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. If they had not been demoralized, they could. If they had had a
police like the New York police, they could have kept the crowd back.
Q. How many men would it have taken to protect you sufficiently?
A. After the fire got started, it would have taken right smart, but
before that I think that one hundred and fifty or two hundred men could
have stopped the whole thing, because police can do more than soldiers.
Q. We have testimony that the police offered to give protection to one
engine?
A. Let the police come up and name the engine. I saw that in the
papers.
Q. Do you know the parties referred to?
A. Motts and Goldsmith. They came out in the papers and said they went
to one man named Kennedy, and told them that they would give
protection, but I went and asked them, and they said that they never
came to them at all.
Q. These gentlemen will testify to that?
A. Yes; I can have them at any time at all. I will fetch them to you.
None of them came to me; and I am the proper person to come to for a
purpose of that kind.
By Senator Reyburn.
Q. Were you about on Thursday or Friday?
A. No.
Q. You say that a couple of hundred or one hundred and fifty policemen
could have driven the crowd back?
A. On Saturday, one hundred and fifty policemen, well armed, and
staying together, could have moved the crowd away so that they could
have moved the trains.
Q. But you were not there?
A. Not until Saturday night, when the alarm was given.
Q. On Saturday and Sunday morning, when you were there, were the police
doing anything to prevent the pillaging?
A. After I came back from East Liberty, I saw the police arresting
people for stealing. The "black maria" was busy taking them down to the
station--the Twelfth ward station--and then running them down to the
Central station.
Q. From what you saw, do you think it would have been possible for the
police to have stopped it?
A. It would have been impossible for what was there to have stopped the
mob. They could catch the people when carrying things off.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. Were you a witness before the grand jury?
A. No; this is the first time I have been called upon.
By Mr. Englebert:
Q. Did you see any of the soldiers?
A. Yes; about the round-house. As soon as the soldiers went out of the
round-house we went into service, and kept right on then. We could not
go into service before, because they were firing both from the
round-house and from the board-pile--the rioters.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. When the soldiers came out of the round-house, did they come out in
ranks?
A. Yes. As soon as they came down on to Penn street, I noticed a squad
on each side watching the houses and buildings and alleys, and the men
with the Gatling gun were watching behind.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. Were they well handled and marching orderly, or were they
demoralized?
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