The daily worker., 1929-08-13
Article 49, Wvden and Heyyln

test the breaking of the agreement
not to ship coal. Of course they
knew nothing of the district Off
cials' t-->son. Mcdowell turned the
machine gun on them as they came
up the road, with hands raised, un-
armed. Henderson and Picovich
were killed, the others Jumped into
the woods and escaped.
The Virden Tradition.
Then the miners of Herrin re-
membered Virden Day, which to
them was a real tradition, however
hypocritically Harrington and Fish
wick might view it.
Within half an hour, 500 had as
sembled. The attack on the mine did
not start however. until the next
day. In the trial that followed,
Herrin shopkeepers testified that
committees of miners came and took
all the guns in stock during the
evening of Wednesday, leaving or
ders to charge them up to the Herrin
local. The miners were arming.
The attack on the well-armed
scab-her 'ers at the Lester mine was
made with nondescript weapons, col
lected about the country, but it was
excellently carried out. The mine
was placed under fire from all sur
rounding coal piles, and the water
supply cut off. There were few
casualties on the side of the miners,
even though the machine gun was in
use continually.
Under the White Flag.
/ Various for.-5 of treachcry were
tried by Mcdowell. He raised a
white flag over the machine gun
nest. John Conroy and Edna Con-
roy, witnesses at the trial told of
watching from the top of the tipple
in another mine, the machine gunner
firing rapidly at the miners rifle
pits in the coal piles with the white
flag floating freely above him.
Otis Alexander, night watchman
at another mine, told at the trial
how he listened in on the phone when
Mcdowell got in touch with Lester
on long distance. Lester told Nc
Dowell to hoist white flag, and get
in touch with the union officials,
pretending to negotiate surrender,
while using the time to better for
tify his men; meanwhile Lester
would have troops sent to the mine
The end of the battle at the mine
is described by Joseph O'Rourke
commissary clerk supplied by the
scab agency as follows:
II don't blame the miners for at
tacking US, for we were knowingly
being ,.sed as dupes (sic) to keer
them from their jobs. We were
given arms when we arrived and g
machine gun was set up in one cor
ner of the mine. Guards were with
US all the time and most of the
miners climbed upon the coal piles
and earth. embankments, and we
were unable to see them. The guards
kept firing but most of US hid. When
the miners blew up our pumping
station, we had no water, and the
food supplies were in a car in the
hands of the miners. About sunrise
we put up a white flag, and the
miners poured in, and we sur
rendered our arms"
The machine gunner was lying
dead across his weapon.
About 25 armed miners marched
much more than their own number
of scabs, and guards, with Nc
Dowell and his assistant superinten-
dent, down the road.
The Shooting.
These guards were professional
killers, many of them from the coal
baronies in West Virginia. To be
taken prisoner by the miners, whom
they were taught to despise, whom
they had spent years arresting, beat
ing, framing up, numbering in cold
blood or in armed war, did not at
all fit into their idea of how things
should go. They made the des-
perately bad mistake of attempting
to overpower their guards and es-
cape, when some confusion resulted
from the procession punching up at
wire fence.
| Nobody but a couple of the sur
vivors ever testified as to what hap
pened then, and their evidence is
necessarily biased, but the next day
Id dead scabs were picked up at the
fence. Four were found shot in the
woods. Six were re-captured, tied
together, and taken through Herrin
When they reached cemetery
something happened again, and they
were all shot. One, professional
scab and mine guard, survived. He
left new scab job in neighbor-
ing state to testify at the trial, and
said he was shot twice at the fence
five times at the cemetery, and then
that somebody cut his throat with a
pocket knife. He did have scar
on his throat, but it seemed to be
older than the Herrin events.
Mine Doctors Story.
The only other witness who ac-
tually testified to the shooting at
the cemetery, was doubtful char
acter, a professional company doc
tor, o. F. Shipman, who insisted
that he followed the procession
through Herrin, and that the miners
let him stand by while they shot the
six men without proyocation. He