Hanged in Effigy, Then Gone: The Disappearance at Mica
A Spokane County man who campaigned against the Silver Federation was abducted and is presumed murdered — and an exchange paper lays the blame squarely on the movement's rhetoric.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The kidnaping and probable murder of Charles F. Gloystein, at Mica, Spokane county, is laid at the door of the Silver Federation, because some of its members hung Gloystein in effigy and threatened his life. In one respect we suppose the accusation is just, and that the deed was performed by some of the cranks of the federation, because Gloystein was bitterly opposed to that organization and openly worked against it. If Gloystein has been murdered, the Silver Federation will have to be held responsible for it — not because the organization is composed of murderers and thugs, for we believe there are just as many upright and honest men in the federation as in the Republican or Democratic parties, but because the federation has by resolutions endorsed lawless acts, such as stealing trains and blocking railroad traffic, and thus encouraged fanatics and emboldened them to do acts of violence.
No party is free from lawless members, and no party can be held responsible for outrages committed unless it gives encouragement to the perpetrators. This the Silver Federation has undoubtedly done, through its organs, and now the effect recoils upon them. The average member did not know that he was doing wrong when he was upholding the strikers while they were trying to prevent the trains from running, or when he was urging the Coxeyites on to Washington City. And he attributed the ravings of his party organ, when it was advocating hemp neckties for the rich, to zeal for the party cause; but it was wrong, nevertheless, for it encouraged the lawless fanatics within the federation, and the result is murder and bloodshed. No other construction can be put upon it, and the verdict of the fair-minded will always be that the death of Gloystein was caused indirectly by the indorsements of the federation.
“If Gloystein has been murdered, the Silver Federation will have to be held responsible for it — not because the organization is composed of murderers and thugs, but because it has by resolutions endorsed lawless acts.”
In 1894, the Pullman boycott and the Populist ferment turned railroad towns like Mica into tinderboxes, and a man could be hanged in effigy before he disappeared. The argument here — that a movement's fiery resolutions make it complicit in what its angriest followers do — is one we still have every election season. What the paper never supplies is Gloystein himself: no trial, no body, no answer.
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