The sun., 1915-05-16
Mob of Infuriated, Unframed Militia
Heroically Bars the Way-An-
initiated in Massacre of the
Connecticut River
Connecticut River

airy and artillery. The undefended
city surrendered without a blow.
From New Haven and Hartford to
the factory cities Of Walingford and
Meriden. Middletown and New Britain
along all the factory lined valleys
there passed a word that gathered
workers from shops and idle men from
streets. All one long day and all one
evening they moved toward the two
cities. They seemed aimless enough;
but there were leaders who put them
selves at their head secretly in the
night.
suddenly they were angry. de-
termined, united bodies Of men. Sud
denly like rudely awakened wind,
they stormed the great arms factories
of the two towns.
They came with guns and pistols.
They came with crowbars and picks.
They came with stones and with moth
ing except their bare hands. They
hauled their dead ASIDE and withered
under the fire of the guards and burst
through and took the works.
In Hartford they seized a whole
;rainload of rapid firers and machine
guns that had been loaded for the
American army. In New Haven they
took almost four thousand sporting
rifles.
The riot fever spread to Bridgeport.
The mob arose and seized the car
fridge factories.
II was a mad thing, springng less
from purpose than from the insanity
that invasion had laid on mems minds.
1t could have hut one mad end. Yet
9 Al u
moulded by a touch of the American
ability to do things'-that very
ability on which the people might in
deed, have depended with perfect as
surance. If only they had not depended
on it wholly.
America did, truly. have men who
would fight. They were here; and
they We're to fight such a fight as
would be remembered many long
day. America had the men to lead
200. Though they knew that this was
a hopeless thing, they took hold"
They took hold of men armed with
magnificent rifles. but Of a score Of
different patterns for different kinds
of spor,, and demanding a score of
different shapes and calibres of car
tridgcs. They took hold Of infantry
militia fragments whose companies
had had only two or three assemblies
"A year for target practice, with aver
age attendanccs of only eleven or
twelve men. They !mprovised scout
detachments of volunteers with BIZ
cvcles and motors,@a
Young doctors took hold with Moth
ing hut emergency kits, without am
balances, without iitters, without even
helpers who would know how to find
n wound or apply first aid handage.
The army of madmen went forward
to the Connecticut River to hold the
western bank from Hartford to Middle
town,
They did not know how to dig
trenches. They dug ditchcs. They did
rot know how to make defences for
their machine guns. They piled trees
that would skewer them with splinters
under shell fire, or heaped up rocks
that would fly into fragments and Kill
like shrapnel.
They were all of 5000 men They
were the kind of men whom America
has expected always in times Of peace
10 call TO it's defence. They were
Callous handed workers in metal and
wood and leather; bleaChed workers
from woollen mills and cotton spind rs
-longshoremen from the harbor cities
of the Sound; professional men reso-
lutte with the fervor of the time, road
makers and teamsters and shoe
makers; hunters, yachtsmen and foot
bah players.
That day along he Connecticut
River they showed what America:
men could have done had they learned
how to do it in advance and had the!
been armed for the work,
They lay behind their pitiable de-
fences. with their motley weapons
90. Table No. o. report Division O.
Militia Affairs, Y, s. A., 1914,
Continued on Sirth Page