A. O, yes; precisely that and nothing else. You will remember that I said that I telegraphed to detain the policemen, and send them up there on Sunday morning. I got up there pretty late, and the policemen were waiting on me. I hadn't much confidence in any person we had, because I knew that the retreat and dispersal of the soldiers had emboldened the disorderly, and they thought when the soldiers would leave the mob, that the citizens had no chance, and the community were demoralized. I got about twenty policemen, I think, and I thought it would be a good thing to put them to light work and put a little spirit in them. I took them around and told them to go up the wall and drive those thieves away. I didn't get on the wall, I walked down alongside the wall to witness their operations. As soon as the police mounted the wall and the thieves saw them—I kept down with the police the great body of them; I followed on the street and they upon the wall, and the wall was clear for a very few minutes, and I happened to turn my eye up, and I saw a policeman with a bundle of those soft felt hats that are piled on top of one another, and he was throwing them down to the crowd in the street, and I rushed up for him, and shook my fist at him, and used some choice Italian, and then he stopped, and after talking a little string to him I turned, and down the line I saw a couple of policemen jump into a car and throw things out—they were cigars—and they threw things down to the crowd. I rushed down there and bellowed like a mad bull at them, and they stopped finally, but the moral effect of their previous conduct was gone, and the crowd mounted the hill like so many rats, and that was the end of that business. The men engaged in that were two lieutenants, and I am free to say there were not two better men in the force, but they lost their heads; they were completely surrounded by fire, and they thought those things would burn up, and as they would be burned up they just thought they might mollify the crowd—a very mistaken idea—by throwing these things to the crowd. It was from no desire to help the mob, but they had ignored the moral principle involved that they had no right to touch anything, except for the sole and only purpose of preserving it for its owner, and no other purpose. They had forgotten that part of their catechism.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. In other words, the police were demoralized as well as the citizens?
A. At that moment they were. I don't think these men would ever do a thing of that kind again.
By Mr. Lindsey:
Q. What was done with those policemen for that act?
A. I dropped them. I could not do anything else.
By Senator Yutzy:
Q. Discharged them?
A. Yes, sir.