The Guard Mutinied Over a Railroad Strike

OLYMPIA, Sept. 14.—The military court of inquiry appointed by Governor McGraw to investigate the conduct of the National Guard during the troubles growing out of the Northern Pacific railroad strike has submitted its report. The court met at Spokane on August 14, 1894, and sat at Spokane, Tacoma and Tekoa, taking testimony in shorthand and reducing it to writing. On September 14 the court met at Olympia to consider the testimony and report the facts, with the written opinion of the judges.

As to Company G, Second Regiment, N.G.W., the court found that at Tacoma on July 7, 1894, while the company was en route from Camp McGraw to its home under military orders and in the service of the state, it was guilty of mutinous conduct. All members then present for duty except Private Charles E. Nelson participated or acquiesced. For some time before that date the company had been in a state of insubordination. At Tacoma, when substantially all the enlisted men were in ranks, Lieut. Col. Michael McCarthy was called before the company in a disrespectful and unmilitary manner and informed, through a spokesman, of the mutinous feeling. McCarthy placed the company in arrest. Shortly afterward Brig. Gen. A. P. Curry returned to the depot and, without consulting McCarthy, released the company upon his own orders.

The court recommended that Lieutenants A. L. Brooks and A. T. Brown be discharged from the National Guard; that the noncommissioned officers and privates of Company G be discharged in the interests of the service, since the regulations did not permit dishonorable discharge except by court-martial; and that Private Nelson be honorably discharged. It criticized Gen. Curry’s release of the company as a serious mistake and a blow to discipline, and said the censure of Lieut. Col. McCarthy was a serious injustice.

As to Company K, Second Regiment, the court found that on the night of July 6, while Captain J. W. Stearns’s command and the regimental bands were traveling from Camp McGraw to Sprague, their train was stopped by a mob of striking Northern Pacific employees and sympathizers. Although Captain Stearns had a small guard, he made no effort to repel the mob and surrendered his command to it. Members of his command and the cars were stoned for at least an hour, and the attack was tamely submitted to. The next day, after Major Carpenter, U.S.A., arrived at Sprague with a small force of regular soldiers, Stearns asked for a guard and for written orders. The court found his conduct disgraceful and recommended his discharge.

As to Troop A, First Cavalry Battalion, the court found that a considerable number were in sympathy with the railroad strike, but that this did not warrant the conclusion that any considerable number had been insubordinate. A letter purporting to be written by Perry Chandler of Troop A and published in the strike edition of the Sprague Independent was shown to have been altered by the editor, W. F. Thompson, to suit the strikers; Chandler did not write the quoted statements. Sergeant W. H. Evans, Sergeant A. P. Bully and Private Kennedy were found to have deserted at Tacoma or to have approved Company G’s conduct, and the court recommended their discharge. Governor McGraw approved the findings and ordered the recommendations carried into effect.