Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 19, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 September 1897 — PULSE of the PRESS [ARTICLE]

PULSE of the PRESS

Shooting of Miners. The action of the posse seems to have been criminally precipitate.—New York Herald. The sheriff and his deputies appear to have been demoralized by fear. —Boston Transcript. . It is awful. A tremendous necessity must be shown for such a murderous order.—Pittsburg Post. Sheriff Martin haS inaugurated all the horrors of martial law without any of its excuses.—Boston Traveler. The circumstances did not justify the wholesale slaughter. The shooting was cowardly.—Birmingham (Ala.) News, It is an unnecessary slaughter. It is a most deplorable blunder. Even" the statement of the sheriff does not excuse it, — Louisville Post. Back of it all is a damnable system whereby the courts, through unconstitutional injunctions, become the oppressors of the weak.—Omaha World-Herald? ' The appalling tragedy was the logical outgrowth of conditions which have been tolerated in some of our mining regions for some years past. —Philadelphia Times. The case is one that calls for rigid examination and if the sheriff exceeded bis authority he should be dealt with in a summary manner.—Albany Evening Journal. Everything points to the suspicion that Sheriff Martin lost both head and heart and ordered the destruction of life when no real necessity for it had arisen.—Detroit News. It is the worst exhibition of race hatred and diabolical fury of an armed force, vented on fin unarmed procession, that ever occurred in our country. —Chattanooga Times. Assuming that the facts were as they have been reported, the sheriff and his deputies were utterly incompetent and guilty of cowardly and criminally careless conduct. —Buffalo Courier-Record. Killed officially and shot in the back. Does anything appear in the story of this tragedy to give the slightest provocation for this horrible blunder, this terrible crime, this official murder?-—Toledo Bee. The shooting of unarmed men on slight ~’ovocation, for merely insisting upon marching peaceably along a public highway, is a very serious matter and may lead to the gravest consequesces,—Minneapolis Times. There is no room for acts like this in the United States. There is no place in a republic of freemen for the punishment of an unascertained intention, which is the ultimate goal of government by injunction.—St. Paul Globe. When a sheriff’s posse can fire ’pto a crowd of several hundred Pennsylvania miners without hitting an American, the public ought to secure a fair idea of cne of the prime causes of labor troubles in that State.—Washington Post. If the sheriff’s statement is true, and we do not see that..it is credibly contradicted, his firing upon the mob seems to have been a necessity to save his own life and the lives of others summoned to maintain the law,—Philadelphia Times.

Forgetfulness of the real character of our citizen-soldiers is at the bottom of she hesitancy and delay about calling out ‘‘the troops” that is continually leading to just such deplorable results as this Hazleton slaughter.—Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Those men in Pennsylvania who were marching had a right to that highway. They were injuring no one's property. The sheriff who ordered the deputies to fire on this unarmed .crowd of men simply ordered them to commit murder. — Peoria Herald. This outrage should nerve every American heart to support by all legal methods the suppression of this iniquity of government by injunction. This nn-American, uncivilized, un-Christian system must go if the liberties secured for us by our foi efathers are to be preserved.—lndianapolis Sentinel. We say that the powers of the courts are and must be restrained within moderate and reasonable limits. We say that the injunctions issued in this strike are an insult to freemen, and we point to the Hazleton horror as the natural and necessary consequence of the issuance of those extraordinary orders.—St. Paul Globe. The system which has collected bodies of ignorant and excitable workers and brought them by inadequate wages into a state of exasperation needs reformation. But this country will not be worth living iu if the fiat of an excited mob can override the commands of the legal authorities without suffering for it.—Pittsburg Dispatch. Even the dastardly and cowardly sheriff who ordered his posse to fire upon those defenseless men admits that they had committed no overt acts of lawlessness. He is a murderer, and bis men are murderers, and each of them should be tried and punished for the commission of the highest crime known to the law Kansas City Times. If the sheriff was indiscreet, if he fired into the crowd without due provocation, the demand for his punishment will be summary. If, on the other hand, it be found that he acted strictly within the lines of his duty, he will not lack iu public commendation and support. Meantime legislators, mine operators, and'miners will grow more thoughtful.—Macon Telegraph. It is questionable whether under the law the attempt to interfere with the peaceable marching of the strikers on the highway was not of itself a breach of the law. It is the duty of the sheriff and all peace officers to protect the lives and property of citizens. It is their duty to maintain law and order and prevent lawless trespass upon private premises. It is neither their duty nor their right to molest people passing over the public highways even though they may be suspected of unlawful intent. —Omaha Bee. It is a noticeable fact that the men who set themselves up in this matter to defy the constituted authorities were foreigners and the names of those who were killed and wounded show the same fact. It will be well worth the while of the authorities in making the investigation, which must necessarily be had, to inquire how far the trouble which has culminated so terribly was due to the large adI mixture of the foreign element among I the miners, and how far our immigration I 1 ——