TRIAL OF ANARCHY AND RESULTS
George Ingram had scarcely disappeared in the darkness, when Colonel
Harris fully comprehending the terrible situation at his works telephoned
the exchange to summon at once to his mills every physician and ambulance
in the city.
The Colonel then ordered his carriage, and taking Gertrude, rapidly
drove to the scene of the disaster. Great crowds had gathered, but the
policemen, and the Harrisville Troop, already had established lines about
the burning steel mills, beyond which the people were not permitted to
pass. The police and fire departments were doing all in their power to
save life and property.
Colonel Harris drove directly towards his office at the mills, but this
he could not reach as policemen guarded every approach. The two story
brick office had been completely wrecked by a huge piece of one of the
fly-wheels, that had fallen through the roof.
The night watchman whose duty it was to enter the office hourly was
killed, and his bleeding body was now being moved to a temporary morgue,
which had been established in an adjoining old town-hall. Already over
fifty mangled forms had been brought in and laid in rows on the floor,
and more dead workmen were arriving every moment.
The mayor and Colonel Harris were everywhere directing what to do. Scores
of the wounded were hurried in ambulances to a large Catholic Church, an
improvised hospital. Here were sent physicians, volunteer nurses, beds,
and blankets. Fortunately the seats in the church, being movable, were
quickly carried into the streets, and on beds and blankets the suffering
men were placed, and an examination of each wounded person was being
made. Names and addresses were taken by the reporters, and ambulances
began to remove the severely injured to the city hospitals.
Colonel Harris left Gertrude to minister to the wounded in the church,
and sought out Wilson his manager, and George Ingram. Everybody worked
till daylight. Many wounded and dead men, and women and children were
brought up to the morgue and hospitals from the wrecked tenements that
stood near the exploded mills. Several bodies of the dead workmen, and
the wounded who could not escape from the burning works were consumed.
When the sun rose on that dreadful scene, thousands of workmen and their
families and tens of thousands of sympathizers witnessed in silence the
awful work of anarchists. At daylight Colonel Harris rode with George and
Gertrude home to breakfast.
In the evening press a call for a public meeting at 8 o'clock next
morning of the prominent citizens resulted in the forming of an emergency
committee of one hundred earnest men and women to furnish aid to the
afflicted and needy work-people. The most influential people of
Harrisville were enrolled on this committee, which to be more thoroughly
effective was subdivided. Every house occupied by the mill-people was
visited, and every injured person was cared for.
The women on the committee visited the hospitals and for a time became
nurses ministering to every want. Money and abundance of food were also
contributed, and such kindness on the part of the rich the work-people
had never known before.
The evening papers gave the authoritative statement that the total
number of those killed outright by the explosions at the steel mills was
one hundred and twenty-seven. Of this number eighty-six were workmen,
fourteen were men who lived in the vicinity, but were not employed in the
mills, ten were women, and seventeen were children. The total number of
wounded was sixty-eight.
A public funeral was decided upon by the committee. The Harrisville Iron
& Steel Co. sent their check for $5000 to the committee and many others
contributed money. The time fixed for the public services was Sunday at 2
o'clock. Ten separate platforms for the clergy and church choirs of the
city had been erected on the same open fields where the great strike
meetings had so often been held. By 1 o'clock people began to assemble.
Workmen came from all parts of the city, till over fifty thousand
laborers with their wives were on the ground. Most wore black crepe on
their arm.
Fifteen minutes before 2 o'clock solemn band music gave notice to the
crowd of the approach of an imposing procession. Platoons of police led
the column who were followed in carriages by the mayor, his cabinet, and
the city council; then another platoon of police, followed by a long line
of hearses, the black plumes of which seemed to wave in unison with the
solemn tread of over a thousand workmen, acting as pall-bearers, walking
in double file on either side of their dead comrades.
It was some moments before the speaking could begin. By concerted action
all the clergy preached on the "Brotherhood of Mankind," the text used
being, John XV.-12. "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as
I have loved you." The speakers were moved by the Holy Spirit. The
services closed with the hymn, "Nearer my God to Thee."
The funeral procession was several miles in length. Public and private
buildings along the route to the cemetery were draped with the emblems of
mourning. Twenty-five of the bodies were given private burial. Over one
hundred of the victims of the dynamite disaster were buried in one common
grave. Together they had died, and together they were buried. The mantle
of charity covered them.
Soon after the funeral, the press contained an account of a great meeting
held by the surviving workmen of the Harrisville Iron & Steel Co., and of
resolutions that were unanimously adopted:--
"Resolved, That we, the surviving workmen of the Harrisville
Iron & Steel Co., hereby desire to express our deep sympathy with the
bereaved families of our late comrades in toil.
"That further we desire to contribute from the pay-roll due us the wages
received for two days' services, the same to be paid to the emergency
committee, one-half the proceeds of which is to apply to the relief of
the bereaved workmen's families, the balance to be used for the purpose
of erecting suitable monuments over the graves of our unfortunate
comrades.
"Resolved, That we, employees of the Harrisville Iron & Steel
Co., extend our sympathy to the company in their great financial loss.
"That we hereby declare ourselves as law-abiding citizens, and that we
neither directly, nor indirectly, were connected in any manner with the
late dynamite explosions and fires which destroyed the plant of The
Harrisville Iron & Steel Co., and we denounce those acts as dastardly
and inimical to the best interest of labor and civilization."
Following the resolutions were appended the signatures of over four
thousand workmen. It was also voted that the resolutions, and names
attached, should be printed in the press of the city, and that a copy
should be delivered to the president of the steel company. This action
freed the atmosphere of distrust, and business in Harrisville returned
to its accustomed ways.
At a meeting of the directors of the Harrisville Iron & Steel Co. it
was voted "Not to rebuild our mills at present." Manager Wilson was
instructed at once to so advise the employees, also to dispose of all the
manufactured stock and raw material on hand, and to clean up the grounds
of the old mill site.
Colonel Harris remembered the action of Herr Krupp of Germany when a
letter once reached him, threatening to destroy with dynamite his vast
works at Essing. Herr Krupp immediately called a meeting of his tens of
thousands of workmen, and read the letter to them, and then said,
"Workmen, if this threat is executed, I shall never rebuild." This
settled the matter.
The city council of Harrisville and the county commissioners offered
rewards for the arrest and conviction of the dynamiters. The sum was
increased to $10,000 by the steel company, and notices of these rewards
were mailed far and wide.
By aid of an informer of the band of conspirators, Mike O'Connor and
his confederates were arrested as they were about to embark for South
America. In the hotly contested trial it was disclosed that O'Connor had
directed the placing of dynamite beneath engines and boilers before the
high board fence was constructed about the works, that electric wires to
ignite the dynamite had been laid underground from the mills to an old
unused barn, nearly half a mile distant, and that O'Connor was seen to
come from the barn just after the explosion. Within two months after the
arrest, the whole band were convicted and sentenced for life to hard
labor in the penitentiary.
It was decided that Colonel Harris and Gertrude should soon sail to
rejoin Mrs. Harris and party in England, and notice of this decision was
cabled next day to them at London. The colonel was busy examining
carefully George Ingram's detailed drawings of a new, enlarged, and
much improved plan for a huge steel plant. The improvements were to be up
to date, and his plans involved an entirely new process of converting
ores into steel. It was agreed that George and his father, James Ingram,
should perfect their inventions on which both for a long time had been
zealously at work, and that later George and the colonel should make a
tour of observation of leading iron and steel works in Europe.
Gertrude was now very happy. The selled together, concerning the proper
relations of capital and labor, and since the explosion they studied the
question more earnestly than ever. Their scheme involved not only
improved works in a new location, but also a plan to harmonize, if
possible, capital and labor, which they hoped might work great good to
humanity. Gertrude told George Ingram that his golden opportunity had
come, and she resolved to render him all the assistance possible.