Bushwhackers in the Puyallup Woods: How the Pullman Strike Became a Criminal Manhunt

TACOMA, July 12.—C. Barnes, ex-chief clerk of the freight department of the Northern Pacific, was arrested today for contempt of court. The complainants alleged that he used threats and intimidation to induce them to quit working for the company. He was held by Judge Hanford pending a hearing tomorrow.

Just after Barnes was taken into court, the federal grand jury brought in an indictment against him on the same charge. Barnes held a good position. It is charged that he induced the freight checkers at the wharf to join him in quitting. He is understood to be a member of the American Railway Union, and was one of the first men here to quit. The grand jury has finished work on some cases of smuggling and selling liquor to Indians, and it is expected that indictments against others of the strikers will be returned tomorrow.

Charles A. Barnes, assistant Northern Pacific freight agent here, who was indicted today by the United States grand jury for approaching Master Mechanic H. H. Warner and asking him to draw the fires from the locomotives then in use, is a member of the executive committee of the local branch of the American Railway Union, and the other members of the committee claim that he acted on his own responsibility in visiting Warner. He has been inclined to talkativeness since the strike was ordered. He says:

'I approached Warner on the ground of humanity, and asked him to draw the fires. I told him he knew a certain class, known to me, that was being incited to violence by the fires being kept up. If they were not drawn I feared bloodshed, and I did not want to see any lives lost in this city.'

Barnes was charged with threatening to draw the fires if Warner did not order it done, and that the work should be done peaceably if possible, and if not, then young men, unarmed, would be put forward to draw the fires, and that the old men, fully armed, would meet any resistance with force of arms.

Barnes was also arraigned for contempt in trying to persuade non-union employees of the road to quit work, and threatening that when he was reinstated he would discharge those who did not quit work. His salary has been $100 per month since the reduction of wages, $1 of which was assessed for hospital dues. He is unmarried and has been very prominent in the local branch of the American Railway Union. It was evident that he became slightly 'rattled' during the troubles in Chicago, and, fearing trouble and violence here, he appealed to Warner to draw the fires.

While most of the American Railway Union men refrain from comment, they were plainly displeased with Barnes' action in approaching Warner. He was accompanied by several strikers. His bonds were fixed at $2,000, the bond being for both cases. P. B. Egbert, Otto Kaizer and Chairman Gleason, of the switchmen, responded to a call for bondsmen.

All the cases of violence reported here, including the assaults upon Northern Pacific employees, are being looked into by the grand jury, and more arrests are looked for. The cases in which deputy marshals were insulted and interfered with are also being investigated. In some of these cases it is claimed the hoodlum element alone was responsible, and in order to avoid conviction it is said some of them have already fled.

The magazine of the bushwhackers who have been firing upon the Northern Pacific passenger trains from ambush in the Puyallup reservation has been discovered by Sheriff Matthews. Two rifles and a shotgun were found stowed away behind some logs and brush, and every effort is now being made to identify the owners of the guns. The guns were found in the exact location where the firing began Sunday when the Seattle local passed the reservation. One of the barrels of the shotgun was badly bent, and showed that one or more of the bullets from the marshals, when returning the fire from the train, had hit it. There was no blood about, and it is assumed that none of the bushwhackers were injured or killed.

J. E. McKeogh and John Foster, formerly yard foreman and brakeman, respectively, were arrested this evening by a deputy marshal, charged with assaulting El McGill, a car checker, early yesterday morning, and thereby violating the order of the Federal court by obstructing the operation of the railroad. It turned out that the row occurred in a saloon, and that the men shook hands after it was over, so that no serious consequences are expected. Neither of the men belong to the American Railway Union. They will have a hearing tomorrow.

TACOMA, July 12.—The Locomotive Firemen's union by resolution tonight arraigned the conductors who are doing enginemen's work for incompetent Northern Pacific men as the worst enemies of organized labor. It is claimed that Fireman Hal Baird, one of the United States soldiers on duty here, who was formerly an engineer and is still a member of the brotherhood, had to take the locomotive to replace a non-union engineer, while running a train to Stampede tunnel.