The Herrin Horror Retold

The second Herrin trial is on. The witnesses for the prosecution and the defense have assembled, the jury is chosen and the judge has made his opening statement. Again the lines of battle in the class war are sharply drawn; the zero hour is about to strike, and once more the nation will listen to the citizens of Herrin--farmers, strikebreakers, tradesmen, victims of the mob, union miners--as they reconstruct the massacre in which 22 strikebreakers and mine guards lost their lives.

It is mid-June in the mining town of Herrin, Illinois. There is a coal strike on and all the mines are shut down. It is peaceable, good-natured, loafing summer strike, with none of the strife and bitterness of the cold weather conflicts in the coal industry. At the Lester strip mine all is quiet. Then one day strangers begin to appear in the town. They come in motor trucks and by train. They are armed and wear police badges. Others follow them, and all at once the Lester mine commences a feverish production. For a day or two nothing happens, and then the mine guards begin to patrol the highways. They search passersby, they frighten women, they boast and are hardboiled, as professional scabs and company detectives usually are.

Suddenly there is great activity at the United Mine Workers' Local. The miners see their strike jeopardized by the scabs, and the community terrorized by the mine guards. Fresh arrogance by the invading company detectives fans the flames to hatred. The miners begin to arm, a group of them ambush a truck full of guards coming from Carbondale and kill three. It is the overt act of class warfare.

Before the sun is down the miners have organized and surrounded the Lester strip mine. They fire hundreds of shots into the company sheds and freight cars, where the strike breakers and guards have intrenched themselves. But the beleaguered defenders are equipped with machine guns and three union miners are riddled early in the action. Night falls and the besiegers creep closer--to within forty yards of the enemy. They crouch behind a parapet of earth thrown up by a steam-shovel and wait for daylight to finish their bloody work.

Meanwhile Colonel Sam Hunter from the Adjutant General's office in Springfield comes to town. He gets in touch with Hugh Willis, official of the Mine Workers' Local, and tries to arrange an honorable surrender with immunity. Willis replies evasively, but " thinks it can be arranged." The defenders are telephoned and told to wait for a " white flag and a union official motor car." They wait until sunup, but neither flag or motor appear. So they raise their own white flag, and trusting the shouts of the union miners promising them immunity, surrender in a body--45 strikebreakers and 25 mine guards. Down the dusty road they march, prisoners, promised immunity according to the ethics of war.

But class war has ethics of its own, it seems. One Otis Clark harangues the mob. He calls for the death of every scab, prisoner or not, to " stamp out the breed " once and for all. As a gauge of battle he leads away McDowell, the one-legged superintendent of the mine into the woods. McDowell's mutilated body is found hours later.

The gruesome march continues through Herrin to the cemetery. At the barbed-wire fence encircling the graves, the prisoners are lined up. Their captors withdraw a few paces and a mob leader says, " We are going to give you a chance to run for it." The prisoners start to run and a volley of rifle and shotgun fire from the miners slaughters 14. The survivors flee through the woods, where they are hunted all day and six recaptured. These six are led back to the cemetery and shot down in cold blood. The massacre thus over and the mob's blood lust appeased, quiet once more settles upon the sweltering town of Herrin, in late June.