A History of Organized Felony and Folly - The Clarence Darrow ...

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A History of Organized Felony and Folly men at Prairie Creek. On the night of the 16th, the union miners' families who lived in Prairie Creek were warned by friends to leave that vicinity in order to avoid danger, and at 4 o'clock the next morning the attack was begun by a volley of many shots fired into the premises. A large force with guns attacked the mining premises from all sides later on in the day. '*The first movement tov/ard destruction of property was at Mine No. 3, a short distance from No. 4, where the coal washhouse was set on fire. The occupants of the premises were driven out except a few who stayed and entrenched themselves behind coal cars or other protection. Most of the employes and their families fled to the ridges beliind which they were able to escape danger from the flying bullets. The forces surrounding the mine were so numerous that by 1 o'clock they had driven out practically all the defenders and set fire to the coal tipple of IMine No. 4, and destroyed all the plant by the use of djTiamite and the match. 'The assailants took some of Bache's employes prisoners as they were escaping, and conducted them to a log cabin behind the school house near the mine to which reference has already been made, and where the first riot meeting was held. The four or five prisoners were taken out of the cabin where they had been for a short time confined, and two of them, one a former union m.an, were deliberately murdered in the presence of their captors, by a man whose identity it was impossible to establish. The evidence in this case clearly shov\-s that Slankaid,. the constable at Hartford, was present at the killing, and that the men who were killed were in his custody on the way, so he said, to the grand jury. He was subsequently tried before a Sebastian County jui-y for murder, and was acquitted on an alibi. Slankard, though a defendant and in court, did not take the stand in this case. The over^vhelming weight of the e\'idence establishes that this was purely a union attack, under the guidance of District officers. "The testimony ofi'ered by defendants to show that it was only an uprising of the indignant citizens of the country- side really tended to confirm the guilt of District No. 21. Its 42
A History of Organized Felony and Folly palpably artificial character showed that basis for it had been framed in advance for the purpose of relieving' the officers of District No. 21 and the union miners of that neighborhood from the responsibility for the contemplated execution of their destructive and criminal purpose." Bandits Frame Union Demands Early in 1919, George Bowen, an organizer for the International Association of Machinists, went to Cincinnati and proclaimed that he w^ould put that city on the union map—not the imion of the 48 states, on whose map Cincinnati had long been decipherable, but the union of labor. Among his as- sistants were Joseph C. Haering, business agent of the Machinists' Union, and A. Eisermann, assistant business agent. In August, 1919, the work of organization having pro- gressed, wage demands were made on employers of machinists and signed by a "general wage committee," consisting of William C. Eipberger, Gus Steinliaus, Frank Solderits, Frank Dreier and Chas. Eder. The communist party of Cincinnati, in November of the same year, was circulating seditious literature, and several of those engaged in the preparation and circulation had been convicted of sedition in the federal court and were at liberty on bond pending appeal. It was at this time that 300 exseirice men raided the headquarters of the communists, situated in the same room with the headquarters of the Machinists' Union, the space being rented by the union to the communists. Following the raid, Lotta Burke, secretary of the communists, who had been convicted of sedition, brought suit for $50,000 against the American Legion and its members. During the trial of this case, a list of members of the communist party was produced in court, and among them were the assistant business agent of the Machinists' Union, and three of those who had signed the wage demands—Solderits, Dreier and Eder. 43
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