The daily Republican., 1902-12-20
TELL TALES
OF VIOLENCE
Thirty Witnesses Relate VAR
ried Experiences in Great
Coal Strike.
BOYCOTTS and BEATINGS
Men Who Remained at Their
Posts In the Mines Sub
mitted to All Sorts OF
Indignities.


ion men, some of their relatives and
others to the number of thirty ap-
peared before the anthracite coal strike
commission yesterday and told their
stories of alleged boycotts, intimida-
tions, dynamiting and violence In va
rious forms during the late strike.
Each witness called was a sufferer in
ono form or another at the hands, they
alleged of union men. -Four witnesses
said attempts were made to blow up
their houses. and one house was badly
damaged. Many Of the witnesses were
threatened with bodily harm, several
were beaten, one was shot In the leg
and every one stoned, boycotted or
hung in eftigy. One schoolteacher testi'
fed to having lost his position because
his father did not strike. One man was
asked to resign from Catholic tenn.
perance society. and another witness
was expelled from a local lodge Of the
Ancient Order of Hibernians after
membership Of twenty-six or twenty
eight years because they were classed
as unfair workmen.
Joseph H. Dugan. the man who was
requested to give up his membership in
the temperance society remained at
work. doing repair work and acting as
Waterman. He wept while on the
witness stand as he told Of how they
ordered him to leave after many years
of pleasant social relations with its
members. He was very active in the
society and drilled many of those who
have grown to manhood In the mill
tary branch Of the society. He said he
had been stoned and otherwise badly
treated and added that good clubbing
would not hurt half as much as the
action Of the society in throwing him
out of the organization. The boys he
had drilled in the society stoned him
on the highway. and when he dis
played a revolver they all dropped fiat
on the road.
Chairman Gray asked the witness If
he remained at work so that the pumps
could be kept in good repair and thus
keep the mines from being destroyed,
and he said he did.
A Polander named Max Lasar, who
did not quit when the strike was inau-
gurated. told Of how a man threw
quart bottle of giant powder to which
lighted fuse was attached into the
paror of his home. He eXtinguished
the fuse The powder was shown to
the commission.
Eugene Deity. who was not mine
worker and in no way connected with
the strike. said he was going along
road at night and was mistaken for
nonunion man. He was so badly beaten
that he was laid up for two months.
Thomas Kennedy aged fifteen years,
said he worked in a drug store in Car
bondale. His father was an engineer in
the employ Of the Delaware and IIud-
son company and did not quit work
when the strike started. The manager
of the drug store, he said, was request
ed by committee from the union to
discharge him, and rather than have
the store boycotted the druggist told the
boy to quit. The father corroboratcd
the story and added he had to keep his
children from the public schools as
they were being abused.
John Lewandofski, who worked dur
ing the strike for the Delaware, Lack
awanna and Western company, testi-
fed to an attempt to blow up his house
with dynamite. The explosives and
fuses were produced before the commits
sion.
All the other witnesses testified to
having been hung in cfigy one or
more times, that grocers, butchers,
milkmen and iccmen refused to serve
them because they were afraid their
business would be b0yrOttcd, and they
were severely beaten and socially os-
traciZed