Possibly never before in history, in this country or any other, have things happened like happened in the Lead Belt of St. Francois county last Friday night and Saturday.
WHAT OCCURRED FRIDAY NIGHT --
Friday night as the 7 o'clock shift was preparing to go on at Flat River, a party of perhaps 200 men gathered and went to the Doe Run Shaft No. 1 where they set upon the foreign laborers who were preparing to go into the mines and unmercifully beat the foreigners and threw some of them out of the changing room window from which they fell 12 feet to the ground, one foreigner having his hip dislocated as a result of the fall.
As news of what was occurring at Doe Run No. 1 was flashed over the Lead Belt, men and boys filled the streets of Flat River and soon the original 200 was swelled to over 1,000 and there were other bunches of from 100 to 500 formed. Inside of half an hour every shaft in the Flat River district had been visited and the foreigners were set upon and beaten and those who were away from their homes were hunted like rabbits. As the shafts were visited and the crowd gathered, some came armed and hundreds made a demonstration in the vicinity of the foreign settlements at Flat River, one of their number carrying a big American flag. The mob was called to meet at Flat River, Saturday morning at 9 o'clock.
WHAT HAPPENED SATURDAY --
Saturday morning at 9 o'clock hundreds of men met on the streets of Flat River and most of them proceeded up on Federal Hill where a Committee waited on the Company officials and demanded that no more foreigners be employed in the mines and that those already employed be discharged at once. As the management of all the mines in the district was represented at the Federal offices the demand went for all the mines.
The Companies were in no position to make any promises and self appointed Committees of the mob at once proceeded to the different foreign settlements notifying the foreigners to leave at once and promised that no one who started to leave would be molested. Singly, and in droves of up to 100, men, women and children, the foreigners complied with the demands of the Committees and they were escorted to the various pay offices where at the point of revolvers in careless hands, the pay masters were forced to issue pay checks, then the foreigners were marched to the banks where their checks were cashed and then to the station where they waited for trains. A terrific rain storm at noon did not interfere with the progress of affairs and by the time for the afternoon trains there were hundreds and hundreds of foreigners at the various stations along the railway.
The M.R. & B.T. Ry. pressed into service every car of equipment and even robbed the Leadwood train of its coach in order to transport the frightened foreigners in special and regular trains. Even then there was not enough equipment and over a hundred foreigners were herded into a box car at Flat River station by the mob and the Leadwood train was forced to bring them to Bonne Terre.
UPRISING UNEXPECTED --
From the totally unexpected nature of the uprising and the suddenness with which the work was carried out, it was impossible for any county authority to get on the scene and get action, and in addition, it is doubtful if 50 men in the Flat River district would, under any penalty or circumstance, have acted as peace officers to stop the disturbance Friday night, and in addition to that phase of the matter, if is doubtful if authorities could have found any one to arrest by the time they arrived on the scene. The STAR man was called out of bed by the Associated Press and directed to go to Flat River and ascertain the facts and by the time we arrived only the evidences of rioting remained. We are pretty well acquainted in the district and we knew none of the rioters and we found none of the business people or anyone else who did.
[At least a couple lines of print are missing from the start of this paragraph] ... aster, there seemed little likelihood of any disturbance taking place.
Company officials were scared blue, and on Friday night, through their St. Louis attorneys and through their New York offices they had been calling on the Federal and State Government for the protection of troops.
TROOPS AND STATE OFFICIALS ARRIVE --
Saturday night, several hundred State Militia, fresh from the Mexican border, arrived, but everything by that time was quiet. A few soldiers were left at Bonne Terre and the balance proceeded to Flat River.
State Labor Commissioner William H. Lewis directly representing the Governor arrived.
SUNDAY --
Sunday morning at a meeting at Elvins a big lot of men elected a leader and proceeded to Flat River where they paraded to the troop train and asked for a conference with Major Steppe, after which the Major and Labor Commissioner Lewis made addresses to the crowd, the point of both addresses being that there was no necessity for trouble and that as long as everyone did what was right there would be no trouble.
Sunday afternoon Attorney Elvins of St. Joseph Lead Company swore to an information against Overall, the spokesman for the bunch that visited the Militia officials Sunday morning. Overall, it seems, is a discharged employee of Doe Run Co., and Overall was brought to Bonne Terre with the troops sent here.
AT BONNE TERRE SUNDAY NIGHT --
Flat River men had been saying since Friday night that they intended to come to Bonne Terre and clean out the foreigners and these reports rea[ched here?] before the Flat River men reached here, the troops arriving just a few minutes after the party had gone on the hill and notified foreigners to leave by 10 o'clock Monday. Father Sevcik of St. Joseph's church, we are informed, met the fellows at the railway crossing at the foot of the hill and was treated with much discourtesy.
WHAT THE TROOPS HAVE DONE --
Strung all over the lead district there are detachments of troops, nearly all the roads are patrolled and travelers must give an account of themselves, especially at night.
While there is and has been a steady exodus of foreigners, the troops will not permit intimidation. Major Steppe has taken time by the forelock and decided that he will not run the chances of another outbreak by men filling up on booze and has ordered his men to destroy all the booze they can find.
All over the Lead Belt the soldier boys have been steadily on the trail of John Barleycorn and they have destroyed hundreds of gallons, including the booze captured last week at Bonne Terre and stored by the officials at Flat River.
WHAT CIVIL OFFICERS HAVE DONE --
Prosecutor Matthews has stated Friday night that he was on the job and ready to act on any information filed, none was filed until Sunday when Overall was arrested. Since then there have been so many arrests for participation in the mob and for "gun toting" that the county jail is overflowing and many of those arrested have been taken to jails at Hillsborough and Ironton. A special Grand Jury has been ordered by Judge Huck and called by the County Court and this body will be in session next week to investigate every phase of the riot situation as well as any other violations of the law.
THE IMMEDIATE CAUSE --
So far as the STAR has been able to learn, the immediate cause of all the destruction, misery and loss can be traced to perhaps a dozen swell headed south-Europe foreigners. From men who are entirely reliable, we gathered at Flat River that for many weeks various American men had been tantalized by some of these smart-aleck foreigners swelling up in front of them and saying, in effect: "Me big strong mans, work in mines, you American, must go to war, me no have to go to war, me get your job, make big money, have your frou and your property when you go." This sort of thing, long continued, will sometimes become unbearable, and when the various companies last week brought in more foreigners, including a shipment of Mexicans, and put them to work, and when one or two shift bosses for months have stated that they would rather have foreigners than Americans, and when these imported foreigners were hired and Americans were refused jobs and some who were working were laid off, the explosion happened, and once started the wrath of the Americans made no distinction as to whether a foreigner had recently been imported or had lived here for years and had his citizenship papers. These are the facts as we gathered them at the time, and we must say that these facts were all of such common knowledge that there seemed mighty little sentiment in the Flat River district that there was anything wrong in running the foreigners out.
UNDERLYING CAUSES --
It was frequently remarked by newspaper men from all over the country who came to the Lead Belt Saturday and Sunday, that the people of Flat River seemed not to realize that a wrong had been done or a law been violated. That is true. The reason is that ever since the district came into being a generation ago, there has been no community government except at Elvins and the people have not had that civic tie to bind them together and bring to them a sense of one man's obligation to another, as regards mutual protection of life and property and the upbuilding of the community by all for the benefit of all.
We are aware that under the old system of municipal government it nearly always happened that the violators of the law elected the City Marshal and had things their own way, but even at that the old system did develop the civic spirit more or less. We know that the later management of the St. Joe and Doe Run Companies especially have had the good sense to realize the vital folly of standing in the road of civic development and have been willing that municipalities should be organized under the Commission form so there is a definite head to the entire civic government directly responsible to the people. Therein lies the reason for the very apparent unconcern of citizens over what was going on.
In addition to this, and as affecting the interests of the Companies directly, it would seem that the citizens of a community would be anxious that the industry on which they were in a way dependent, should run and prosper, and here again, a short sighted policy has been followed which has developed in the citizen the sentiment that there is not mutual interest between the Company and the citizen, as the Companies, one and all, go out of town for everything they have to buy, whether they can get it at home or not, with a total disregard to the matter of building up the community. It is true that in certain respects, along certain lines, the Companies are generous to a fault, the Y.M.C.A.'s, the Libraries, the Churches, all over the district, are monuments of this fact, but the everyday citizen and businessman, so far as individual business relations are concerned, might as well or better be a resident of St. Louis or Timbucktoo. Time and again have the citizenship of the various communities been called upon to use their influence to see that the Companies were given a square deal at least, and when it was all over, if the Companies wanted a car of lumber or a dollar's worth of sugar, the order would be placed in St. Louis, when it could have been placed locally and thus added a little cement to the bond of mutual good will.
A contributing cause known to all is the fact that there is very little law in the district. Men who openly and with impunity violate the law go almost unmolested and the courts and officers have been mighty easy with those who are brought up.
Another underlying cause has been the foreigner question. This newspaper believes that this district is so big, so many men are necessary to operate the mines, so many men will be drafted into the army, that it is and will be impossible to operate the mines with American labor alone. However, we believe that the mine management over the district has placed too high the amount of work a man must do to earn a day's pay. We are aware that the wage rate is high, but the price of the product is high, higher pro rata than the wages, and any way the wage rate might better be not so high, and pay extra for men who can and will do more. One result of placing so high the amount of work to be done has been to make the demand such that the mine management says Americans will not do the work, and foreigners say that they have to keep stimulated to do the work required.
Another phase of the foreigner question is that certain mine bosses have evidenced and expressed a preference for the foreigner which has bred jealousy and envy, and other mine bosses have long been known as men who put foreigners on the better jobs for pay.
Another is the fact that foreigners bring to this country customs and practices of their countries and are slow about giving them up and becoming assimilated into our citizenship, and in fact some of them never do become citizens, do not come here with that intention. We are speaking of the class of foreigners at whom this uprising was directed.
There is room in this country for every man who comes here desiring to become a good and useful citizen and to be one of us, but we believe the time is at hand when there is no room for the foreigner who is here to make money and then return to the land of his nativity to spend it, and as to the Mexicans, recently imported, Mexico is a good place for them.
THE FUTURE --
At Flat River there has always been a strong anti-foreign sentiment. This has been fanned into flame. There is going to be no trouble while the soldiers stay. The anti-foreign sentiment will remain. When the soldiers go there will be no outbreak, the foreigners will be killed one at a time unless Americans who offer to work are put to work, until all can plainly see that the mines must have other labor to operate. Then foreigners can safely be employed. We believe this will be the policy followed and we believe that before another week the Americans themselves will see that for the mines to operate there must be foreign labor and Americans will be not only willing but will be glad to have foreigners very likely under a promise through a State Department that hereafter foreigners will only be employed as shovelers.
There is, all over the district, an undercurrent of opinion even among those engaged and in sympathy with the rioting, that the naturalized foreign miners should not have been molested, and it seems likely that had a little care been exercised by the various Company officials the outbreak would not have occurred. We rather think the offensive remarks could have been neutralized by the prompt discharge of the foreigners making them, and it was common knowledge that such remarks were being made.
PROUD OF BONNE TERRE --
We are certainly proud of Bonne Terre. Some of the papers, we understand, printed a pack of lies a yard long Monday about Bonne Terre. There was no suggestion of rioting or property destruction among the men here. A few young fellows, largely boys, did go to the hill with a couple Flat River fellows Sunday night, but the men here have worked with most of the foreigners here for many years. Most of our foreigners are American citizens, subject to military service according to their ages as are Americans. The young American born men are showing their good citizenship in fighting for their country, as Mike Magura's son, John, is in the American army, so is Andrew Semar who a few months ago married to daughter of Andrew Yasco. Few, if any, new foreigners have been brought in and it seems probable that Bonne Terre men, themselves, would promptly resent interferance with Bonne Terre foreigners who are American citizens.
The information on this site is provided free for the purpose of researching your genealogy. This material may be freely used by non-commercial entities, for your own research. The information contained in this site may not be copied to any other site without written "snail-mail" permission. If you wish to have a copy of a donor's material, you must have their permission. All information found on these pages is under copyright of Oklahoma Cemeteries. This is to protect any and all information donated. The original submitter or source of the information will retain their copyright. Unless otherwise stated, any donated material is given to MOGenWeb to make it available online.