Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877: Read in the Senate and House of Representatives May 23, 1878Pennsylvania. General Assembly. Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877
History
Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877: Read in the Senate and House of Representatives May 23, 1878
Pennsylvania. General Assembly. Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. On Thursday or Friday was this crowd boisterous or destroying
things?
A. They were not destroying things. On Friday they were stopping all
the trains coming in--stopping trains, and then hooking on locomotives
and running the cattle cars, for instance, to Torrens station, and
letting the cattle out in the field. In fact, Mr. Pitcairn will
remember that we were ordered out of the locomotive that we were on, to
let them run cattle out.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Not on Thursday and Friday, but after the firing occurred, how was
the sympathy?
A. I think the sympathy was with the strikers from the first. I feel
satisfied it was. But I am only giving you my own opinion.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. But you give that opinion, having formed it after intercourse with
the people, and after being in the crowd?
A. Yes; I talked with a great many of them, and they appeared to think
it was a hardship to reduce the wages and the numbers of the men, and
also, once in a while, they would bring in this freight discrimination
question.
Q. If you had had the warrants on Thursday night, could you have
arrested those parties?
A. If I had had a posse of two hundred or two hundred and fifty I
probably could have arrested them, but probably there would have been
somebody killed. I believe on Thursday morning if I had had the number
of police that Mayor McCarthy had, I could have arrested the leaders,
and put in prison the disorderly parties, and that then the trouble
would not have assumed the proportions it did. That is only my own idea
of it.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. Could it have been done on Thursday?
A. As I said before, I was out of Pittsburgh part of Thursday. I was
called away on business.
Q. But from the time you became acquainted with the difficulty first?
A. On Thursday morning I saw the crowd gathering around, and I think
then if I had had a force and had been called on to anything with the
force that Mayor McCarthy had, I think I could have done some good, but
on Thursday night at one o'clock, I do not think it could have been
done.
Q. When those messages were brought in and read to the crowd as coming
from other parties, were there any messages sent out to them in reply?
A. Not to my knowledge.
Q. No responses were made to them?
A. There was considerable cheering.
Q. But were any answers sent?
A. No.
Q. Did those messages come in answer to messages that had been sent
out?
A. I cannot answer that. I have given you about the purport of the
messages. Probably if General Pearson shall be called he might
recollect the purport a little distincter than I have.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. Were those telegrams?
A. I think not. I didn't so understand it.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. There appeared to be an organization?
A. It looked to me in that light very much.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. You stated one was from Wilkes-Barre?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account