The Harris-Ingram Experiment

by Charles E. Bolton

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."