brook
lyn. troop c.. of Brooklyn, the Second
signal corps. the Seventeenth separate
company and the Third battery, which
carries Calling guns, to hold themselves
in readiness to % Immediately.
Mob and militia closed in comba this
afternoon. but by the accident of for
tune there were no serious casualties.
1t was the introduction of more non
union men to take the places of strik-
ing traction employees that produced
the violence. Seventy-five non-union
men reached the Union depot shortly
before 6 o'clock and their delivery at
Quail street barn. a mile and a half
away. was made with a dash under
cavalry escort with mob resistance in
almost every block. FrenZied men
swarmed through the police lines, surg
ed around the fast moving cavalrymen
and fought to get at the cowed nom
union men inside the circle of g%allopin6
horses.
The rays of the setting sun gave CLINT
to busy 3abres. but the long blades,
welding by f~orbearing hands, seldom
descended in serious blows. Several of
the mob were knocked down by corner
ed c~avarymen. but the record does not
show the score of a single fatality. In
the passage through the streets few OF
the non-unioniStS escaped the 1ying
bricks and stones that were hurled At
them. but less han a dozen were badly
hurt. The courage of nearly a dozen OF
the non-union men failed them in the
opening squirt through the crowds and
the sprang from the ago that
carried them to mingle with and be
lost in the crowd.
The ride of the ~non-union men
through the city was the
spectacle of the day. At 5 o'clock the
third signal corps, mounted and armed
cavalrymen, formed a hollow square
around the ~non-union men who had
Just arrived at the depot. Five thou
sand men tagged at their heels and
damned around them. and thousands
more crowded into the intersecting
streets.
Fifty policemen formed in Gordon
about the waiting dragons and tried
to force the crowd back. The street
was cleared but the walls Of humanity
on the sidewalks heldfirm and could not
be moved. A broken alleyway that
runs along the southside of the Union
depot was the stage of the operating
scene. Into it were driven four flat
lODptu OpcIl l1uShS- IL o"o ~
nized them as the same vehicles that
had carried the first batch of strike
breakers and greeted them with grOanS.
Suddenly a side door of the depot was
thrown open and up the alleyWay to-
ward the waiting teams marched the
n~on-union men. Once they were all
aboard, the drivers brought their teams
out into the streets, the cavalry
closed in around them and the race
was on. The flying column dashed in
to State. street for the run up the hill
past the capitol. Here the crowd was
as dense and desperate as the other
and men plunged in around the gal
Looping horses. One rider cut off from
the crowd, brought his sabre down on
the face of one of his antagonists and
a line of blood marked where it
struck.
Two blocks up State street and a
clever military ruse blocked the down
town mob. Two companies Of the
Tenth battalion were concealed in
Chapel street and when the cavalry
escort dashed past they ran across
State street and faced the pursuing
crowd with fixed ~bayonets. The new
line wavered and broke on one flank
but in the main the movement was
successful.
Smaller crowds had gathered at va
rious points along the route to the
barn and they threw strones when the
~non-union meen rushed past.
There was another wild sce.Ie at the
barn where thousands more had as
sembled. The infantry repeatedly
charged into the crowd substituting,
butt for payonet and after much effort
a passage was open for the scurrying
cavalcade and it was safe inside the
Enclosure.
Sixteen of the strike breakers were
injured during the ride and many OF
them. stunned. weak and scared, had
to be helped from the wagons. The
strikers say that eighteen strike
breakers deserted during the ride and
that less than fifty were safely landed
in the barn..
In a hollow square Of infantry pro-
tected by lines of pickets that reached
into every bisecting street, and an out
er skirmish line in circular form that
encompaSsed all, the traction tower
wagon was moved out of the barn this