'Ground Under the Wheels': The Railroad Strike That Landed Gilman Miners in Court
Five men were held for trial after a Seattle commissioner heard testimony that striking miners abused and intimidated non-union trainmen on the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern.
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.
Seven Gilman citizens, charged with conspiracy to prevent the successful operation of trains on the Seattle, Lake Shore & Eastern railroad, were given a hearing yesterday before United States Commissioner Emery. The examination continued all day and Albert Kuhn and William McNally were discharged, while John M. Davis, Bernard Mullarky, James H. Twigg, Sam Hudson and George W. Eaton were held for trial before Judge Hanford with bonds fixed at $100 each.
While seven were given a hearing only five arrests were made. Kuhn, hearing that a warrant was out for him, came to Seattle and gave himself up, and yesterday Eaton also presented himself before Commissioner Emery for hearing.
Wesley Wilson, manager of the Seattle Coal and Iron Company, for the state, testified at considerable length, and said that on July 5 he saw all the defendants at the depot at Gilman; that they abused and intimidated the non-union trainmen, calling them 'scabs' and other vile names. He heard Mullarky say: 'If I had my way, these scabs would all be ground under the wheels!'
In the evening of the same day, Mr. Wilson said Davis, Mullarky, Kuhn and others made serious trouble.
Dr. F. W. Harrell, the company's surgeon at Gilman, testified to much the same details as Mr. Wilson, but his evidence was stronger, if anything, against the defendants. Davis, he said, conducted himself in a particularly riotous manner.
Other witnesses for the state were Frank Day, M. W. Frank, John McQuade, George Bush, James Wilson and W. L. Newton, and they all testified to the various threatening acts of the defendants.
At the conclusion of the state's case Commissioner Emery discharged Kuhn on the ground that the evidence against him was insufficient to warrant his being held for trial.
The defendants denied that they were rioters, and also denied that they were in a conspiracy to prevent the operation of trains at Gilman. When the attorneys representing the state and the government had finished their argument the commissioner held the five defendants for trial in $100 bonds cash.
“If I had my way, these 'scabs' would all be ground under the wheels!”
The case captures a familiar labor flashpoint: replacement workers, rail service and the line between protest and conspiracy. Gilman is now Issaquah, where the old rail corridor and coal-town history remain part of the landscape.
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