The labor journal. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1909-1976, 1916-06-23
From the Committee on Industrial
Relationship Dante Barton


Steel Trust is "Americanizing the
foreigner" in the courts of Pittsburg.
The judicial criminal process
against workers in the Pittsburg in
dustrial district is so terribly per
version of justice that it is almost in
credible. 1t saves itself from ex-
termination by being so bad that peo-
pie can hardly believe the true stories
told of it. Some day the people gen.
orally are going to believe and know
the facts concerning the politico-
judicial process as directed by the
Steel Trust against the workers in the
district, and then
On June a jury in the quarter
sessions criminal court of Pittsburg
convicted eleven men of "rioting and
melting to riot" on the day MAY u
before the fight at the Edgar Thomson
plant of the Steel Trust when the
guards behind board fence fired into
the crowd of strikers and lookers-on
and killed three of them outright,
fatally wounded two or three others
and seriously wounded about three
score more.
Right now a second trial of some
of these same convicted men and ten
or twelve other men and women is in
progress on the same charge of "riot-
ing and melting to riot" on the fatal
DAY of May 2. When this second trial
is concluded a third trial of prac-
tically the same group will be pushed
and of accessory to murder" in addi-
ton to the "rioting and melting to
riot" The sentence to which they are
already liable is two years in the
penitentiary and $500 fine.
The terrible perversion of justice in
this proceeding is that the men and
women convicted and put on trial and
thrown into Jail to await trial are
simply the victims of the Pittsburg
process of breaking up any movement
for the betterment of the workers by
arresting and prosecuting any and
every person at all prominent or in
fluential in strike leadership. For
nearly four weeks after the slaughter
and wounding of their associates by
the guards, men stayed in the Pitts
burg Jail who were so absolutely in
nocent of any connection with the
| fighting that their names were not
even mentioned in that connection in
the first trial When the case went
to the jury at that first trial, the jury
had to be reminded that these men
had been on trial and that they could
not be turned loose" from Jail until
the jury had formally acquitted them.
! And just as soon as they and few
others were acquitted in that first
trial they were indicted by the grand
! jury (Which had been kept in con-
tinuous SESSION. without a shred of
new evidence-possibly to protect the
| sheriff who had thrown them in Jail
and who presumably was liable in
damages on his bond for depriving
them of liberty.
Liberty! Liberty in Pittsburg for
workers who wish their families to
be fed and who demand decent work
| ing and living conditions!
Anna Bell, young working woman
who had been a strike leader, took
the liberty of stepping from the side
walk to the street to get a better
view of the marching workers. She
was put in Jail for that on the rioting
and melting to riot charge and on the
charge of being accessory to the muir
der of her friends, although she was
not near the fighting She is in Jail
yet, although acquitted at the first
trial
About 5000 to 5000 workingmen as
serted and exercised the liberty of
marching from a Westinghouse plant
in East Pittsburg to Steel Trust
plant in North Braddock and there to
call to the other workers to come and
/ join the strike. But that was the
crime in the Pittsburg criminal
| process, for which the active men who
We're feared by the Steel Trust and
/ the other employers were arrested and
Jailed and prosecuted and convicted
and made subject now to penitentiary
sentence.