HUTU ftW out!) ron m SUMTKB WATCHMAN, Established April, IS50. ^Consolidates Aug. 2,1881. 'Be Just and Fear not-Let all the Ends thou Aiins't at, be thy Country's, thy God's and Truth's." THE TRUE SOUTHRON, Establifthed Jane, STJMTEB. S. C., WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 19.1898. Jfew Series-Vol. XVIII. So. 12 fa M?fym anb Jbntiptt Piilis3isd Srsry ff eiassdsy, Grt o&teen, SUMTER, S. C. TERMS : $1.50 per annum-in advance. IPTISTIBIXXST: On?Square first insertion......T....,"$l 00 livery subsequent insertion-._50 Contracts for three months, or longer wil s made at reduced rates. * All communications which subserve private a teres ts will be charged for&sadvertiemects. Obitaariea and tributes of respects will be zed for. BLOODY BATTLE ET WEEN MINERS AND NEGROES. T?rden, III , Oct. l2.-r-The little >wa of Virden is comparatively quiet to-night after a day of riot and <**t5ioodshed, resulting from the long expected clash between the onion miners and imported negroes At -, 12.40 o'clock this afternoon a Cbi . ea^o and Alton special train, bearing 200 negro miners from the south, arrived at the stockade around the Chicago-J ?ton Coal company's mines, and. immediately the firing began. The list at 10 o'clock to-night stands seven dead and 18 wounded For the past two weeks rumors I Have reached Ytrdio that a train hav i iag negroes from Alabama would reach the city and the Chicago and Alton depot bas been surrounded day and night by miners awaiting their . arrival To day the Chicago and Alton lim? ited doe to pass here at 10 o'clock through en route to Chicago an boor late displaying Sags on the rear in? dicating that a special waa following lediately the word was spread a dense crowd of miners lined the station platform, while soother >wd collected at the entrance of stockade a half mite north of the 'station. D E Kiley, a Chicago sod Alton detective, stood guard at a switch ut the south end of the sta vioo platform to see that it was not tampered with Ai 12 40 the special train passed the station and signal shots were fired from the sooth end of the train announcing its arrival. Immediately shots were fired from the moving train and ootside and the battle was on A few moments after the train bad passed the switch where Kiley was stationed, and while be was talking with two citizens, he threw op his arms and dropped dead with a bullet through his brain He was the first man killed The train continued to .the stockade, the miners firing into it all along the route and the negro passengers returning the fire The moment tbe tra?a reached tbe stockade the miners opened a desperate fire with Winchesters, re voivers sod firearms of all deserip tiona. The negroes on toe train an? swered with a steady fire. The miners and the train were enveloped in a clon? of smoke and the shooting sounded like a continuous volley Engineer Tijrsr received a bolle! in the arm and dropped from his seat H?s firemen seized the throttle, pot!* ed it opes and with a jerk the train was ender speed carrying a load of wounded negro passengers to Spring field. How many were wounded ia not known The train stopped st the stockade bot two minutes Its departure did not cause tbe firing to cease The tower of tbe stockade was filled with sharpshoot ers armed with Winchesters and they kept op a steady fire i oto the crowd of onion miners Eye witnesses say the miners were killed after toe train had departed. It ia not known bow maoy men are stationed behind the walls of the stockade, bot an est? mate places them between 25 and 40. The sopply sod provision store of the Chicago Virden Coal company is known as the Climax Trading Com? pany, with Sopt J F. Eyster io charge At 2 o'clock after the firing at the stockade had subsided an at tack withoot a parallel is the history of t c trouble was made oo Eyster in his store oo Main street, one block from the depot, which will probably cost bim bis life. He was sitting in his store when his telephone rang aud be was -Instructed from tbe stock? ade to secore physicians and horry them to the place Eyster jumped into his delivery wagon and securing two doctors rushed with them to the mines. He returned to his store, climbed out of bis wagon and was just entering his door when the cry was raised that Manager Fred L?? sens of the mines was with bim. With a rush a throDg of infuriated miners pressed toward the store Eyster ran behind a counter with a revolver in each band The miners pressed hard after, and as Eyster sprang op stairs he and the miners began shooting simultaneously. He rac to the top of his building sod jumped behind a chimney while tl miners ran into the street and open? fire on him again. Chips flew fro the brick chimney and Eyster R from cover across the roof of anoih? store, firing into the street below J he ran From there be crossed the roof of the bank of Yirden wbei he reloaded his revolver?. Blood was flowing from a wooc in his side, but with dogged dete ruination against terrible odds ? continued bis fight. Jumping to tl roof of the Rae & jGisb drug stoi he baited behind a projection be hs jost left, and emptied both of si: chambered revolvers. Then spring ing from cover, Eyster dashed abea amid a rain of bullets, to the roof < the Steed building, the upper s tor of which is known aa Miner's hal He either fell or jumped through tb skylight and landed in the arma of crowd of miners who seized him an carried him down stairs to the stree Other hands seized the almost uneoi scicus mao and he was dragged int the middle of the street Local policemen drove back tb crowd and carried Eyster t the city square, across tb street Eyster waa motionles and apparently dead The polic left him lying and * attempte to "disperse the crowd Ina te^ minutes Eyster was seen to raise hi band and wipe the blood from hi face. Two men sprang at him an with the ferocity of tigers bega jumping on his body and strikio bim on the head with stone? With a yell the angry crowd charge into the square to kill Eyster. ; ? The police charged in a bc dy an fought their way to the centre of tb mob, where they took a stand ove the prosirate man A carrier wa produced and Eyster was taken t the Buckle's hotel He had bee shot through the groin and is terribl battered about the head The phy s i ci an s stale that be bas barely chance of recovery. The dea miners were removed from th stockade to hotels and livery stables and the wounded miners were take on litters to the station house an< and taken to Springfield tonight. Au Associated press represent! ti ve-secured admittance to the stock ade tonight The Hst of the dea< and wounded inside the stocka d are one dead and eight wounded. Manager ' Lakens said to night ..The blood of every man shed then is on the governor's head He ii absolutely outside of the law an? has no justification in refusing t< send troops " Yirden, III., Oct. 12 -A detail o militia at 10:15 o'clock to night kill ed ex lieutenant of Police Tom Pres ton of Chicago at the stockade. Hi was standing outside the stockade ai guard The militia gave the by standing miners the command to hal and Preston stepped back to tb< gate. The militia fired and he wai shot in the stomach. He was car ried into the office in the stockade where be expired Battery D o: Galeeburg, III., under Capt Craig j numbering 160 men, arrived to nigh! from Pana Chicago, Oct. 12.-Col. Young ol the Firs$ Illinois volunteer cavalry re ceived orders to night to report ? Springfield immediately with troop? 4, B, 0, and D of his command These troops will leave at ll o'clock to morrow morning and from Spring field will be hurried to Yirden. Springfield, 111, Oct. 12.-Thc special train on the Chicago and Al ton which brought the Alabama ne? groes from Yirden had eight wound* ed men-all deputies, except one, t colored miner, who were taken to the Springfield city hospital Of these one died to-night, Wiiiam W. Carroll, . a deputy sheriff. He was shot three times. Another train which arrived at S o'clock to night brought up sis wounded men. The miners are gathered in little knots on the streets of the city to? night but there have been no demon? strations. They say they recognized some o? the negroes who arrived here from Yirden this afternoon ae some of those who came up three weeks ago from Alabama, and refused to go to work at Yirden, and I who were sent home at the expense of the Miners union Springfield, Ills.. Oct. 12 -Gov ernor Tanner this evening, regarding the Virden riot, said : ' Mr T C. Louch, president, and Mr. Lotkin, superintendent of the Virdea Coal company, at 12 30 to? day made good their threats to land a trainload of imported laborers from the sooth and attempted to put them to workin the mines at the point of the bayonet and the muzzle of the Winchester (such laborers being drawn largely, if not entirely, from the criminal class, ex-convicte, who learned their trade while doing terms in the penitentiary of Alabama) after having been fully advised atd having full knowledge that the landing of such imported laborers would precip? itate a riot I had wired them that if they brought these imported labor ers they did so at their own peri), and under trie circumstances, woi be morally responsible and crimina liable for anything that might h pen. "The killed and wounded are larg idle miners who were on the outsit The others were the hired gaarda w were brought along by the coal co nany. Most, if not all of them, w non-residents of Illinois. There is means of learning theil" names whereabouts, for the reason that tb declined to give them oat, knowii perhaps, that they are criminally 1 ble for murder, as they had no perm sion from any officer in Illinois auch ?zing or deputizing them to act as der. ty marshals or deputy sheriffs. "These avaricious mine owners ba so far forgotten their duty to sooic as to bring this blot upon the f ! name of oar State ; they have gone I ea OG gb, yes, too far, as they bad f: warning from me, by wire and te phone, that the importation of lat rbioh brings to oar State an aodesii hie class of citizsns had to stop, a I say now to scab, and all others, tl thin is a thing of the past, that it sh not be tolerated in illinois while 11 governor. These meo, the preside and officers of the eompaoy, prec itated this riot by the bringing in this imported labor-are guilty murder, and should be, aod I belie will be-indicted by the grand ju I and tried and convicted for this heiuo j offense." HISTORY OF THE TROUBLE Chicago, Oct. 12 -The difficulty the Virdeo mines originated on Ap 1,189S, when the miners of the Four District of Illinois went ont on a stri instituted by th? United Mine Werket Trouble followed at once at Pana, b the Virden miners remained qoi through the summer. The strikers h asked for 40 cents a too aod we offered 28 cents. Actual disturbances at Virden begt September 25, when the Chicago*Vi den company, the principal mine owne at that point, imported 100 negro from Birmingham, Ala. Wheo the train arrived with the on board, it was met by a large boc of armed onion miners, who threated to shoot the first negro that steppt from the oars. The- negroes we finally prevailed upon tc return to tl south and*the minea were not operate President T. C. Loners of the Ch os gc-Virden eompaoy then proceed? to make preparations to get otb miners. On October 9 Sheriff Dave port notified Governor Tanner th; there would certainly be trouble ac that State troops were needed to pr serve the peace. Governor Taoner ai vised the mine officials against impor i og miners-that be was opposed to tl system-that while there was no law I keep them oat of Illinois, be did oi feel it to be his daty as governor to at the arm of the State to give protectio to mine owners io operating their mint with this class of employes. Superintendent Lakens, according I Governor Tanner, replied that iz ecioes would be roo at all hasard? that the eompaoy woold employ SOB labor as they taw fit ; that they wool import this labor and operate tba aio< with it, eveo if they bad to do it*t tb point of the bayonet aod the maizie < the Winchester No troops were feet. The oezt day Mr. Loaekt notified th governor that his minen woold be ope rated, aod demanded the protection < the State. Tho matter had bee brought before toe State board of arb tratioo aod that board decided io favo of the miners, bot held that to iojoi tice had been done the Chicago-Virde eompaoy. From this poi ot the trouble has bee a dispute between Governor Tanne and the mine operators, carried on b telegraph and other communications The governor steadily refused td ca! oat the State troops, aod charged tb operators with importing ex-convict and an undesirable class of workmen. The operators declared that the mei they desired to briog to their mine had been cboseo for their ability am their capacity to become good citizens They also said they were williog t< take baok the strikers at the soale o 28 cents a too, bot that they could no open their mines at the exborbitan demaod of 40 cents The mines, it ii claimed, are all operated in accordant with the Stale law. Sheriff Davenport has been in sym pathy with the governor, and says ht does not want to enforce laws that wil briog labor into the State, and offeree to resigo rather than undertake the task. One huodred Springfield miners re inforoed the Virdeo etrikers on October 10, armed and determined to prevent the oegroes from going to work. Arm? ed men have since been practically io possession of the town. Manager Lakens of the Chicago? Virden company swore out a writ of injonction agaio6t 34 of the landing strikers. These men had ruo out of town four ex-policeman, who bad been hired by the operators. The strikers ? had not displayed violence against others anti! they began to suspect that more oegroes were to be brought io No Negroes to,Land. THINGS VERY UNSET? TLED IN THE MINING DISTRICTS OP ILLINOIS. Virden, lil., Oct. 14.-Rumors have been flying fast to day, and not even the best informed bad any defi? nite idea as to what would develop daring the night Reports that an? other trainload of negroes was on its, way here kept the excitement at a high tension, but the militia are in complete possession of the stockade, and are closely guarding the railroad property. The coroners jory heard a large number of witnesses to-day, but did not conclude its work. The inquest will last till Monday or Tuesday. Warrants were sworn ont to day before the local magistrate by an officer of the Miners' Union charging President Loucks, Manager Lukens and other with "conspiracy to mur? der," bot on advices of the military officers in charge here they were not served. This action, however, caused. Col. Young to refuse to allow several guards who had been employed by the coal coal company' to depart for their hornee in Chicago, as he thought they might be needed as witnesses. Six ex-guar