madmark.myfastforum.org

Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

Not for republication or reposting.

From my email:

My how times (- and attitudes toward labor disputes and unions) have changed. I grew up in a different era in Central and Southern Illinois mining country - very, very pro-union mining country.

The Time Magazine article (from 1923) below is part of the so called "Labor's Untold Story" - both the good and the bad. (Not that the Time Magazine article is all that accurate or unprejudiced.)

By the way my grandfather (Ed Forbes) was a Gunman for the Miners' Union in Herrin, Illinois at that time. (And yes that was his official title "Gunman". Later - in about 1953 when I asked some of the older miners what his real title was they said: "Oh the 'youngan' wants us to put a fancy name on his Grandfather's title - no - that was his real title 'Gunman'")

So the shooting of 19 or so (it is unclear just how many were shot) strikebreakers by the Miners in Herrin, Illinois was not a good thing, it is sure clear that in Herrin, Illinois it was considered a very, very bad thing to break a Strike and to be a Scab. And after two jury trials of people accused of shooting the 19 Strikebreakers (with over 50 actual eyewitnesses to the shootings) astonishingly in both trials the juries actually voted unanimously to find those accused Not-Guilty. As it was said: "In Herrin, Illinois it is not Illegal to shoot Strikebreaking Scabs." And that is part of the untold history of labor conflicts in Central and Southern Illinois and in America in general.

And Otis Clark is still a hero in Herrin, Illinois. As Otis Clark is reported to have said: "Shoot the Scabs - one and all - wipe out the breed once and for all".

And in 1925 at the European Hotel Cigar Store, Otis Clark and my grandfather, Ed Forbes, were ambushed and shot and killed by the KKK and Coal Company supported Sheriff (their were two competing Sheriffs in Herrin during that time - the KKK and Coal Company supported Sheriff and the Coal Miner supported Sheriff) in retaliation for their roles in the Herrin, Massacre.

Jim D.
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TIME MAGAZINE
Saturday, March 10, 1923
The Herrin Horror Retold

The second Herrin trial is on. The witnesses for the prosecution and the defense have assembled, the jury is chosen and the judge has made his opening statement. Again the lines of battle in the class war are sharply drawn; the zero hour is about to strike, and once more the nation will listen to the citizens of Herrin—farmers, strikebreakers, tradesmen, victims of the mob, union miners—as they reconstruct the massacre in which 22 strikebreakers and mine guards lost their lives.

It is mid-June in the mining town of Herrin, Illinois. There is a coal strike on and all the mines are shut down. It is peaceable, good-natured, loafing summer strike, with none of the strife and bitterness of the cold weather conflicts in the coal industry. At the Lester strip mine all is quiet. Then one day strangers begin to appear in the town. They come in motor trucks and by train. They are armed and wear police badges. Others follow them, and all at once the Lester mine commences a feverish production. For a day or two nothing happens, and then the mine guards begin to patrol the highways. They search passersby, they frighten women, they boast and are hardboiled, as professional scabs and company detectives usually are.

Suddenly there is great activity at the United Mine Workers' Local. The miners see their strike jeopardized by the scabs, and the community terrorized by the mine guards. Fresh arrogance by the invading company detectives fans the flames to hatred. The miners begin to arm, a group of them ambush a truck full of guards coming from Carbondale and kill three. It is the overt act of class warfare.

Before the sun is down the miners have organized and surrounded the Lester strip mine. They fire hundreds of shots into the company sheds and freight cars, where the strike breakers and guards have entrenched themselves. But the beleaguered defenders are equipped with machine guns and three union miners are riddled early in the action. Night falls and the besiegers creep closer—to within forty yards of the enemy. They crouch behind a parapet of earth thrown up by a steam-shovel and wait for daylight to finish their bloody work.

Meanwhile Colonel Sam Hunter from the Adjutant General's office in Springfield comes to town. He gets in touch with Hugh Willis, official of the Mine Workers' Local, and tries to arrange an honorable surrender with immunity. Willis replies evasively, but " thinks it can be arranged." The defenders are telephoned and told to wait for a " white flag and a union official motor car." They wait until sunup, but neither flag or motor appear. So they raise their own white flag, and trusting the shouts of the union miners promising them immunity, surrender in a body—45 strikebreakers and 25 mine guards. Down the dusty road they march, prisoners, promised immunity according to the ethics of war.

But class war has ethics of its own, it seems. One Otis Clark harangues the mob. He calls for the death of every scab, prisoner or not, to " stamp out the breed " once and for all. As a gauge of battle he leads away McDowell, the one-legged superintendent of the mine into the woods. McDowell's mutilated body is found hours later.

The gruesome march continues through Herrin to the cemetery. At the barbed-wire fence encircling the graves, the prisoners are lined up. Their captors withdraw a few paces and a mob leader says, " We are going to give you a chance to run for it." The prisoners start to run and a volley of rifle and shotgun fire from the miners slaughters 14. The survivors flee through the woods, where they are hunted all day and six recaptured. These six are led back to the cemetery and shot down in cold blood. The massacre thus over and the mob's blood lust appeased, quiet once more settles upon the sweltering town of Herrin, in late June.