Bloody Williamson

by Paul M. Angle

  “It is not General Black’s policy,” he asserted, “to use troops until such time as the emergency gets beyond the control of the civil law officers, and we feel confident that the civil authorities of Williamson County are entirely competent to handle any emergency. We have every confidence in their performing every official duty.”

  Paisley also interviewed Lester. The operator assured him that he did not expect trouble from the striking mine-workers. His steamshovel men, he said, all belonged to the Steam Shovelers Union. He admitted that this union had withdrawn from the American Federation of Labor some years previously, but he claimed that it had recently been invited to reaffiliate. His railroad men, he said, were union members in good standing. He was required to have guards to comply with insurance regulations, but he promised to keep them off the public highway. As soon as practical he would reopen the closed road by bridging the shovel cuts that had been made across it.

  That afternoon Hunter, Thaxton, State Senator William J. Sneed (president of the United Mine Workers’ subdistrict that embraced Williamson County), and several newspapermen made another inspection of the mine. McDowell took Hunter aside and renewed his plea for troops. This time he made his “interesting proposition”: fifty dollars a day to the officer if he would send troops to guard the property. Hunter told the superintendent to keep his money, and urged him again to close the mine. Again McDowell refused. If there should be trouble, he argued, the state would have to send in troops sooner or later, and he was prepared to hold out until they came.

  In the evening Hunter telephoned the Adjutant General—his second report of the day—to say that the sheriff had not sworn in additional deputies, as he had urged him to do, and to reiterate his own belief that the local officer could not be depended upon to get the nonunion men out of the county.

  On the following day, Tuesday, June 20, Hunter spoke before the Herrin Lions Club. After the meeting he walked about town, talking with the idle men who loitered on the streets. From them he learned that that very morning hundreds of union miners had held a mass meeting at the Sunnyside Mine near Herrin. Apprehensive, he asked Senator Sneed what the meeting was about. Sneed dodged the question, but assured him that he need not be alarmed. The sheriff, informed of the gathering, promised to investigate.

  That same day the telegraph wires injected another explosive element into the situation. On Monday, after his visit to the Lester mine, Sneed had wired to John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America, to ask whether the American Federation of Labor had given the Steam Shovelmen’s Union permission to strip and load coal. In his reply Lewis stated that no such agreement existed, that “this outlaw organization” was furnishing strikebreakers at strip mines in Ohio, and that its officers had paid no attention to remonstrances made by the United Mine Workers. “Representatives of our organization,” he concluded, “are justified in treating this crowd as an outlaw organization and in viewing its members in the same light as they do any other common strikebreakers.”

  Sneed’s telegram and Lewis’s answer were published in the local newspapers on the afternoon of the 20th.

  On the morning of the 21st, Hunter decided that something must be done. Once more he called at the office of the sheriff to urge that impassive official to swear in additional deputies. Thaxton was out, but a deputy said that all was quiet at the mine, and that no new men had been deputized. Hunter, aware that tensions were perilously close to the breaking-point, appealed to the State’s Attorney. Duty sent for the sheriff and added his appeal to Hunter’s. Thaxton remained noncommittal.

  As a last resort Hunter, with the sheriff, called on C. R. Edrington, secretary of the Greater Marion Association, as the local chamber of commerce was known. Edrington proposed that a local citizens’ committee be formed to avert violence at the mine, and named the men who should be its members. Thaxton assented.

  At noon they assembled in Edrington’s office: R. B. Mitchell, a mine manager; William H. Warder, attorney; William Rix, president of the Marion Trades Council; Oldham Paisley of the Marion Republican; A. B. McLaren, the coal operator who had been present at the first conference Hunter had held; Hunter; and Edrington. But Thaxton, who by virtue of his position held the key to the whole situation, failed to appear. His office was closed, and no one could locate him.

  The conferees agreed that there would be violence if Lester persisted in operating with nonunion labor and mine guards. But before a plan to stop him could be devised, an ominous report came in. That morning a truck carrying a new contingent of strikebreakers had been ambushed between Carbondale and Herrin. Three of the men were in the hospital at Carbondale; the others were said to have escaped.

  Hunter went to the sheriff’s office immediately. There he learned why Thaxton had not attended the meeting at the Greater Marion Association. As soon as the attack on the truck had been reported to him, he had left for the scene of the shooting. Since he was uncertain whether it had taken place in his own county or in the one to the west, he had persuaded State’s Attorney Duty to accompany him. The office deputy had no idea when he would return or how he could be reached by telephone. Hunter went back to the conference.

  Within a few minutes even more ominous news reached the committee: miners, several hundred strong, were holding an indignation meeting in the Herrin cemetery. The telegram from Lewis to Sneed had just been read, and feeling was running high.‡ Almost at once other calls came from Herrin: mobs were looting the hardware stores and helping themselves to guns and ammunition.

  The men in the office of the Greater Marion Association worked feverishly. Hunter called Black in Springfield to report on developments, and warned McDowell at the mine that a mob was forming and arming itself. Paisley urged the Marion hardware dealers to hide their guns and ammunition. One store had already been looted. He remembered several rifles that the American Legion used on ceremonial occasions and saw to it that they were concealed in the police station. Every few minutes someone called the sheriff’s office, only to be told that the county’s chief law-enforcement officer could not be located.

  About 3.30 came the call that all feared—McDowell announcing that the mine was surrounded and that so far five hundred shots had been exchanged. None of his men had been hit, although several bullets had ripped through the makeshift office where he was telephoning. He thought two and perhaps three of the attackers had been wounded. Where was Thaxton? He hadn’t been able to locate him. He must have troops!

  As soon as McDowell hung up, Hunter called the sheriff’s office deputy and urged him to take all available deputies to the mine, stop the fighting, and disperse the mob. He also urged the deputy to telephone the Adjutant General for troops. Once again he received the stock reply: Thaxton could handle the situation. For the remainder of the afternoon the sheriff’s door was locked and no one answered the telephone.

  Calls continued to come in from the mine: the mob was increasing in number, the firing becoming heavier. Hunter called Black again to report that the mine was now under attack, that the sheriff could not be located, that his office deputy would take no responsibility, and that McDowell wanted troops. He himself thought they would be needed.

  By this time the men at the Greater Marion Association knew there would be no reprieve: if heavy bloodshed were to be avoided, a settlement had to be worked out that very afternoon. Lester had left the mine a day or two previously. If he could be found, perhaps he could now be persuaded to stop operations. Charles F. Hamilton, who had known him a long time, was the man to approach him. McLaren found Hamilton on the street and brought him into the conference. Hamilton succeeded in reaching Lester at the Great Northern Hotel in Chicago. The mine owner, who had already learned of the attack through a call from McDowell, had lost his nerve. He agreed to shut down for the duration of the strike. Hamilton immediately relayed word to the superintendent.

  From that time—about 4.30—until 6.00 the little group of men worked on the terms of a truce.

  Firs
t of all, the shooting must be stopped. That would follow if each side would raise a white flag. Then, in return for Lester’s promise to quit, the strikebreakers should be given safe conduct from the county. If attackers and attacked could be brought to parley, the safe conduct could be arranged.

  Hunter called McDowell, who agreed to put up a white flag if the besiegers would also raise one, and promised to confer with the union officials. Then, in the belief that the sheriff should head any group of mediators, another effort was made to find the missing official. As usual, he could not be located. Someone suggested a citizens’ mediating committee, but the men in the office could not agree upon its composition. They decided, therefore, to put the truce into effect, and work out the details later.

  Edrington called the office of the subdistrict of the United Mine Workers in Herrin. Neither Sneed, the president, nor Hugh Willis, state board member, was present. In their absence he talked with Fox Hughes, subdistrict vice-president, explained what the committee planned to do, and turned the phone over to Hunter. Hunter asked Hughes to take several men to the mine, put up a white flag, and see that the attackers stopped shooting. The Lester men would have their own flag up before he arrived. As soon as the firing ceased, he and his party could arrange for the withdrawal of the strikebreakers. Hughes agreed. Hunter called the mine, told the officials there that Hughes had agreed to the truce and would be out soon, and directed them to place their white flag where it could be seen. Hunter also asked that they telephone him as soon as the truce was effected.

  Time passed, and the men in the office of the Greater Marion Association became apprehensive. A call to the mine brought word that the strikebreakers’ flag, a sheet thrown over a telegraph wire above a pile of overburden, had been up for some time, but that nobody on the outside had appeared with a flag of any kind. And the firing persisted, though with diminishing intensity. The peacemakers called the subdistrict office again, and learned to their consternation that Hughes had not yet started to the mine. He promised to go at once, and did leave a few minutes later. By phone Hunter told McDowell that Hughes was coming at last, and cautioned him to make certain that his own men held their fire when the union official approached. Soon afterward the mine phone went dead.

  Believing that they had achieved their purpose, all the members of the citizens’ committee except Edrington and Hunter left for their homes. The two men sent out for sandwiches. Hunter took advantage of the lull to make his third report of the day to General Black. By this time he had confirmed McDowell’s report that there had been casualties among the attacking miners. One man had been killed and two others seriously wounded. The miners, nevertheless, had agreed to the truce he proposed, and it was now being put into effect. There was no longer cause for apprehension.

  To the Adjutant General, Hunter’s call brought great relief. That afternoon, after he had learned from Hunter that the mine was under attack, he had received two telephone calls that had convinced him the situation in Williamson County was about to blow up. One came from Lester, who demanded in great excitement that troops be sent to protect his men and property. The other call was from Governor Small at Waukegan. The governor said that Lester had appealed to him, too, for troops, and asked Black what steps he had taken. Black replied that immediately after talking with Lester he had ordered the commanders of three National Guard companies in southern Illinois to have their men ready for an imminent call to active duty. The three units could be mobilized and on their way to the scene of trouble within two hours. Before calling them out, however, he wanted to hear from Colonel Hunter on the ground. What he did would depend upon that officer’s next report. Small approved Black’s course.

  Then came the call from Hunter reporting that a truce was in the making. Black immediately telephoned the news to the governor. Both men agreed that the three companies of guardsmen should be held in readiness, but that they should not be called out that night.

  If Hunter, Black, and Small had been aware of what was happening while they exchanged congratulations on the passing of the crisis, they would have been less complacent. For Fox Hughes bungled the mission he had agreed to undertake. He did go to the mine, but with the piece of white bunting he took along stuffed inside his shirt, and he kept it there. Instead of taking several responsible men with him, he went alone except for the driver of his car. From Crenshaw Crossing he proceeded on foot. By his own story, there was still desultory shooting, and he could see no flag on any part of the mine dump. (The next morning, when the Lester men surrendered, their sheet hung forlornly from the telephone wire on which they had placed it.) Concluding that the strikebreakers had not kept their promise, Hughes returned to Herrin. When he learned there that after his own departure Hunter had been in touch with Hugh Willis, his superior in the union organization, he concluded that the truce was no longer his concern, and made no further effort to do anything about it.

  Thus, as darkness fell, the best chance of peace slipped away. And on the streets of Marion and Herrin there was plain evidence that the chance had gone for good. In both towns mobs formed; once again they tried to obtain arms and ammunition from stores and even from individuals. Men and boys, many of them armed, packed the streets. Policemen had great difficulty in keeping traffic moving. Cars loaded with armed men made their way at high speed in the direction of the Lester mine. The officers on duty asked no questions. What might happen several miles away was no concern of theirs.

  Early in the evening Circuit Judge D. T. Hartwell, who had been holding court at Metropolis, reached Marion. During supper his wife told him what had happened, and what threatened. He drove uptown. There he heard all kinds of rumors, but learned nothing except that serious trouble was impending.

  Shortly after nine p.m. he found the sheriff in the State’s Attorney’s office. Thaxton and Duty had just come in from investigating the morning’s shooting. In a short time Hugh Willis appeared. He had heard in Herrin, he said, that a group at the Greater Marion Association had induced Lester to shut down the strip mine; he had come to find out about it. Duty located Hunter and asked him to come to his office. After some delay the colonel and Major Davis, who had come over from Carbondale that evening, joined the meeting.

  Once again the group faced the problem of putting into effect the truce that had been agreed upon late that afternoon. There was no argument over the terms: the mine was to be shut down, and Lester’s men were to be given safe conduct from the county. The sheriff, they decided, should see that the truce was carried out. Hunter and Hartwell urged him to take his deputies and go to the mine immediately, and Hunter, Davis, and Hugh Willis offered to accompany him. Thaxton refused: he must have sleep. He would go to the mine, but not until morning. With that the others had to be satisfied. Before the conference ended, Hunter, Davis, and the sheriff agreed to meet at Thaxton’s office at six o’clock the following morning.

  Hunter put through a final call to General Black. The truce, he reported, would still go into effect. Troops would not be needed.

  After the meeting broke up, Hunter and Davis returned to the office of the Greater Marion Association. There they found Edrington, his wife, and his secretary. For two hours the five people talked about what had been the most eventful day of their lives. As they talked, the sheriff slept. Hugh Willis, back in Herrin, made a little speech to a group in front of the union office. Thaxton, he told them, was a mighty good fellow: they shouldn’t forget him at the election in the fall. At the mine, he said, there was nothing more to do until morning; then the scabs would come out.

  “God damn them,” Willis concluded, “they ought to have known better than to come down here; but now that they’re here, let them take what’s coming to them.”

  Under their coal cars and behind their barricades of ties lay Lester’s hungry, frightened men. Shortly before dawn two of them slipped out from their place of refuge and brought back pitchers of lukewarm coffee. They remembered later that it was as “bitter as gall.”

  At s
ix o’clock on the morning of June 22, Hunter and Davis knocked on the sheriff’s door. No one responded. They waited, walking around in the vicinity to kill time. On the street they heard that the men had come out of the mine, and that some of them had been roughly treated. More than two hours passed before Thaxton made his appearance; he had understood, he said, that he was to meet the officers at eight. Davis told him of the rumors they had heard, and urged that they try to head off the Lester men and their escort of striking miners before some of the former were killed. The sheriff made light of the possibility, and insisted on proceeding directly to the mine.

  It was nine a.m. when the three men, with one of Thaxton’s deputies, reached the mine. All the cars and buildings were on fire. From the crowd they learned that the strikebreakers had surrendered and had been marched off toward Herrin three hours earlier.

  After deciding that the mob was beyond control, the party separated. The sheriff and his deputy started for Herrin, Hunter and Davis returned to Marion. There, at 11.15, Hunter telephoned the Adjutant General and reported that the men had surrendered that morning and were on their way to Herrin in accordance with the terms of the truce. When Black informed him that he was certain, from newspaper dispatches, that the terms of the truce had been violated, and that many men had already been killed, Hunter was incredulous.

  The two officers picked up Judge Hartwell, drove back to the mine, and started over the route the prisoners had taken. They found the spot where McDowell had been killed, and at the powerhouse woods saw bloodsoaked ground and fragments of flesh and clothing on the barbs of the fence. By that time there was nothing to do but collect the dead bodies, and make sure that those who still lived suffered no more from the mob.

  * In strip mining, or surface mining as operators now prefer to call it, the vein of coal nearest the surface (if no more than fifty feet underground) is uncovered by a giant shovel, after which a smaller shovel is used to break up the coal and load it on trucks or cars. The process is much more economical than shaft mining. In 1922 it was relatively new.