Guns of Lattimer 1560007648

Citation preview

The Gunsol Lattimer

ael ovak

with a new introduction by the author

Transaction Books by Michael Novak Belief and Unbelief Catholic Social Thought and Liberal Institutions Choosing Presidents The Guns ofLa,ttimer Unmeltable Ethnics

DDS

0

Miuhael Novak

With a new introduction by the author

• TRANSACTION PUBLISHERS New Brunswick (U.S.A.) and London (U.K.)

New material this edition copyright© 1996 by Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08903. Originally published in 1978 by Basic Books, Inc., Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Transaction Publishers, Rutgers-The State University, New BrunswicK, New Jersey 08903. This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 95-50669 ISBN: 1-56000-764-8 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Novak, Michael. The guns of Lattimer / Michael Novak ; with a new introduction by the author. p. cm. Originally published: New York : Basic Books, © 1978. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-56000-764-8 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Anthracite Coal Strike, Pa., 1897. I. Title. HD5325.M62N68 1996 331.89'2822335'0974832-dc20 95-50669

CIP

LATTIMER MASSACRE Septe_mber

10,

1897

"It was not a battle because they were not aggres­ sive, nor were they defensive because they had no weapons of any kind and were simply shot down like so many worthless objects, each of the licensed life-takers trying to outdo the others in butchery." The Hazleton Daily Standard September 11, 1897 Inscription on the monument erected at Lattimer in 1972

DEDICATION

This book is intended as a partial repayment for the gifts America gave -work, freedom, and flawed but idealistic justice

CONTENTS

ix

Introduction to the Transaction Edition Ballad of the Deputies

xiv

Introduction: The Tragedy at Lattimer Mines

xvi

A Note on the Sources

xxv 1

PART ONE: August, 1897

71

PART TWO: September 1-9, 1897 PART THREE: September 10, 1897 Bloody Friday, The �1assacre PART FOUR: September 10-28, 1897

1

39

PART FIVE: February 1-March 9, 1898 The Trial EPILOGUE A Note of Thanks A Note on Proper Names The Dead at Lattimer Mines Appendix Bibliography Index

49 2 53 2 57 2 59 265 2 73 2

A Portfolio of Illustrations Follows Contents

vii

INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSACTION EDITION

THE WELL-KNOWN ACTOR Jack Palance is from Lattimer Mines, and when this book first appeared he bought an option to produce it as a television movie. The project came to naught, but for a time it raised my spirits and allowed me to hope. I still think the story deserves to be dramatized in film. The story of the massacre at Lattimer Mines exposes in a lightning flash something terrible about justice in America, and yet also something reassuring and hopeful. The immi­ grants who felt the fury of an unjust posse's fusillade also knew that justice in America, whatever its faults, is more reli­ able than in the lands of their birth. Their European experi­ ence did not allow them to be utopian. They came to America ready to love it. They did not expect it to be paradise. In nei­ ther respect did it disappoint them. On September 10, 1997, 100 years will have passed since that hot day on which so many innocent men were gunned down at the crossroads in front of a great spreading oak tree, at the approach to a tiny mining town in northeastern Pennsylvania, just outside of Hazleton, in the Lehigh Valley. The town is so plain even today that a sense of sadness hangs over it. Can all this bloodshed-the deaths of 19, the wounding of 39-have been a battle over such mean circumstances? Virtually nothing I have written has given me as much satis­ faction as this book. I note that all the work done since-for example, the useful book by Perry K. Blatz of Duquesne Uni­ versity, Democratic Miners: Work and La,bor Relations in the Anthracite Coal Industry, 1875-1925 (1994)-not only relies Introduction to the Transaction Edition

ix

heavily on my work, but after sixteen years finds research that corrects it on only three tiny details (on two of which I believe my account is correct). I wrote nothing in the basic narrative for which I did not have warrant in some contemporaneous source. Of course, if the source was mistaken, I was, too. Since I am not a professional historian, the fact that my account has stood up to professional scrutiny pleases me. Professor Blatz also pleased me by referring to the Lattimer Mines Massacre as "well-known." It was not so before I wrote this book. It is true, of course, that my work rests upon that of others; still, when I asked American labor historians about it, most did not at the time know of it. Two knew of it vaguely. I said that the only thing I knew of it was a few paragraphs in a book by Victor A. Greene about Slavs in America. Could those paragraphs be relied upon, I asked? If so, why hadn't I heard about this during my education in Pennsylvania schools? Why couldn't I find any reference to it in dictionaries and compen­ dia of U.S. labor history and labor violence? The massacre at Lattimer was the largest in U.S. labor history until the Ludlow massacre in Colorado 17 years later, whose narrative George S. McGovern and Leonard F. Guttridge told in The Great Coal.field War (1972). (That year, Senator McGovern won the Democratic nomination for the U.S. presidency, and I was privileged to work on his campaign staff.) The authors do not mention Lattimer Mines, although it is a clear and vivid pre­ cedent. It was obviously unknown to them, too. When I wrote to Victor Greene about this, he referred me to the pamphlet on the Lattimer massacre privately printed by Edward Pinkowski of Philadelphia, who is the true hero in pre­ serving this important story from historical oblivion. Mr. Pinkowski's references to newspaper accounts of the massacre persuaded me that the story was larger than his pamphlet could accommodate and that there was much more to find out. I re­ solved to follow up on his leads and to develop others. By the diligence of an old friend, who spent some days in the Pennsyl­ vania State Library in Harrisburg, a treasure of documentation fell into my hands. This find imposed on me a duty to history and truth: If I didn't interrupt my other work and write up what had been X

Introduction to the Transaction Edition

found, the story might be forgotten for another generation or two, and perhaps forever. Justice demanded that I bring these materials before the public, as did a bond of common humanity with all those involved in the bloody events of September 10, 1897. Such stories should not be neglected. My assistants and I were thrilled to find photographs of some of the dead, the deputies who did the firing, and other impor­ tant protagonists of the events of those days. It would be hard to convey to you the excitement of each new discovery, as the story began to take shape before our eyes. For example, we saw a reference to a story on Lattimer that appeared in a news­ paper in Troy, New York, and tracked the story down; it was filled with vivid details gathered by one of its own reporters. We kept finding tantalizing leads like that and ran them down, sometimes with exhilarating success. It was like filling in a jig­ saw puzzle, piece by piece. Sometimes, all we had was the name of someone in the story; only later would we come upon details-what they looked like or actually said, what their age or position was, who their fami­ lies were, what their friends thought of their character, and so forth. Each such detail was precious. These people were once like us; they had lived, in all the roundness of seeing the bril­ liant sun of May and the rains of October, falling in love, being sick, worrying about their children. We wanted to come to know them, despite the immense obstacles of silence and distance standing between us. Occasionally, since the publication of the first edition of this book in 1978, I have received letters from relatives of one or another person involved in the events described in the book. The grandson of one of the deputies, I learned, became a Ro­ man Catholic bishop. Other letters from people who had grown up in the region expressed gratitude for being given an account of their own history. I was gladdened by such letters. By contrast, in the mid 1970s descendants of the slain min­ ers, the mine owners, and the deputies were still observing a code of silence around events that they must have judged best forgotten. Some among them may yet come forward over the years; somewhere, there still might exist private papers that shed further light on those sobering events. Introduction to the Transaction &Htion

xi

Over the years, in fits and starts, ceremonies at the site of the massacre on succeeding September lOths have grown more substantial. I was privileged to take part in one myself. The 100th anniversary in 1997 should be especially splendid. Per­ haps one day an American president will see fit to attend, to pay homage to those who marched behind an American flag, and were shot down while pursuing recognition of their dig­ nity and fair demands. Possibly, the Slavs who died at Lattimer are too humble and still too unknown for so grand a remem­ brance. But I like to think that American greatness has been forged by millions of humble acts of courage. Someone sliould honor these. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Professor George A. Turner of Bloomsburg State University in Pennsyl­ vania, whose highly readable articles on Lattimer have been very helpful to me. When I first came upon one of them, I felt greatly reassured-there really had been such an event, and serious people knew where to look for details. Since this book was published, Professor Turner has written further on the sub­ sequent trial of the deputies in David L. Salay's (ed.) Hard Coal, Hard Times (1984), in an article called "Ethnic Response to the Lattimer Massacre." In the same spirit, I would like to thank the great sociologist Robert Nisbet, who soon after this book first appeared wrote that it is "not just an historical but a literary work of the first magnitude." What praise! What balm and pleasure, after so much hard work. The truth is, the literary quality of this book is a kind of tes­ tament to my two grandfathers, who, when they arrived in America, settled in the comer of Pennsylvania opposite to Hazelton, the Southwest, in and around the city of Johnstown. One of them was a miner, but I never knew him, since he died when a wagon overturned on a hillside, when my father was just over a year old. The other grandfather, whose name was Ben Sakmar, held several different laboring jobs, but was even­ tually the owner of a neighborhood general store and butcher shop. He was my most immediate contact with Slovakia, the land from which all my ancestors came to America about a cen­ tury ago. My brothers, sister, and I have often visited the fam-

xii

Introduction to the Transaction Edition

ily homestead, high in the Tatra mountains where the Slovak side of the family still lives. The American branch of our family has now been here just over a hundred years, and we still thank God for that every day. I hope this book gives a new generation of readers-and perhaps my own children-the pleasure its writing gave me. Michael Novak Washington, D.C. September 10, 1995 Note: Most of the books and papers used in researching this book are in the library of The Martin Institute, Stonehill College, North Easton, MA 02357. Other relevant materials are at the Balch Institute, 18 South Seventh St, Philadelphia, PA 19106, and the Pennsylvania State Library in Harris­ burg, PA.

Introduction to the Transaction Edition

xiii

BALLAD OF THE DEPUTIES

How proud the deputies must.feel Who took so brave a part In that conflict where their rifles Have pierced the manly hearts Of honest fellow workmen Without pistol, gun or knife, Without the smallest weapon To defend their sacred life. We cannot forget the bravery Of those noble warlike men, Who after shooting victims down Took aim and fired again. Oh, noble, noble, deputies Our heads are bent with shame, We shake with fear and blush to hear The list of cowards' names. Though the press of Philadelphia May uphold the Sheriff's name, It makes the crime no lighter And it lessens not the shame. The crime you have committed Leaves a stain forever more On the fair name of Hazleton Such as was never known before. xiv

Ballad of the Deputies

The region is in mourning For the victims who have died, In trying to maintain their rights, The rights they were denied. Beneath the starry banner Though they came from foreign lands, They died the death of martyrs For the noble rights of man. Oh, noble, noble, deputies We will shout the news aloud, The Sheriff was a coward And he led a cowardly crowd. Can you still live here and witness The destruction you have wrought, Where you'll hear the little orphans Mourning o'er their fateful lot? And hear their widowed mothers Crying for the ones they loved, And praying prayers of vengeance To the Mighty One above. If the courts. of justice shield you And your freedom you should gain, Remember that your brows are marked With the burning brand of Cain. Oh, noble, noble, deputies We always will remember, Your bloody work at Lattimer On the 10th day of September. The Hazleton Daily Standard, Sept. 17, 1897 Ballad of the Deputies

xv

INTRODUCTION: THE TRAGEDY AT LATTIMER MINES

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE derive from peoples who on other continents have warred against each other. Yet here they have been mainly peaceful. This nation is diverse and energetic and from the beginning has trusted its citizens with guns. Its peoples are restless, they are ambitious, and the social system draws upon cupidity. Yet out of such unpromising materials have grown wealth, serenity, and placid suburbs. This sleepy surface, however, has frequently been broken by sudden con­ vulsions, strikes, riots, and armed skirmishes. This is the story of a sudden flash of bloodshed that erupted near Hazleton, Pennsylvania, at about 3 :46 on the hot afternoon of September 10, 1897. Nineteen men died and at least thirty-nine were wounded. The date was, to the day, seventy-four years before the riot at Attica prison. The story of the guns of Lattimer has been strangely neg­ lected in history books, even in histories of violence in Amer­ ica, even in labor histories. Why such amnesia? How can so distinguished a collection like American Violence, A Docu-· mentary History ( 1970 ), by Richard Hofstadter and Michael Wallace, amply document 107 instances of riot, slaughter, and assassination, while totally omitting even a mention of Latti­ mer, the most bloody of all but a half dozen others? The rea­ sons may be that Lattimer's victims did not speak English and, more than others, have lacked a public voice. They were Slavs­ a word which the Germans suggest derives from the Latin slavus, slave. (Slavs say it derives from the Slavic slava, glory.) Louis Adamic, one of the few literate and, in America, widely published of the early Slavic immigrants, wrote bitterly in Laughing in the Jungle of the "dungheap" onto which Slavic laborers were thrown in America. He wrote about the scores of xvi

Introduction: The Tragedy at Lattimer Mines

thousands who lost their lives in the mines, factories, dams, and tunnels of the early industrial era. Many disappeared from sight, he wrote, never to be heard from by their families in Europe, as though they had been swallowed up by darkness. The reputation of America in eastern Europe was not at that time bright. Today the United States is the third largest eastern Euro­ pean nation in the world. Nearly one in ten Americans has at least one eastern Europe�n grandparent, Catholic, Jewish, Prot­ estant, Orthodox, or atheist.* Yet, few American scholars or journalists in 1897 spoke eastern European languages, could interview eastern European immigrants, or read eastern Euro­ pean newspapers. The primary historical sources of the eastern European immigration have been closed to the public. Some of these peoples-the Lithuanians, the Hungarians, the Jews­ are not Slavs. Yet it is probably true that the most silent, and most invisible, Americans have been the Slavs. Books about their experience in America have been few indeed. Although I am a philosopher and theologian rather than a historian, the story of Lattimer attracted my imagination. In the hope of telling it accurately-to serve truth, that value which Alexander Solzhenitsyn says is the most powerful in the world (lacking success in democratic freedoms, the Slavic peo­ ples have necessarily cherished a more spiritual ideal)-1 have tried to meet the standards of historians. No sentence in this book, I trust, is factually, in tone or in context, at variance with recorded evidence. The historical record came to fascinate me-the young John Nemeth riding breathlessly on horseback at midnight after the fatal march; the handsome John Eagler, having acted as trans­ lator for the district organizer of the often rebuffed United Mine Workers, at the head of the line; and the whole body of four hundred marching men, unarmed, incompetent in English, * In Ethnic Diversity in Catholic America ( 1973), Harold J. Abramson counts some 10 million Roman Catholic Poles, Lithuanians, and other eastern Europeans. The U.S. Census reported that American Jews in 1977 numbered some 5.7 million. A conservative estimate of Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Lutheran, and other Christians of eastern European back· ground would appear to be 4 million. The number of the unchurched is unknown. Introduction: The Tragedy at Lattimer Mines

xvii

carefully carrying two American flags, and painfully aware that in the Austro-Hungarian Empire they could conduct no such open and peaceful protest as they did here. That their march should have ended in brutal bloodshed-the worst labor mas­ sacre in the history of Pennsylvania and in the nation until that time-deepened in them and in other Slavic communities around the nation a familiar sense of tragedy and injustice. It did not tempt them in the least to belie_ve that life under the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary was more civil or more just. Their tragic sense is something precious in America, and it deserves to be recorded. They were good men, of ad­ mirable spirit, and what they added to the American character and to the nation's self-understanding is as necessary now as then, and as overlooked. Whoever says "work ethic" speaks also of theirs. Whoever speaks of the "American character" must include theirs, for in significant ways they expanded its range and depth. It will be obvious to the discerning student that a major difficulty in a work of this sort is to "get inside" the leading agents on the strikers' side. For reasons easily comprehended, both the newspaper records and the accessible books and archives tell us much about the reasoning, motives, and feel­ ings of the owners, superintendents, generals, officers of the law, deputies, and soldiers of the Pennsylvania National Guard. Those who speak with authority leave records. In this case, communion in the English language was also on their side. Few strikers were asked for interviews or were sought out for their reflections on America or were requested to deposit their recol­ lections. Many of the victims did not leave a family, and of those who did, most families ( so far as I could discover) have by this generation erased the trauma-and the stigma-from memory. Very few are the live oral traditions a researcher is able to tap. Partly for this reason, I have sought out novels and memoirs among Slavic peoples in Pennsylvania from that period, in order to discover such patterns of thought, emotion, and daily ritual as these might reveal. I did not find the classic literary novels of this period-Willa Cather's novels of the Czechs in Ne­ braska-of as much help as I would have liked. Many Moravixviii

Introduction: The Tragedy at Lattimer Mines

ans and Bohemians settled in rural areas in Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, and Texas; whereas the Slovaks, the Lithuanians, and the Poles, the chief protagonists in this story, turned in far greater proportions to the northern cities and bore the brunt of industrial labor. The rural experience was so quclli­ tatively different from the urban that aspects of character vital to the story of Lattimer Mines do not much appear in Cather's work. Secondly, for all her talent, Miss Cather describes the Slavic world from outsid