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

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A History of Organized Felony and Folly test against an award of the United States Railroad Labor Board following an arbitration proceeding to which the employes had become voluntary parties. Although the contest was referred to as the "shopmen's strike," these shopmen belonged to several unions depending upon the individual trades of the members, all the unions being affiliated with the Railway Em.ployes' Department of the American Federation of Labor. The strike, therefore, was promoted and conducted by the American Federation, the largest body of trade unionists in the country. It is doubtful whether any preceding strike ever involved so many kinds of and such widespread violence, or entailed such financial loss and personal inconvenience upon so many persons in such widely-separated places. A summary of the effects of this strike follows: 25 murders, some of men, women and children who were not opposing the strikers; 12 passenger trains abandoned in southwestern desert and hundreds of passengers, some aged, some babies in arms, some seriously ill and among them a woman in confinement, forced to exist in terrific heat for periods of one to four days; 950 mail trains forced to discontinue; $75,000,000 loss incurred by California fruit growers; bridges and other property dynamited and burned; spikes removed from rails causing wrecks in some in- stances; 5,000 air hose cut from cars carrying coal from nonunion mines; 5,500 United States special deputy marshals required to protect movement of mails. Following is a partial list of the killings reported by United States marshals and United States attorneys and contained in an exhibit to the application of the Attorney General for a restraining order against the strikers: Negro railroad employe killed at Birmingham, Ala., July 9, and L. K. Randall, strike picket arrested in connection with killing. 62
A History of Organized Felony and Folly Striker killed and two others injured at Van Buren, Ark., Aug:ust 2. Tvvo negroes shot, one djnng next day, in fight at Atlanta on August 5 between strikers and employes of Georgia Rail- road. Chief special agent of Elgin, Joliet & Eastern killed and sheriff wounded at Joliet, August 7. Employe of Illinois Central killed on way to work on August 4. Strike breaker killed at Centralia, 111., August 9 and it was alleged he was shot by chairman of grievance committee of shop crafts. Negro killed at Somerset, Ky., August 21. Santa Fe watchman shot and killed at Leighton Junction, Mo., July 28. Two New York Central shopmen killed by strikers at Cleveland, August 10. One man fatally stabbed at Central shops at Toledo, July 27. One man killed at Willard, 0., July 10. Negro strike breaker murdered on Frisco lines near Memphis, August 17. Two negroes fatally shot at Hulbert, Tenn., August 11. Two negro strike breakers on Illinois Central killed at Memphis, July 26. Negro working for Southern Pacific assaulted July 15, at Houston and later died. Employe of Seaboard Air Line killed near Portsmouth, Va., August 15. One man killed at Harrisonburg, Va., August 27. The list of assaults and kidnappings in the Attorney General's exhibit fills ten printed pages and includes acts of violence in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Ten- nessee, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin. 63
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isisi A History of ORGANIZED FELONY
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CHAPTER CONTENTS PAGE "Uplifting" t
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CHAPTER PACE Unionists Slay Under W
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Introduction The Wall Street Journa
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