Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches, with a Department of AppreciationsDebs, Eugene V. (Eugene Victor)
History
Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches, with a Department of Appreciations
Debs, Eugene V. (Eugene Victor)
Socialism -- United States; Socialist Party (U.S.)
I have copies of the court records, including the testimony, to prove
this, and the files of all the Chicago dailies of that time contain the
same testimony.
These are the gentlemen who have so much to say about law and order—the
vaunted guardians of morals and good citizenship.
When A. B. Stickney, president of the Chicago Great Western, who had
been victimized by them, told them to their faces that there was not an
honest official among them and that he would not trust one of them out
of his sight, they did not attempt any defense, for they knew that their
accuser was on the inside and in position to make good his assertions.
THE DEPUTIES AS VIEWED BY THE COMMISSION.
I must now introduce a little evidence from the report of the Strike
Commission bearing upon the United States deputy marshals who were sworn
in by the railroads “to protect life and property and preserve the
peace”:
Page 356: Superintendent Brennan, of the Chicago police, testifies
before the Commission that he has a number of deputy marshals in the
county jail _arrested while serving the railroads as United States
deputy marshals for highway robbery_.
NEWSPAPER REPORTERS’ EVIDENCE.
Page 370: Ray Stannard Baker, then a reporter for the Chicago _Record_,
now on the staff of _McClure’s Magazine_, testified as follows in answer
to the question as to what he knew of the character of the deputy
marshals: “From my experience with them it was very bad. I saw more
cases of drunkenness, I believe, among the United States deputy marshals
than I did among the strikers.”
Pages 366 and 367: Malcomb McDowell, reporter for the Chicago _Record_,
testified: “The United States deputy marshals and the special deputy
sheriffs were sworn in by the hundreds about the 3d and 4th of July, and
prior to that, too, and everybody who saw them knew they were not the
class of men who ought to be made deputy marshals or deputy sheriffs.” *
* * “In regard to most of the deputy marshals they seemed to be hunting
trouble all the time.” * * * “At one time a serious row nearly resulted
because some of the deputy marshals standing on the railroad track
jeered at the women that passed and insulted them.” * * * “I saw more
deputy marshals drunk than I saw strikers drunk.”
These were Edwin Walker’s justly celebrated guardians of the peace.
Page 370: Harold I. Cleveland, reporter for the Chicago _Herald_,
testified: “I was on the tracks of the Western Indiana fourteen days.” *
* * “I saw in that time a couple of hundred deputy marshals. I think
they were a very low, contemptible set of men.”
HIRED AND PAID BY THE RAILROADS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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