Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1923-02-02
PROSECUTION OR PERSECUTION

murdefefs, cut=lhrOdlEJ HFe DuBa anu
assassins that it was possible to col
leet. No one but the lowest Of the
low, the beastliest of the beastly will
kill its own kind for pay and that is
the very kind the lords Of coal select
ed for their bloody tools.
The crimes Of the gunner stink to
heaven. Their history is a Shiny,
bloody, fostering trail Of arson, muir
der, rape and misery. They have
blackened the fair name Of every min
ing state. They have committed
atrocities in times of peace that would
shame war-mad, shell-shocked Huns.
They have given a reputation to
this great democracy so that thinking
men sheer and smoker when they
hear of the land of the free and the
home of the brave. The blacklist spot
on American history is the American
gunman. The lowest brute of the ami
NAL kingdom is the American gun
man. And yet-and yet in all the
history of this beast, there is not a
single case on record in the courts of
this great land where an American
gunman has paid the price of his
crime.
You law makers make laws to pro-
tect dumb brutes; you make laws to
protect wild beasts and birds. But
you make no laws to protect the men
who dig your fuel against the hired
assassins Of the coal barons--and If
such laws do exist they are never,
never enforced.
Theer is no sanctuary for the coal
miner in Columbia's land. There is
no closed season for him, his mate
and young in all the year. Like
wolf and coyote and the negro of the
southland he may be hunted always
and everywhere by the bloodhounds of
the operators.
A bill has been introduced in the
Illinois legislature to appropriate
Seventy-five Thousand Dollars for the
prosecution of the accused Herrin
miners. The Chamber of Commerce
of Illinois has already raised vast
sums of money for the same purpose.
Thus state aid is to be added to the
private enterprise of sending the in
dicted coal miners to Jail or gallows.
No one deplores the unfortunate oc-
currence at Herrin more than we do.
No one understands the futility of
acts like the Herrin riot better than
we do. But we also understand the
deep causes leading up to the Herrin
trouble.
For quarter of century there
has been civil war in the mining re-
gions of this country between the pri-
vate mercenaries of the coal barons
ad the men who produce the fuel of
the nation.
The operators have secured the
slums of our cities for the dregs OF
humanity and set them upon the min
ers and their families. They mobil-
lied the degenerates, criminals, dope
fiends, syphilics and assassins to ter
rorize the coal miners into submission.
In the course of this civil war,
thousands of men, women and chill
dren have been murdered, cremated,
violated an draped. Drunken beasts
broke into the homes of honest work
ing people and threw hale and sick
on the streets. Tents weer cut down
at night and their occupants driven
barefooted and half clad over the
frozen ground. Whisky soaked
beasts expressed their maudlin humor
by firing streams of machine gun
bullets into sleeping mining camps.
American citizens were dragged from
their homes and driven like cattle on
the desert to die.
Is it any wonder then that the
worm will turn? Is it to be mar
veled at that quarter of century
of pent-up outrage, hate and suffer
ing will occasionally explode as it
did in Herrin?
But now that the inevitable has
, happened great hue and cry goes
up on account of the few drops of
poisonous gunman blood that trickled
from Herrin into the sea of miner
blood.
The blind goddess of justice has
shifted her bandage from one eye.
She only can see the massacre of
Herrin, but she is blind as bat to
the thousands of murdered miners
whose bodies are strewn over the hills
and dales of every mining state.
Justice must be done in Herrin. The
Chamber of Commerce has raised a
slush fund that justice may prevail in
Herrin. The legislature is asked for
$4,000 that justice will be done in
Herrin. But, mind you, justice is not
concerned in the three dead miners
who lost their lives before gunman
receievd a scratch. The states money
is not to be wasted in Furnishing the
murderers who shot down our broth.
ers long before gunman was shot.
Gentlemen of the legislature, the
thing you are asked to do is moi
prosecution but persecution. You are
not requested to aid justice, but tc
lend a willing hand to the blood.