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. I am positive of it--at least the message I received bore nearly
about the same words, but not just in that way.
Q. That, of course, was a grievance?
A. Yes.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. Did your Trainmen's Union include the employés of the Baltimore and
Ohio road?
A. Yes.
Q. Was that strike in pursuance of an arrangement made in your union?
A. Not to my knowledge.
Q. Was that formally communicated to your union here--the strike that
occurred there?
A. No; nothing more than hearsay on the street.
Q. Did the members of your union make any effort to have those parties
disperse and go to their homes during Friday, Saturday, and Sunday?
A. Not that I know of--no more than I did myself.
Q. What did you do in relation to it?
A. I did take some men out of the crowd at Twenty-eighth street, men
that belonged to the Pan-Handle road. At Twenty-eighth street, that
day, I was met by this Watt. He says to me, I want you to leave this
property. Watt was the man; but I didn't know him only by sight. I
thought, of course, he was an employé of the company. He said, I want
you to leave the company's ground, and I asked him who he was. He
replied that it didn't make any difference who he was, that he knew who
I was, and my motive for being there. I said if he knew my motive he
knew my business better than I did, for I hardly knew myself what I was
there for. And after trying to give me a bluff, as I call it, that he
was Mr. Watt, and employed by the road, I went up towards Twenty-eighth
street, and there understood that they were going to send for what they
called the Pan Handle roughs to head this trouble. I knew the great
majority of those men--between eighty and a hundred of them were
discharged off the Pan Handle road, and had been discharged prior to
this strike. The majority of them were in town; some had left town; but
a great many of them were here, and they were pretty lucky if they
could get one meal a day. I didn't want to see any of them get into
further trouble, and when I heard this I was afraid that some of those
men would enter into this thing through persuasion. I went to them
singly, and took some half a dozen out of the crowd, one at a time, and
told them not to have anything to do with the affair. I said, I have
been discharged from the Pan Handle, and you, and there will be nothing
in this of any benefit at all. I took out six or eight men from
different parties that had belonged to the Pan Handle railroad.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. What did they mean by sending for the Pan Handle roughs?
A. They thought that a few men of that road were rougher than anybody
else, or had more pluck. I don't know--it was a rumor I heard.
By Mr. Means:
Q. Those men you spoke to went with you willingly out of the crowd?
A. Yes.
By Senator Reyburn:
Q. Were you on the ground of the Pennsylvania railroad, or on public
ground?
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