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
The mob knows instinctively the feelings of the bystanders and
officers, and a little encouragement makes it very bold, while a
determination to enforce the law by a few brave officers will cause the
same mob to disperse, for it is an old and true saying that mobs are
cowardly. This report has already stated, as a matter of fact, proved
by the evidence before the committee, that all classes of the citizens
of Pittsburgh sympathized with the trainmen in their strike. Some of
the citizens claim this is hardly true, but most of them admit it, but
deny that any of them sympathized with the riotous conduct of the mob
and the destruction of property by it. The best description of the
feeling of that community was given by Sheriff Fife, who testified that
there was a general sympathy with the strikers; the entire laboring
class sympathized with them; the merchants sympathized with them to a
certain extent; that the responsible portion of the people of
Pittsburgh were not in sympathy with the riot, but that it took a
certain amount of riot to bring them to their senses. That this
sympathy with the strikers pervaded the whole community does not admit
of a reasonable doubt. There may have been, and no doubt were persons
who did not sympathize, but they were isolated cases, and so few as to
be of no use in controlling or directing public sentiment. There are a
great many evidences of this aside from the direct testimony of most of
the witnesses who were asked the question. The fact that Sheriff Fife
testifies to that he did not undertake to raise a posse to disperse the
mob before calling on the Governor for troops, as it would have been
folly to have tried it in the city for he knew the feeling of the
people, he might possibly have raised a posse in the country, if he had
had time, is one evidence. On Saturday, the 21st, he sent out twenty
deputies to raise a posse to assist in arresting the ringleaders, and
they did not raise an average of one each, after, as they testify,
making a vigorous effort. The action of the Pittsburgh troops, also
shows that the same feeling of sympathy pervaded them, and the actions
of the mayor and police show conclusively the same thing, so far as
they were concerned. The editorials in the newspapers of the city show
as strongly as any evidence can, where the sympathy of the community
was, these being the best exponents of public sentiment when not
repudiated by the people. The prejudice among the shippers over the
Pennsylvania railroad against that company on account of the alleged
discrimination in freight against them, caused them also to sympathize
with the trainmen, and the general feeling was, after the commencement
of the strike, to let the company take care of itself. No one can doubt
that the existence of this feeling in the community was well known to
the strikers, and that it encouraged them to hold out in their purposes
and make them more bold in their adoption of measures to resist the
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