Herrin Mine Murders
November 26, 2009 by Flapper
Filed under Law and Order
THE HERRIN MURDERS
Two months after the atrocious wholesale murder of workers in and about the Herrin mines the course of justice has proceeded so far as to obtain from a Grand Jury one individual indictment, that of Otis Clark, a union miner, charged with the murder of Mr. C. K. McDowell, superintendent of the Lester Mine-a crippled man who was first beaten up and then deliberately shot after surrender.
What really happened in Herrin was the result of a conspiracy to murder entered into by a considerable number of men. If possible, indictments should be procured on this basis. Inadequate as the results so far attained seem, it is a tribute to the courage and insistence of the Illinois Attorney-General, Edward J. Brundage, that even one man faces trial. He has been threatened with political ruin for insisting that Illinois should free itself from the disgrace of letting lawlessness and murder go unpunished. Whatever happens or fails to happen, he at least has done his duty.
The head of the Illinois miners’ union, Frank Farrington, declares that the union will defend all members indicted by every possible means and that he appreciates the “magnitude of the agitation which is Nation-wide for convictions.” No one is “agitating” for conviction of innocent men, but otherwise Mr. Farrington is right. The country is watching Herrin; it knows that a great crime was committed; it will not be content until the guilty are brought to justice.
Source: The Outlook, 13 September 1922
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