They Seized a Locomotive to Stop a Train—Then Faced Judge Hanford
After a mob of 3,000 surrounded a Northern Pacific train in Spokane, ten men were charged with contempt and riot; three pleaded guilty and two were sent to hard labor.
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 Spokane rioters—William Warren, John Goddard, Nick Bohmer, August Weise, Otto Sevart, Alexander Olson, Peter Carroll, George Foster, Alexander Rillzuto and John Clark—were before Judge Hanford yesterday afternoon on the charge of contempt and riotous proceedings. It was shown by the testimony of Deputy United States Marshals Massey, Thompson, Hart, Lewis, Child, Osten and Bunce, and by that of George T. Crane and J. R. Jones, business men of Spokane, that on July 5 a train of cars in charge of Superintendent Dickinson, of the Northern Pacific, pulled into Spokane and was immediately surrounded by a howling mob, who threatened to annihilate the trainmen and the United States officials who sought to protect the property of the railroad company. The officials were abused, stoned and epithets of a vile character were hurled at them by hundreds in a mob of 3,000. Olson, one of the accused, led a party of forty hoodlums, who broke into the roundhouse, seized a locomotive and ran it down the track for the purpose of demolishing Superintendent Dickinson's train. Fortunately the locomotive was derailed by accident and the train remained uninjured. After the prosecution had rested the defense asked for and received a continuance until next Saturday. Three of the accused—Carroll, Bohmer and Warren—pleaded guilty. The two former were sentenced to thirty days at hard labor and the sentence of the last-named was postponed.
“Olson, one of the accused, led a party of forty hoodlums, who broke into the roundhouse, seized a locomotive and ran it down the track for the purpose of demolishing Superintendent Dickinson's train.”
The Spokane roundhouse episode shows how quickly a labor dispute could become a public-order crisis, with troops, federal marshals and courts deciding who had the right to move a train. Modern debates over protest, injunctions and federal intervention in labor disputes echo the same tension between property and assembly.
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