The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-03-05
MRS. TAFT LISTENS ACHAST WHILE WITNESS TELLS OF
 BRUTALITY TO LITTLE ONES
 AND WEALTHY WOMEN SOB
Special from United Press.)

| Especial from United Press.) developments so far in the Lawrence
 brutality probe came this afternoon
 when Mrs. Taft, first lady of the land, sitting aghast with the House Rules
 committee, heard the story of cruelty
 to women and children, as Joseph
 -lnebel, of Philadelphia, describing the
 scene at the Lawrence, Mass, railroad station, Feb. 24. said:
 ''I even saw a great brute of po iceman draw his club and strike a pregnant woman across the abdo- men'''
 1 Clasps of horror came from the lips | of the wife of the President, half 1 hundred other handsomely dressed l women in the committee room sobbed, while stolid Congresmen sat stunned. The dramatic recital of the treatment of the women and children given by KneEel, whose emotion made it difh- c'1it for him to speak at times, caused a scene such as probably never be fore w.G witnessed in Congressional committee room.
 Knebel told of children torn from then mothers arms to be sent to the Lawrence poor farm after the author1- ties had prevented the sendiug of the children from the strike-riddel town. Miss Margaret Sangler, a New York trained nurse, described the two ship
 ments of children who had been taken from Lawrence to New York. ''These children were ema lated and malnutritious," she said. "A major ity of them suffered from adenoids and enlarged tonsils. In the shipment to New York there were 119 children.
 Four of them wore underwear and the weather was bitter cold. About twen- ty had overcoats. When they were given a supper on their arrival in
 New York they grabbed the meat from the table in manner that would
 Washington, March 5.-By night fall the House Rules Committee ex- poets to have complete knowledge of the Lawrence strike situation, fnclud- ing the causes leading up to the walk out of the workers and whether there was any excuse for the brutal tactics
 Of the police and military. The committee was much impress
 ed with the testimony of Jane Book, Lawrence to Philadelphia to take, charge of the children. She declared fatty that she saw policemen use their clubs on little children at the station and no amount of cross exa- imitation could shake the statement. I &
 policemen, deliberately struck down these little children?" demanded Rep
 resentative Hardwick, (Dem., Ga.) T
 saw them do it,'' answered the wo- man emphatically.
 That's all I want to know, re- marked Hardwick.
 The story of the children's work in the mills at wages of from S3 to $5 a week was fully told before the com
 mittee by the children themselves. All ] IL I@f% r,1I1 ~l fDv~ %1s, vvcs In ct
 as soon as they reached the legal working age of IA.
 Tema Comitta, a member of the Philadelphia committee who went to | Lawrence for the children, described | the conflict at Lawrence station. She told of securing the consent of par | ents to take children away and Of l taking them to the station. sI took the children and lined them up two by two in order to get them
 girl. "The children went before me 1 and when I got to the door I saw 1 terriu,e, struggling mass. l just don't know how it happened"
 Did the police have any warrant? :' 1 just fell on the crowd when they came 1 on the station platfo.'m .'m.' "One man," she explained, later, i twas arrested for trying to send his
 own child out of Lawrence" She Sa1Q Qetect1NeS ndQ VlSlteQ the l homes of children who were about to leave Lawrence and had tried to ar rest the children and place them in l public institutions.
 Representative Berger told the
 committee that two of the women sent for to tell how they were beaten by the police would be unable to come
 from Lawrence. One is still in the
 hospital, he said, and the other has | been forbidden to leave her home by her physicians.
 1 While Miss Comitta was testifying.
 Mrs. Taft, wife of the president, en- tered the committee room and took
 place on the platform with the
 committee. She watched the witness
 es closely and listened intently to the | testimony.
 Samuel Knebel. from Philadelphia, was the next witness. He declared that, when he reached Lawrence, the streets were filled with soldiers, po-
 planned to take the children from
 Lawrence, he said, Marshal Sullivan personally told him:
 1 Those children will not leave Law
 renee"
 He described dramatically the scene
 at the Lawrence station. As he pro- gressed he grew so excited he fre- 1 quentlv leaped from the witness chair
 and, gesticulating wildly, exclaimed: | They tore children from their par | eHIS mere was screaming, the most
 unearthly shrieking that any human
 being ever heard.
 T saw one brutal policeman draw
 his club and strike a pregnant wo-
 man across the abdomen. l When l came out, I was stopping
 over five little children. Immediately
 three or four policemen grabbed me
 and threw me all through the place. They dragged me along the ground
 on my knees to get me away from
 the crowd. But I went back.'' | How many women did you See 1 beaten that time?" asked Henry. "I
 saw a whole wagonload of women
 and children, who had been taken away" he declared .I saw one
 young woman who had nothing to do
 with the strike clubbed over the back l by a DC C.iceman."
 Knebel was fined S1O on a charge of obstructing the sidewalks l Knehel said that he removal of cfil- dren from strike communities as
 means of maintaining strike has | been used in Belgium
 Knebel said he saw things "ton
 horrible to mention"
 | Representative Hardwick wanted to
 know what these were and the wit | ness, in a low voice, said
 'In the police station. that day,
 man was in the cell with me--a Pole he didn't speak much English His wife and children were also locked ! up. He knew from what he heard that his wife was a few cells away and he started to call her. The turn key dragged him out and threw him | down the stairs to dark cells in the 41t1 .l,s