HALF WAY TO WAR

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 355, 5 April 1910, Page 3

HALF WAY TO WAR

THE PHILADELPHIA SIN IKE, FLOUT XEAI! BALDWINS FACTORY. THE MILITARY BEATEN.

Details received by a late American mail show that the tram strike raging in. Philadelphia was at one time about ■half-way to civil war. At 1 p.m. on litth February the ears were deserted. By 24th February there were twelve victims dead or dying, ninety-one seriously wounded, and one thousand injured.

At one crisis in the fighting the city police—on the third day of the strikewere so insufficient that the authorities had to reassure the public by swearing in for riot duty the '•Fencibles*—a body of militia that fought in the SpanishAmerican Avar. Also the commanders of the three regiments of National Guards met to arrange plans, for mobilisation at a moment's notice. The Feiisibles. if 'Out, would have 'their uniforms on, and rifles and bayonets. "With all these soldiers at the back the public might rest safe, even if tile polke failed. „ :

| THE KKNCI MLKi ! The next day tlie Fencibles were callIcd out. They were marched into the ' quarter where the feeling was hottest. Tliir rifles were loaded. In the first skirmish they were badly beaten by the mob. No one paid the least attention to the drawn bayonets. The crowd snatched muskets' from the hands of the militiamen. The Mayor of the place said afterwards tliat the Fencibles acted ns if they were on picnic. They allowed the factory girls to wear their helmets, and to cut the brass buttons off their uniforms for ornaments. A part of the crowd caught one of the Fencibles, stripped him of his coat, hat, cartridge belt and rifle, and pitched him into a sewer.

After that the authorities went back to the police. They sent for 200 of the country police. Meanwhile the city police were sent to the quarter which had been guarded by the Fencibles the day before. Whenever a group formed anywhere along the tram line detectives in motor-cars rushed it, followed the scattered members of it even into houses and captured the ring-leaders. So many car windows were smashed that day that the trams had sheet iron put into them instead of glass panes. But the trams ran that day. The police were not so diffident as the soldiers. The laborers at Baldwin's locomotive works, when they came out for their lunch hour, took side with the strikers. The police fired about 50 shots at them, and they took refuge in the upper floors of buildings round about. From there they flung bolts and nuts at the policemen. The policemen, in return, whenever thev saw a head appear at a -window, let fire at it. This was not Constantinople during an Armenian massacre. It was in the nark city of America—last month. Tliey fousrht like that till 1 p.m., when the whistle blew in the works. THE MEN KILLED.

The first man was killed on the third day of the strike. The skull of a policeman was fractured the same day. The next day, in attacks on tram-cars, three 'boys were shot. One of them, John Heugh, died the day after. A policeman shot him in the neck. Heugh made a statement to the coroner before lie died. -He said he was one of an organised gang of 150 workers from carpet mills who had agreed to attack the cars.

HIGH SCHOOL BOYS JOIN STRIKERS. A great part of the rioters were bays. The city high schools began to bombard the cars with bolts. The Board of Education, in order not to . endanger tlie lives of the pupils, decided to close for the time being the two schools for girls. A great part of the crowd in the streets, those days, had come out, as it would in Australia, simply to see the fun. It did not prevent the fun from being 6erious.

FIGHTING WITH LAMP BULBS. Early in the strike an extraordinary scene took place. As a car was passing quite close to the Central Police Station, a small boy jerked the trollev-pole from the wire. A line of cars immediately became blocked there. A pile of material that was being used for building happened to be almost opposite the cars. A rowdy company in the crowd took their position there, and kept up a regular bombardment on the cars, of the crowd was not taking part, it' had come there to look on. Almost at this moment three electric patrols filled with police rolled up. The crowd 'was at the moment scrambling into a waggon belonging to an electric company which happened to be near. They obtained a supply of incandescent lamp globes from this waggon, and started a bombardiment with these. Whenever a lamp broke it exploded with the report of a pistol. Explosion after explosion, here, there, everywhere, gave some of the crowd the idea that the track was being dynamited. There was a wild rush. Workmen were still bombarding the cars from the roofs around. After a fight of an hour the police drove back the rioters, and battered, scratched, with scarcely a whole wiildow-pane in the whole car of them, the long series of cars trailed off to the terminus. Within four days 750 cars were demolished.

The reckoning came later. Elhvood Cavr, said to have been a ring-leader in one riot, was sentenced on the fifth day of the strike of six years in the county gaol. Jolm Eline—who could scarcely understand English—got two years. Boys were sent oil' to the reformatory for anything from two to thirteen months.

By the sixth day a fair portion of the cars was running, and the streets were comparatively quiet.