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
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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
A. Yes, and one from the Monongahela valley, and there was also one
from Mansfield--that the coal miners there would be in in the morning.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Had you knowledge of any organization prior to this time?
A. Nothing that I could assert with any distinctness--nothing only
rumor--while I firmly believe there was. Now I will give you another
fact or instance to corroborate my theory: Some five weeks after the
riot I was in St. Paul, and the mayor of St. Paul had gathered up
thirteen tramps in a cave on the bank of the Mississippi river. I was
at the hearing, and each one had a traveling sack or satchel, and they
examined these satchels and there were goods like silk handkerchiefs,
and so forth, in them. The mayor asked them where they got them, and
they said, at Pittsburgh at the time of the riot, "How did you know
there was going to be a riot there." "Oh! we knew it, and we were
there." If you will telegraph to the mayor at St. Paul he will
substantiate the fact.
Q. In regard to the extent of this sympathy with the strikers that you
spoke of, I would like you to explain a little more upon that subject
as to the extent of it, and as to what classes of people sympathized
with the strikers?
A. The whole laboring class, so far as I know, were with the strikers
in their sympathy.
Q. The entire laboring class?
A. Yes; I think so. Do not understand me to say that they were in
sympathy with the riot. They were in sympathy with the men on account
of their wages being reduced.
By Mr. Yutzy:
Q. With the railroad strikers?
A. Yes.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. But they were not opposed to the railroad company?
A. I do not know that, but it was just this way that the railroad men
had their sympathy. Then there was another sympathy of the merchants to
a certain extent with these men. They believed they were not paid
right, and that the railroad company were not doing----
Q. Among what class of merchants?
A. Our better class.
Q. The entire classes?
A. No; but a portion of them.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. Was it sympathy with the strikers, or only prejudice against the
railroad company?
A. I think they had sympathy and prejudice both.
Q. Do you think that any responsible portion of the people of
Pittsburgh, whether laboring men or others, sympathized with the
rioters after the difficulty had become a riot?
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