The St. Louis Republic. [volume] (St. Louis, Mo.) 1888-1919, 1902-11-30

Il A SINGLE ARM WHEN THE AyAGF
but 1t wasn't till Little Russia went out
that things looked rocky for the company
property at McCloud.
Little Russia had become a pretty big
/ Russia at the time Of the strike.
The Russians had spread up and down
the line like tumbleweeds. and their first
cousins. the Polacks, worked the company
coal mines.
At McCloud they were as hard a crowd
after dark as you would find on the steppes
The Polacks. 400 Of them. struck while the
engineers were out, and the fat went into
the fire with q flash.
The night Of the trouble took even US by
surprise. and the company was wholly un.
prepared.
The engineers In the worst of the heat
were accused of the rioting. but we had no
more to do with 1t than the homesteaders.
Our boys are Americans. and we don't
fight with torches and kerosene.
The company imported the Polacks: let
!. them settle their own accounts with them,
said our fellows, and / called 1t right.
Admitting that some of our Reds got out
to mix in it, We couldn't in sense be held
| for that.
1t was Neighbor, the craftiest old fox on
the stan Of the division, who told the depot
people in the afternoon that something was
coming. and it was strange no one else saw
It. They had been out three weeks. and
after no end Of grabbing turned silent
Men that talk are not so dangerous; it's
| when they quit talking.
| Neighbor was a man of q thousand to
act on his apprehension.
All the afternoon he had the switch en-
gines shunting cars about the roundhcuse;
the minute the arc lights went on the re-
suit could be seen.
The old man had long lines of furniture
vans, box cars, gondolas and dead Pullmans
strung around the big house like parapets.
Whatever anybody else thought, Neigh
tor was ready.
| Even old John Boxer, his head black
smith, who operated an amateur battery for
salutes and celebrations. had his gun over
hauled. The roundhouse was looking for
trouble.
1t was barely 8 o'clock that night when
a group OF IS on Main street saw the
depot lights go out, and pretty soon tele-
phone messages began coming in from the
company plant up the river for the Sheriff.
The Polacks were %wrecking the dynamos.
The arc lights covering the yards were on
a different circuit, but 1t didn't take the
whiskered fellows long to find that out.
Half an hour later the city plant was at
tackled: no one was looking for trouble
there, and the great system Of arcs light
ing the yard for miles died like ~firefiies.
We knew then-everybody knew-that the
Polacks meant business.
Not a man was in sight when the blaze
! sputtered, blue, red and black. out; but in
five minutes a dozop forobou yprpfp-
up on the in-freighthouse.li like coyotes.
We could hear the crash Of the big oak
doors clear down on Main street.
There. again, the company was weak;
they hadn't a picket out at either of the
freighthouses.
There wasn't so much as a sneeze till
they beat the doors in; then there was a
cry-the women were taking q hand, and
it was a loot with a big L.
The plumber maddened them like brandy.
Neighbor, who feared not the Polacks nor
the devil, made a sortie with a dozen men
from his stockade-for that is what the
~roundhouse defenses looked like-to try to
save the building.
1t wasn't in men to do it.
The cutting was done and the kerosene
burning yellow before he was half way
across. and the mob, running then In a
wavering black line from the flames that
licked the high windows, were making for
the storehouse.
Neighbor saw in a minute that nothing
was left for him to protect at the east end,
and before he could cut off the constantly
frightening line of rioters they were be-
tween him and the long storehouse. 1t was
there that the first shooting occurred.
A squad of the detectives, reinforcing
Neighbours little following. ran in on the
flank Of the rioters as the master mechanic
caught up with their rear.
They wheeled on his TO dispense
it and met it with a cloud of stones and
coupling pins.
The detectives opened with their VIM
chesters. and a yell went up that took me
back to the Haymarket.
Their answer was the torch to the store
house and q charge on the imported guards
that shook their front like a whirlwind.
The detectives ran for Neighbor's breast
works. with the miners hot behind and a
hail of deadly missiles on their backs.
Half a dozen of US stood in the cupola
Of the fire-engine house. with the thing
laid below like q panorama
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