Tacoma Takes the Railroad Strike Into Federal Court
A grand jury indicts a former Northern Pacific wiper for beating strike-breakers, while a judge weighs whether union leader Charles A. Barnes's words were contempt or free speech.
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.
TACOMA, July 17.—[Special.] John Cleherty was indicted today by the United States grand jury for assaulting non-union employees of the Northern Pacific Railroad. Cleherty had been employed as a wiper for the company and went out with the American Railway Union. When some of the roundhouse men who were employed during the strike were returning home in the southern part of the city, it is alleged he joined in brutally beating them.
Judge Gilbert has taken the case of Charles A. Barnes under advisement, and a decision is looked for in three or four days. In a statement to the court this morning, counsel for Barnes insisted that the men who made the affidavits on which Barnes was arraigned for contempt had either been guilty of "wicked and willful" perjury or were themselves in contempt for "willfully and wickedly" stating to the court that they had not made the statements attributed to them in the affidavits. They stated on the stand, he said, that Barnes had not asked them to quit work, while in the affidavits they stated that he had. United States District Attorney Brinker says the affidavits and testimony are substantially alike—Barnes having asked the men, as stated in the affidavits, not to do any other work except that at which they were employed, and notified them that if they did he would hire every one of them when the strike was won and he was reinstated.
Counsel for Barnes arraigned the attorneys for the government and the railroad for overzealousness in prosecuting him, and continued: "And it seems to me that, in the light of all the evidence in this case adduced, a motion on the part of the prosecution to dismiss these proceedings would have been the proper thing. But instead of that, although it plainly appears that he has done no evil, unless it be a crime to live and breathe and exercise the God-given right of free speech by reasoning with his fellows in a kindly and fraternal spirit, they still ask of your honor to crucify him, apparently preferring his punishment to that of any of the fugitive robbers that have looted their property. From all of which it appears to be a case without a parallel in the history of American jurisprudence."
It is evident the prosecution expects Barnes to be sentenced to the penitentiary for from thirty to sixty days. Cleherty was committed to jail in default of $1,000 bonds. The case of Elian Ankeny, of Sprague, charged with turning a switch, has been transferred to Seattle.
“unless it be a crime to live and breathe and exercise the God-given right of free speech by reasoning with his fellows in a kindly and fraternal spirit”
The Pullman boycott made Tacoma a testing ground for federal injunctions and the limits of picket-line persuasion. The same questions—whether organizing is protected speech or unlawful coercion—remain at the center of American labor law.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.