The Lamar register., 1922-06-28
BARBARITY WOULD
DISGRACE RUSSIA
Cline Mcdowell, Former Lamar Boy,
Murdered With Thirty Others
In Illinois

arrived in Lamar Sunday night bring
ing the body of Cline with them, after
en- experience which for horror and
unspeakable barbarism would any
time before last Thursday have been
declared impossible to have happened
in the supposedly "Land of the Free"
the U. S. A. Hearing of the shooting
of their son at Herrin, Illinois, last
Thursday Mr.. and Mrs. Mcdowell left
at once for St. Louis where the body
had been ordered shipped. On reach
ing there and not finding the body Mr..
Mcdowell went on to Illinois and
found situation that he had never
even dreamed was possible in crime
ridden Russia, much less America.
Cline, who was born and raised in La
mar, was young man of such sterling
worth that although handicapped
while yet boy by the loss of one leg
yet made good and had been advanced
to the position of superintendent of
the mining company for which ne had
worked for some years. He was
brutally murdered in company with
nearly thirty of his men by orders of
the officers Of tIe miners union. The
mob of cowardly anarchists not salts
fled with forcing the surrender of the
men and destroying the works of the
bhne, had beaten their prisoners up
on the way back to town and because
Cline in his crippled condition could
rot walk as fast as some they beat
him until he sank in the road and
then killed him. The murderous
fiends were not satisfied with their
orgy of unspeakably brutality in the
mirner Of killing the men, mutilated
the bodies afterwards, dragged them
with ropes attached to autos through
the dust of the roads, AMI left them
exposed to the hot sun. 1t was only
after dark that anyone dared carry
tie bodies into town, and tLcn they
were refused decent preparation for
burial. Mr.. Mcdowell when he reach
cd The mob territory found that al
though his son had been an honorable
citizen witt home there, wen his
fa.kcr livirg over thousand miles
away, could not enter the city under
his own maize, ani cd rot Gare evc,i
approach the horne where Clire had
lived to cecure the Necessary clothes
for his body or any of his .ther be-
longings. He did finally with the aid
Of frierds of the boy succeed IN get
t., & the body and getting Gu. of town
WITH LIS life. Thus TIE boiy o. oac
Of the poor victims of the lust of or
ganized murdcrers in the name of
unionism, was brought back to the
home of his childhood and given decent
burial at the harGs of loving relatives
and friends in a real American COM
nunity. What happened to the rest of
the bodies is well known from the
newspaper accounts. Buried in the
Peters Field in rough boxes without
marks, and even the preachers who
had nerve enough to read a service
over them took orders to make no re-
marks. Thei= bodies lie there a dis
grace to Herrin, to the state of Illi-
rois, to the despicable officers of the
Miners Union from John Lewis down,
and standing menace to he Ameri-
can government and its institutions,
unless something is done 70 avenge
them and prove that an American citi-
zen still has enough liberty to live and
work anywhere in this country with
cut asking the permission of any man.
Even in the darkest ages of harbar-
ism the right of relatives to bury the
dead was not denied, and it remained
for a community of anarchists almost
in the population center of America to
try to make it impossible for a father
to secure the body of a son whom
these beasts had mutilated The
sheriff of the county, union miner
left the county to give the mob free
rein; the state senator, another union
man guaranteed them protection il
they would peacefully surrender; the
Colonel Of the National Guard, another
member of the union, wired the gov