East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1921-08-10
C. E. LiveIy's Cat Plays Grim
Sequel to Grewsome Drama
Gives Impetus to Feud.
BY SIEFFRIED u wEYER,
International News Service staff
CnrresnonOent.

field killed in Gun Fight"
A flood of memories was released
by the news flash from welch, ". Va.
where the youthful ex-chief of police
of Matewan, central figure in the ia
hmous Trigger Trial." was shot dead
on August by Detective c. Nj. Live
Fly, an equally dramatic character in
the Mingo miners murder case.
Making a good job of 1t while he
had the chance. Lively also sent bull
| let into the heart of Ed Chambers. the
baby of defendants row at the trial,
which dragged along for eight weeks
| early this year and ended in the ac-
quittal OF Hatfield and his Is code,
Pendants.
Once more the ''gat has spoken
where the law had said ''Not Guiltyv
Lively stands the avenger of the
seven Baldwin-Felts detectives killed
in the one-and one half minute gun
battle at the little mining town of
Matewan May 10, 1890. Among the
victims were Albert and lee Felts
What their brother, Tom Felts, head
of the detective agency. failed to
acheve with long ana costly trial.
Nor which he had engaged seven OF the
most brilliant lawyers of the south,
the bullets of his "star sleuth" have
done for him.
Tom Felts. dreaded by the outlaw
world from coaststo coast as the most
lrelentless man hunter. who has sent
more crooks-bank robbers, highway
linen. feudists--to the penitentiary
than any other individual in the Unit
ed States, never tried to hide the fact
that since the <Matewan tragedy mis-
whole life revolyed around one ALL
overshadowing desire-to bring Sid
Hatfield TO justice.
He has had several chances to pop
him at sight. and he has admitted to
this writer that his hand twitched
each time. but he added: vi
Hatfield Faced More Charges
MY whole life has been devoted to
helping the law by hunting down
criminals; am not going to take the
law into my own hands now. But |
shall spend my last cent. the last atom
of my energy, in trying to secure Hat
fields punishment"
Hatfield was under six other MUIR
der indictments growing out of the
Battle of Matewan." So was young
Chambers. So are twenty other Mate
wan miners.
The killing of his two brothers made
a broken, embittered man of Tom
Felts. 1t robbed him of his best pals,
with whom ne had worked and played
flor nearly half a century.
a few minutes after the acquittal
iof the nineteen aecused-there We're
"a originally; one turned states star
witness. and the cases against four
others were nQlle prossed-thc writer
snw Felts in the latter's hotel room.
He lay in his bed writhing with pain.
Threatened with pneumonia. He raised
himself with difficulty on one elbow
and said, amid half-suppressed sobs:
I'VE lost. But we are coming back.
No conviction of these men seems
ipossible in Bloody Mingo. We shall
try to have them tried in another
tcounty. and"-his clenched fist
pounded the side Of the bed with each
word-''we shall convict them the
next timew
Then he sank back on his pillow
aud turned to the wall to hide his
tears.
The bloodshed, the suffering. the
romance and adventure, the bitterness
and the hatreds that form the back
ground of the Trigger Trial" and the
sequel at Welch last week, and of
many other tragic seduels that are
sure to come, constitute a world with
in itself, and it is one that the great
masters of fiction would revel in ex-
rIoring. for 1t is replete with facts
which are indeed stranger than fic-
ticn.
HatficId's Uncanny Smile.
Sid Hatfield himself was a character
worthy of the best efforts of Poe, a
Hugo, or a<Tolstoi His personality |
was strangely apparent. Tall, .lanky, |
raw-boned, rosy Of complexion, with |
hazel eyes that glowed the full, fiery |
intensity of his impulsive being, this |
typical son of the hills seemed one |
minute like an awkward, harmless,
kindly country hoy and the next like
a human wildcat He would slouch
cut of the courtroom looking, from
ibenind, as If he had not an ounce OF
pep" He would hear remark or
fee' an ever so slight touch frorl
someone walking behind him, and
wheel around With the swiftness and
agility Of the black panther. And al
ways. in such moments his large, un-
couth hand, with its incongruous,
slender, nimble fingers, would, by
sheer instinct, fly TO his hind pocket
the same movement that Lively's ca
gle eyes caught at WEIGH the other
day, the hash-house sleuth's sight and
trigger finger being just a trifle
quicker than Sid's.
Smiling Sid" Hatfield's smile was
the most uncanny thing about him. 1t
seldom came off; when 1t did the
youths face took on wizened, with ii
sred look, and he seemed seventy III
years old instead of twenty-six. The iii
hatfield smile was more of grin II
han Il smile; there was no 9nirth In 1t. II
il was on his lips continually through III
Iut the trial as he sat there, in the III
ihaldow of the hangman's moose, the II
eader and "hero" of that band of ac-
used murderers. Witnesses of the
1atewan battle say it never left his
fps during the builet orgy. When It
vas over seven men lay dead In front
# him, three others, Matewaneans,
'ehind him. Hatfield alone was said
o have killed five of the detectives.
he first thing he said was;
'Trhey shot hole through nah hat
nd they shot one of nah guns out of
lah hand All reckon they all was
xcited. n