The miners had resolved to quit work and not allow the mines to be pumped, and there was great danger that they would be flooded and immense damage inflicted. On Sunday, the 29th, the authorities met a committee of the miners and represented to them that the damage of flooding the mines would—a great portion of it—fall on them, as the mines could not then be worked for a long time if once flooded, and it was finally concluded that the pumps might be worked, so that on Monday the pumps were generally going again. On Monday the city council met, and resolved that no necessity existed for special police, and that none would be paid by the city. The mayor on that day sent for the executive committee of the trainmen, and informed them that on Tuesday, the 31st, it was proposed to start the regular trains at nine, A.M., and if resisted the mayor would use all the force at his command to put the trains through. In the afternoon the trainmen had a meeting and resolved, by a large majority, to resume work, and by evening of that day all fears of any further trouble had passed. The special force of citizens which had been sworn in were armed partly with Remington rifles and partly with muskets, and it was arranged that they should assemble at headquarters on a given signal through the church bells. Wednesday morning, August 1st, a meeting of the laboring men of the vicinity was held at the silk-works, a mile or so below the city, at which some seven thousand or eight thousand men were present. Accounts conflict as to the purpose of this meeting, some contending that it was called to hear a report of some committee, and some that no object was specified in the call, which was by word of mouth from man to man. No committee made any report, but a letter was read by some demagogue, purporting to be written by W. W. Scranton, general manager of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company, saying that he meant to have the men at work for fifty cents a day, and when they died bury them in a culm pile. Mr. Scranton denies having written any such letter, but it answered the purpose of its author by inflaming the minds of those at the meeting, and they broke up with the cry, "let us clean out the company's shops." About half-past ten, A.M., the mayor was informed that a crowd of men was coming up from the silk-works. The mayor, with a friend, started out to see what was the trouble, and on his way notified some of the special police to meet at head-quarters.
On arriving at the corner of Lackawanna and Washington avenues, they saw a crowd of from three to four thousand coming up the latter street, and swarming about the machine and other shops, and about the railroad. The mayor went down into the crowd, which opened for him, and he went as far as the machine shop, and turned and came back to the roadway of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western shops. He had said to them: "Boys, you are doing wrong; you must disperse and go home." On arriving at the roadway, a company of one hundred and fifty or two hundred, who had been driving the men from the shops, and beating and maltreating them, came along, and the leader asked who that was. On being told it was the mayor, he said, "kill the son of a bitch; he has no business here," and immediately two shots were fired, and the mayor was struck between the shoulders by a club, or some heavy weapon, so hard as to cause hemorrhage of the lungs; a stone struck him in the small of the back, and several persons struck him with sticks. Several friends gathered about the mayor, and Father Dunn, a Catholic priest, came along to assist him. He was slipped out under the railroad bridge and toward Lackawanna avenue, followed by the crowd. The mayor had, before entering the crowd, given orders to have the signal given for the assembling of the extra police force, which order had not been executed, but word had been passed to a number of men, and when he got back to the avenue, he saw a body of them coming down towards him. At this point the mayor was hit by some heavy instrument, which broke his jaw and knocked him senseless for a time, but he went a short distance down the street and back again to where the mob and extra force of citizens were just about to meet. The mob, on leaving the machine shops, had cried out, "now let's clean out Lackawanna avenue," (the principal street of the city.) "Let's clean out the town." The force of citizens—about fifty in number—were passing Washington avenue just as the mob came up it and struck Lackawanna avenue, and they closed in behind the citizens and on both sides of the street around them; then a large number of stones and other missiles were thrown at the special police, with cries of "kill them; take their guns from them," and similar threats, and shortly two or three pistol shots were fired by the mob, and then the order was given the citizens to fire, which was immediately done, and three of the ringleaders killed the first fire. This dispersed the mob, which fled in every direction. The citizens gathered again at the company store to the number of two hundred, and a policeman soon reported the crowd gathering again.
The mayor, at the head of twenty-five of his men, immediately went to the crowd and ordered them to disperse, which order they obeyed. This force of citizens kept up their vigilance, not allowing any crowd to gather until the troops arrived on August 2d, and took charge of the military affairs at that place. A great deal of ill feeling and dissatisfaction still existed among the miners and mill men, but no open outbreak occurred, and before the troops left that section quiet and order was fully restored. Too much praise cannot be awarded the mayor and citizens' special police force of Scranton for the admirable organization they created, and for the prompt and vigorous measures taken when the emergency arrived. Had the action of the city council been approved and its advice taken, no special police force would have been raised, or had there been timidity among them when called out, Scranton would, no doubt, have suffered as badly as did Pittsburgh; for nowhere in the State was there a harder set of men than at Scranton and vicinity, many of the Molly Maguires, driven out of Schuylkill county, having gathered in and about that city, besides the scores of other hard cases who had been there for years. Riotous demonstrations were made at several other points in the State, but none of them assumed any great magnitude, except at Altoona and a few places in the anthracite coal region, and the occurrences at these places being described in the movements of the military as reported in the report of the Adjutant General for the year 1877, and being so similar to those that took place at the points particularly described herein, except as to magnitude, it is not deemed necessary to further notice them in this report.
Your committee has not thought it necessary to give a detailed account of the general movements of troops, except so far as they relate to the troubles at some particular point, where the same was necessary to a correct idea of all the circumstances occurring at such point, these general movements being all detailed fully in the Adjutant General's report above referred to.
As it is made the duty of your committee to report "by what authority the troops of the State were called out, for what purpose, and the service and conduct of the same," we approach this part of our labors with considerable diffidence, on account of the peculiar situation of affairs at many of the points to which troops were sent; the fact that this kind of service was new to most of them, and that, unaccustomed as our people are to the use of the military to enforce the laws, the opportunities for forming a correct judgment are few, and the chances for being mistaken are many. It is perhaps easy, after a thing has happened, to criticise the actions of those engaged in the transaction, to point out where they failed, and to say where they ought to have done different, but if the theories of the critic had been tested by actual experience, he too might have produced no better results than did those he criticises. Bearing this in mind, and endeavoring to treat the whole subject fairly and conscientiously, we proceed to give our views upon this part of the matter under consideration. And first, the troops of the State were called out, in the first instance, by orders from James W. Latta, Adjutant General of the State, on a call from the sheriff of Allegheny county, the orders being signed by him, the Adjutant General, the Governor's name not being attached thereto, the Governor, as before stated, being absent from the State. He, with his family, started for California on the 16th of July, and before leaving had a conference with the Attorney General, Adjutant General, and Secretary of the Commonwealth, as to whether there was any reason why he should not go. It was agreed by all, that everything in the State was quiet at the time, and no prospects of any disturbance, and that there was no reason whatever, why he should not take the contemplated trip. Before leaving, however, he instructed Adjutant General Latta that if there was any trouble in his absence he should exercise the authority vested in the Commander-in-Chief, in accordance with the same rule and principles previously established, which were that on a call from the sheriff of a county for troops to assist in enforcing the law, the military should only be sent after he became satisfied that the sheriff had exhausted his powers and authority to suppress the disorder, and that the lawless element was too strong to be controlled by the civil authorities.
General Latta, after directing General Pearson, at Pittsburgh, to order out one regiment, and to take command of the military situation, reported what had occurred, and his order to General Pearson, to the Governor, which dispatch reached the latter at Antelope, on the Union Pacific railroad, July 20, before noon, which was answered by the Governor from Cheyenne, at half past one, P.M., the same day, directing General Latta to "order promptly all troops necessary to support the sheriff in protecting moving trains on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, and go to Pittsburgh and keep supervision of all troops ordered out." From this time communication by telegraph was kept up by the Governor until his return, and all troops were ordered out in pursuance to general orders given by him. The Governor received a telegram from C. N. Farr, his private secretary, and General Latta, at 2.20, P.M., the 20th instant, that everything was going on well, and the riot would be suppressed, and for him to go on. He accordingly pursued his journey to Salt Lake City, where he received a telegram Saturday evening, the 21st, at nine o'clock, giving an account of the collision between the troops and the mob at Pittsburgh, when he immediately procured a special train, and started on his return. These facts show that the troops were called out by the proper authority of the State, on a requisition of the civil authorities of the locality where the troops were to be sent.
We believe that neither the mayor of Pittsburgh, nor the sheriff of Allegheny county, had exhausted their powers under the law to disperse the mob before calling for troops, and that under the rules adopted by the commander-in-chief the steps prerequisite to ordering out the troops had not been properly taken by the civil authorities. The purpose for which the troops were called out was to assist the civil authorities in enforcing the law, and preserving the public peace, and it was at no time supposed by any one of the military officers that they superseded the civil power, although at some places they were obliged to act in the absence of the civil officers, the latter having run away, or refused to do anything to suppress the riotous disturbances.
The service and conduct of the troops was generally good, considering the circumstances under which they went into service, except in a few instances, which will be more particularly specified hereafter. It should be remembered that never before were the militia of the State placed in so trying a position as that in which they were placed in July last. Rarely, if ever, were regular soldiers placed in more trying circumstances. Called upon without a moment's warning, they left their homes, with but little or no preparation, and hastened to the scene of the troubles. Nothing had occurred to give the people of the State or the railroad officials any indications of an outbreak at that time, but all at once the storm burst upon the city of Pittsburgh, and threatened its destruction. In this emergency the National Guard was called out, and most of the commands arrived at the scene of the troubles with great promptness, and there met a foe more formidable than they had any expectation of meeting. The active National Guard of the Commonwealth, being made up of volunteers from the people of the locality in which the military organization exists, is usually composed of all classes of the citizens of the locality, and the members of the military will, therefore, naturally be impressed with all the feelings of the community in which they reside, and be infected with any spirit of resistance to constituted authority that may exist among any great class of their neighbors.
Hence it is that this guard cannot be always relied upon to do its full duty in case of troubles at home, requiring the intervention of the military.
Not being brought up to the profession of soldiers, and the officers being their friends and neighbors, and when at home being no better and having no more authority than themselves, they are sometimes loth to obey orders when these orders run contrary to their wishes and inclinations. The military discipline, which comes from actual service, is wanting, and being accustomed to do their own thinking, having an opinion on all matters that come before them, and freely expressing it, it is very hard to come down to the condition of executing orders without a why or wherefore, even in ordinary cases; but when it comes to using their weapons against their friends, neighbors, and perhaps relatives, it is not to be wondered at if they sometimes waver in their duty. Every member of the active National Guard ought, however, to be taught that as a soldier it is his duty to obey the orders of his superior officers without question; that in case of a mob or riot in his neighborhood, strong enough to defy the civil authority, the organization of which he is a member is the first to be called upon, and that this aid to the civil powers is one of the principal duties which devolve upon him, and one of the principal reasons for maintaining such an organization. Taking into account the difficulty of overcoming these natural feelings of men, a large majority of the troops called out in July last may be said to have behaved nobly. General Pearson has been severely censured for having (as was alleged) given the command to the troops at Twenty-eighth street to fire on the mob, and the troops have also been denounced for the firing which occurred at that point.