The Strike in the West—East St. Louis sends Emissaries Across the Great Bridge—The Workingmen Aroused—The Valley Metropolis Shaken by a Mighty Wave of Excitement—Marching Mobs—The Internationalists—Vox et Præterea Nihil—Black Bummers—Disgraceful Scenes—The Mob—Demand of the Pacific Railroad Employes—Oliver Garrison, General Manager—How he Broke the Back-bone of the Strike—Measures for Protection.

The strikes at Martinsburg and Cumberland, furnished some interesting news to the daily papers, which was read without exciting any particular public interest in Western cities. But the startling character of the events, which quickly succeeded the Martinsburg strikes, in Baltimore, created a profound sensation in the city of St. Louis. The strike, it was seen, had already become formidable. The boldness which characterized the movements of the strikers along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad; the persistence and dangerous disposition of the mob in the streets of Baltimore, which, regardless of consequences, attacked armed regiments of men, were sufficient to not only enlist the attention, but to impress upon the people of St. Louis, a sense of insecurity and unrest. The public mind was not at rest, on Saturday evening, August 21st, St. Louis was already affected. But if the incidents in Martinsburg and Baltimore were startling in sensational interest, what must have been the feelings with which the people received intelligence of the appalling catastrophe at Pittsburgh. The news created not only a sensation, but a profound feeling of alarm. It was evident now that it was not alone the railroadmen who were engaged in the movement, it was equally apparent that the trouble was not confined to a few localities in the East, but that it was no longer a probability that it would move West, perhaps involve every section of the country, and assume proportions threatening to the existence of the Government itself.

It would not be an easy task to describe the intensity of the excitement which pervaded all classes of the citizens of St. Louis, on Sunday, July 22d. In that city, the only organized militia force was a company of colored men. Two companies of volunteer militia had disbanded only a short time before. The police force of the city, so far as numbers go, was always weak to maintain order in so large a city. In the whole State of Missouri, there were not so many as three hundred men in military organizations. A city with almost half a million of inhabitants was dependent on a well organized and efficient, but numerically weak body of police of less than five hundred men. In a population so large, it was but reasonable to suppose that there were a large mass of persons unemployed, poor, disspirited, hopeless, ready to seize upon any occasion to improve their really deplorable condition. Then there were the Pariahs, the men who never perform useful labor, and never intend to, the idle, vicious, thieves and tramps, present in all large populations, and whose existence could not be ignored in a time of trouble. Perhaps there were not less than fifteen thousand men idle, not because of an indisposition to labor, but because they could not procure it; then there were “the always idle,” who perhaps number in St. Louis not less than three thousand; then the first note of coming trouble brought to the city a vast horde of peripatetic vagrants, who had been operating in the country. Such were the social elements to be considered in the event of trouble in the city. Here then were, perhaps twenty to twenty-five thousand people, who had no individual interest in the maintenance of law and order. But these were not all the elements. There was another class of persons, perhaps as numerous as any other class of St. Louis, who were removed from immediate want, tradesmen and artisans, with here and there a man of thought and culture, who believed that back of the movement there was a justifying cause; men who believed, with the earnestness of martyr-confessors, that labor under existing conditions did not receive its due reward, but who, nevertheless, were upholders of law and friends of order, yet who were not inclined to be precipitate in assisting to crush workingmen, when they believed in the depths of their hearts that the laborers were contending for that which was their due. Until mobs sought to apply the torch and wield the bloody knife, no help could be expected from them. Then came the capitalists, and their retainers. These beheld the westward course of the mighty wave of popular passion with consternation and profound dread. But, be it said, that there were among the men who control large capital and employ many men, some who could realize the situation, and offer a genuine sympathy, and were prepared to extend a helping hand to those who toiled for them. To these men St. Louis owes a debt of gratitude, for to them is due, in a large measure, the peaceable solution of the difficulty between labor and capital in St. Louis. Neither the police force nor the citizen-soldiery, so quickly organized, separate nor combined would have been able, with great loss of life, and perhaps immense destruction of property, to have suppressed disorders, had there been a general and determined strike among the workingmen of St. Louis. But there was no such thing as a united and enthusiastic labor strike in the city.

In East St. Louis there was a large force of striking railroad employes, and their propinquity to St. Louis, exercised some influence on a certain class of workingmen. There were discontented laborers in various employments, but the mass of the workingmen of St. Louis were not enthusiastic strikers. And the fact that there were some persons in the city, who employed large numbers of men, who possessed a clear judgment as to the nature of the trouble, and humane feelings as regards the persons who labored, in part explains the freedom from actual collisions which St. Louis enjoyed. No life was lost. If Colonel Thomas A. Scott had been guided by the reason, and actuated by the humanity which marked the course pursued by Mr. Oliver Garrison, manager of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, there is room to believe that the loss of life and destruction of property which attended the strikes there, would not have occurred. Indeed, the conduct of all the railway managers of lines running west from St. Louis, during those days of doubts and fears, was commendable. Hon. Thomas Allen, President of the St. Louis Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad, had not reduced the wages of his employes, and on that account the men had no ground for complaint. Mr. Allen on account of litigation, had been unable to meet promptly the payment of wages due his men, and as a consequence, that Company was behind with their wages account. This was the only cause for apprehension of a strike among the employes. And the reasons for the delay in payment was generally understood, and the President and his officers had in no small measure the sympathy of every employee on the road.

On the St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern Railway, there was no pretence of a general strike. On the Missouri Pacific Railroad there was dissatisfaction. The wages had been reduced to a figure that the men declared insufficient for the support of themselves and families. When, therefore, the tide had reached St. Louis, and the whole community was filled with apprehension, the employes of the Pacific Railway held a meeting, and appointed a committee to wait upon Mr. Talmage, and demand a restoration of the wages paid before the January reduction. A meeting of the local directors was called, the President of the road, Commodore C. K. Garrison, not being in the city to consider the demand, Mr. Oliver Garrison, the Vice President and General Manager of the Company, considering the situation of the city, and the safety of millions of dollars worth of property of more importance than to play the dictator and tyrant, readily assented to the restoration of wages paid employes to a sum satisfactory to them. This action of Mr. Garrison, who was in a position to dictate the policy of the Company, was of the very highest moment to the whole people of St. Louis. He might have refused; the men might have gone on a strike, to the number of a thousand or so; they might have become exasperated during a period of unwonted excitement; they might have enlisted thousands of their friends; they might have given at any rate a moral support to the lawless elements, and remained at least passive while the torch was lighted to spread wide around the fires of ruin—all these things might have occurred, had Oliver Garrison proved as false in judgment, and as soulless in disposition as some other railroad managers proved themselves to be during those days of alarm. Mr. Garrison’s judgment dictated the policy of concession, and his impulses sanctioned not only the expediency, but the justness of the conclusion, and as for the employes of the road, he manages, when the general turmoil was so great as to force them to quit, they became the guardians of the property of the Company in whose service they were engaged. And the concession made to the employes of the Pacific Railway was of incalculable value to St. Louis.

By the course pursued by Mr. Garrison, some six or eight hundred men—honest, hardworking persons, having a status and influence with people of their own class, were withdrawn from active participation in the movement, and became at once the upholders of law and friends of order. In truth, there were no strikes among the railroadmen west of the river in the vicinity of St. Louis. Nor were there strikes among the operatives in a large number of the largest manufacturing establishments in the city. It is true, indeed, that business was suspended, that at one time nearly all the shops, mills, and factories in the city were closed. But this was not because of dissatisfaction among the employes. There was, indeed, a strike among the longshoremen and roustabouts, but that only continued a few hours, for as soon as the packet companies and levee contractors had acceded to their demands, they resumed work, and there was no more trouble on their account. The employes of a few founderies and shops also struck, but these of themselves were unimportant, and only derived importance from the general situation of the country. In most instances, shops, factories, mills, and founderies were closed by a disreputable rabble, in the ranks of which very few members of the operative and industrial classes were to be found—a rabble composed principally of chronic idlers and vicious characters, that ought to have been suppressed on their first appearance on the streets. Had not the situation of the country been just such as it was, doubtless the idle mob would have been speedily dispersed by the police.

Such was the situation of affairs in St. Louis during the first few days of the so-called reign of the strikers. It would be difficult to find a sufficient reason for the unaccountable panic, we might almost say paralysis of public opinion, which supervened on the first appearance of a formidable strike among the railroad employes at East St. Louis, on any other ground than the contagion of sympathy, and the fear of a repetition of the scenes at Pittsburgh. If the difference in the social, industrial, and moral characteristics of the people of St. Louis and Pittsburgh had been considered, there need not have been any fear of a re-enactment of similar scenes in St. Louis, even with precisely the same provocations to lawlessness.

But fortunately no such provocation existed. In most cases the working people of St. Louis, though none of them were overpaid, were contented with the wages they received, and in other cases employers, actuated by correct reason, and humane impulses, acceded to the demands of their employes on their first presentation. There was left, then, no class in so bad a condition as to evoke the sympathy of every humane person. In this respect the social conditions at St. Louis were very unlike those which obtained at Pittsburgh. There a multitude of hard working men had had their wages repeatedly reduced, and in addition to the low pay, were compelled to perform services double the amount formerly required to be rendered, thus being oppressed in a degree that extorted the universal sympathy of the whole population in their behalf. It was difficult for men actuated by the ordinary impulses of humanity to assist in crushing men so deeply wronged. And they would not do it. The result was the rabble of Pittsburgh taking advantage of the known sympathy of the people for the railroadmen in their contest, proceeded step by step in lawlessness, growing hour by hour in numbers, became in no very long time a mighty force, wholly uncontrolled by the popular sentiment or civil forces of society. But in St. Louis the case was different. There was at no time danger of such a catastrophe as befell Pittsburgh, being repeated in St. Louis, because in St. Louis were only the ordinary “swell mobs” in lawless rebellion, while in Pittsburgh the majority of the people, until after the revelations made by the tremendous disasters, which blighted that city, were unquestionably in earnest sympathy with the strikers, among whom all the rioters were first classed. When the discovery was made that the sympathy of the people had been wasted on the rabble, and that the strikers were not benefitted, there was a revulsion, and the people rose, and the mob was speedily suppressed. What Pearson and Brinton, and Hartranft and Hancock could not do by the use of all the paraphernalia of war-like demonstrations, and aroused public sentiment speedily accomplished. That public sentiment did not need an awakening in St. Louis. It was law-abiding all the while, and none were more staunch in their devotion to law and order than the mass of the workingmen. If there had been a general strike of laborers, and they had been actuated by the lawless spirit imputed to them by some journals, they might easily have taken possession of St. Louis, and sacked it at their leisure. But it is a falsehood, it matters not who gives it utterance, to say that the workingmen of St. Louis, as a class, are more lawless than the merchants or the manufacturers, the brokers and bankers as classes in society. But hunger teaches many things,^[2] and the toiler may learn the ways of dishonesty under the guidance of such a teacher, the Credit Mobilier class of gentlemen, the corruptionists in official position, the men who appoint other men to official stations with fat salaries annexed, whose chief recommendation is their having handled the funds of corrupters of legislation, needs no such instructor in the ways of the dishonest and the shameless. They have the innate disposition; with such, dishonesty is intuitive. But in this age, there is a materialism in politics, based on a social organization, wholly selfish in the formulæ of which we find as one of the propositions that “Money makes the man complete. God makes, and apparel shapes, but money makes the man.”^[3] Hence, the chief object must be the acquisition of money; it makes no difference how, only if the law be not so flagrantly violated as to call for an infliction of its penalties. Moral obligations must be disregarded. But when this is accomplished, what then? Some will have, and some will have not, and then will come a time when famishing cannot, and will not listen to reason.^[4] Then will come the day of retribution. And the men whose hands have been defiled by the goodly Babylonish garments, and the golden wedges of the corrupters will cry unto the mountains to fall upon them, and the rocks to hide them. Some one is wronged when the idle reap the fruits of toil without returning any equivalent. Dishonest men will then not be furnished with the best offices, as has been done in the National and in the State government, not in the long ago, but in the recent past.

Such were some of the minor facts which had a direct bearing on the situation at St. Louis. Men who, though not perhaps to be classed among the workingmen, were yet so deeply imbued with principles of honor, and a sense of justice, that they could not refuse to consider the demands of honest labor for a just compensation. But these men were neither Communists, nor incendiaries, and any assertion that such men were enemies to the individual rights of property, can emanate only from the brain of a knave or a fool. There is, there can be no conflict between labor and capital; there is, and must ever be a conflict between honesty and dishonesty. It is an irrepressible conflict.

Little knots of men gathered on sidewalks, on Sunday, and discussed the situation. There was everywhere manifested a sentiment hostile to lawless outbreaks, such as had characterized the mob at Pittsburgh, but the weight of public sympathy, was with the strikers, so far as their alleged grievances were concerned. On Sunday night, an immense mass meeting of railroad men, and their sympathizers, was held in East St. Louis. In that meeting were a large delegation from “The Workingmen’s Party of the United States,” in other words, of the St. Louis Communists, who went over to strengthen the courage of the railroadmen. The strike, as we have already related, was inaugurated in East St. Louis, on Sunday evening. In St. Louis, there was a certain fear, and looking for the wrath to come, but Sunday and Monday came, and passed away without any startling incidents. Business was dull, on account of the interruption of trains, en-route East, there was considerable excited discussion on street corners, but otherwise, until in the evening of Monday, there was no demonstrations of sufficient magnitude, as to attract public attention. The Sunday meeting of “The Workingmen’s Party,” at Turner Hall, was a regular weekly meeting, and excited no considerable amount of interest. Their march through the streets to East St. Louis, in the evening, possessed more significance. The number of men in the procession, was a surprise. That was all.

At Carondelet, the seat of immense blast furnaces and rolling mills, employing large numbers of men, the excitement was very great, although, no act of violence, nor even a strike had as yet been inaugurated. There was considerable discussion in relation to the general disturbance in the country, there was none of the incendiary talk which characterized the rabble in all cities.

On the 23rd of July, a committee, which had been appointed by a meeting of employes of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, waited upon the officers of that road, and demanded the restoration of wages, to the amount received prior to the reduction of January 1st, 1877. The Company proposed to return to the wages paid prior to May 15th of the present year. This was declined by the men, and after further conference, the Company agreed to the terms demanded by the employes and peace was assured between the officials, and the men they employed, and St. Louis, was saved from the annoyance and possible danger which the presence of many hundred exasperated men might have caused.

The employes of the St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern Railroad, were generally indisposed to take any part in the strike. They were paid better wages than the employes of most of the roads running out of St. Louis, and did not care to jeopardise their position by inconsiderate haste in action.

The Iron Mountain Railroad employes were not disposed to complain at the wages received. The only ground of complaint was the delay experienced in getting their wages after having earned them. Between the officers and the men, relations were pleasant. Past misfortunes and recent litigation were assigned as the cause for the delay in payment of the wages of employes.

The employes of that road demanded, that the Company should establish and observe a regular pay day between the first and fifteenth days of each month. The committee appointed by employes of that road had a pleasant conference with Col. W. R. Arthur, Superintendent of the road, and an amicable understanding was arrived at. The men returned to their work, and but for the interruption caused by outside interference, trains would have run regularly on that road during the whole time while the strike continued.

It was a noticeable fact that the strikers remained remarkably sober throughout the troubles. There was no indulgence in debaucheries, and drunkenness among the railroad strikers was almost unknown.

On Monday evening, July 23rd, was held the first of a series of open air meetings, under the auspices of the “Workingmen’s Party,” otherwise known as the Internationalists, or Communists, which were remarkable on many accounts. No such demonstrations had ever before taken place in the city. The appearance of new organizers, and hitherto unheard orators, as leaders of the masses, created no little sensation among all classes. It may be too, that the vastness of the audience which greeted these preachers of a new political gospel, had anything but a soothing effect on the timid minds of some of the wealthiest, and therefore regarded as leading citizens of St. Louis. The radicalism of the doctrines enunciated, the boldness which characterized the leaders, the number of people who went to hear them, were all circumstances that conspired to create a general feeling of uneasiness among the “propertied classes,” as the anti-Communists were termed by the orators of the Workingmen’s Party. It was a new revelation to some, that in the midst of St. Louis, communism had not only found a congenial element, but had grown really strong, while people quietly allowed events to take their course.

The Lucas Market meeting of Monday night was preliminary to others which were to follow. But it gave the public some idea of the grounds of complaint upon which the workingmen stood and contended, and it revealed the existence in the community of a body of men who held the most radical principles of communism, and holding such opinions, were nevertheless able to command the presence of immense audiences of the sturdy workingmen of the city to listen to the rabid radicalism taught by their orators. But the leaders of the Commune in St. Louis made a mistake when they supposed that they had engaged all the thousands who attended their open air meetings as converts to their doctrines, or adherents of their cause. It was probably this mistake which caused that undeniably remarkable, and somewhat mysterious body, celebrated in the history of the strikes in every city as “The Executive Committee,” to fulminate those wonderful proclamations, which, in the light of subsequent events, appear so much like grim humor, uttered at the expense of a panic stricken population. The same sort of mistake was made by the citizens and the municipal authorities, and fear fell upon the people and upon their rulers. The speeches of Lofgreen, McCarty, Goodhue, and Currlin, were listened to because men felt they had a right to hear what was said, and intelligence enough to believe so much as it might please them to accept as correct. But the daily and nightly meetings, the processions and speeches, and above all, the unparalleled boldness and audacity of tone displayed in those unique productions, the orders, diplomatic correspondence, and ultimatums of “The Executive Committee,” unquestionably had no small influence in creating a feeling of dread in the public mind, and enforcing a belief on the part of the municipal authorities that they were helpless, with the means at command to suppress the disorders.

Tuesday, July 24th, showed a marked increase in the number of the crowds gathered on the streets, and also manifestations of turbulence, which were unpleasant to contemplate. The most important incident of the day in connection with the movements of the strikers, was the visit made by a large delegation of the East St. Louis strikers to the city. They went to the car shops of the Missouri Pacific Railway, and had a conference with the men employed there. The leader of the strikers, Mr. Easton, made a speech, in which he repelled the charge that he and his fellows were thieves, tramps or lawless marauders, but declared that they were honest men who were seeking a means by which their honest labor could be made to yield them a reasonable amount of food to sustain themselves and families. Although the Pacific Railroad Company had acceded to the demands of its employes, and they therefore had no further cause for complaint, nevertheless, in deference to the wishes of the East St. Louis strikers, they concluded to quit work during the existence of the strike, and so the shops were closed. On the same day, the same company of strikers visited the Harrison Wire Works, where a large number of men were employed, and advised the men to quit, with which advice the employes in that establishment readily complied. About eleven o’clock the same morning, twenty-five railroad men from East St. Louis marched to the Union Depot, and took possession of an engine and freight train belonging to the Missouri Pacific Railroad, ordering the trainmen to stop work. “Why should we do that”, inquired the men, “the Company has given us our price, and we are perfectly satisfied.” The men replied that “that made no difference, as the boys over here must help their brethren elsewhere.” They then forced the men to stop work and side-tracked the train.

The officers of the St. Louis, Kansas City and Northern Railway Company did not even wait for their trainmen to petition them for an increase of wages. No petition was ever presented. But when the managers learned that the Missouri Pacific Railway Company had agreed to an increase of present wages, they also rescinded the reduction of July 1, and restored to each man the pay he had received prior to that date. This very handsome action on the part of the road management undoubtedly had its effect upon Kansas City and Northern Railway employes. Late in the afternoon the same delegation of strikers that visited the Missouri Pacific yards, called at the Kansas City and Northern depots on Biddle street, and with about a similar result. It is believed that brakemen and firemen of the road did not participate in the strike, and only quit work because compelled to do so by superior numbers. There were only two days in which the road had any trouble in running freight trains.

A strike among the coal haulers and pilers, at the St. Louis Gas-works, was inaugurated on Tuesday. There were about sixty-five men engaged in the movement. Their wages had been reduced from one dollar and seventy-five cents to one dollar and fifty cents per day by the Receiver, Socrates Newman. The men demanded a return to the old standard of $1.75 per day, which demand was acceded to and the men resumed work. The pilers, who had never been paid more than $1.50, also demanded $1.75 per day. But the demand was refused, and they quit work. There was no strike at the water-works.

The Coopers Union struck for higher wages on Tuesday, and marched through the streets.

During the day a committee appointed by the Lucas Market meeting of Internationals, called at the City Hall to present their wishes to Mayor Overstolz. That functionary delivered a brief address, stating that he fully sympathized with the workingmen in the conditions which led them to the uprising, and that he would do all in his power to afford employment to all laboring men who might call at the City Hall and ask for it. He could not, however, in his official capacity, send such a message when he had no means of knowing what the result might be. As to the United States troops, he had ordered none here, and it was probable that, should any be sent, they would only be for the purpose of protecting Government property. The President would use his own discretion in determining whether or not to send troops for that purpose, and a message of the kind proposed would be of no effect. His honor, however, went on to say that if the petitioners desired, he would, as a private citizen, furnish them the necessaries for mailing the resolutions and request, but could not in his official capacity do anything in that direction.

The committee, consisting of four white men and one colored man, went away apparently satisfied.

At night, on the 24th, the Internationals again held a meeting at Lucas Market, attended by perhaps eight or ten thousand persons. A procession moved through the streets, which numbered from fifteen hundred to two thousand men. It was headed by a fife and drum, and a single torch. The men who marched in the procession were moulders and mechanics. Some of the men carried laths or clubs on their shoulders, but no flag or banner was visible. As the single torch, with its fifteen grim hundred followers, came down street, it presented an awfully suggestive spectacle, the suggestiveness being occasionally strengthened by a tremendous yell, which began at the head, and gained volume as it rolled back to the rear of the line.

The day closed without any startling incident. But preparations had been made for a grander display of the power of the proletariat the next day.

Wednesday, July 25th, 1877, will forever be memorable in the annals of St. Louis, as a day of excitement and alarm only paralleled by those dreadful days of April, 1861, when Camp Jackson was taken, and St. Louis saw her citizens shot down in the streets by the volunteer soldiers. It was a day of intense excitement. The condition of the public mind cannot be easily described. In the early morning, knots of strikers and crowds of the rabble began to collect at various points, and declared their purpose to go on a mission to close up all manufacturing business in the city.

Early in the day the strikers from the various zinc furnaces, and from the Vulcan Iron Works in Carondelet, formed in column, and headed by a fife and drum started on a march to every manufacturing establishment in Carondelet, which was still in operation. This company was very boisterous on the march, and the people were in actual dread for their personal safety. But they marched on, with a firm determination to execute their purpose, and when they had completed their round there was not a single manufactory in operation, nor a single workingman pursuing his ordinary avocation in Carondelet. Beyond this no violence was committed.

In the city, hands of men, many of whom were not unfamiliar with the geological instruction imparted at the city-work house, and not wholly unacquainted with the interior of the jails of the city, were early moving around visiting shops, factories and mills, and compelling the laborers employed in these places to quit work. In nearly all instances the demand was complied with. A mob largely composed of negroes, marched through the central part of the city, and created no little alarm by the boisterous conduct in which its members indulged. One of the singular freaks of this unsavory company was the fancy they took to close up bakeries. Accordingly a most unpromising crowd of tramps and hard-cases generally, visited an extensive bakery located on the corner of Sixth and Pine streets, forced open the doors, gave their orders to the proprietors, and being hungry proceeded to help themselves to pies and cakes.

The leaders appeared ashamed of the conduct of their followers, and when the proprietors of the bakery asked permission to bake up the dough already kneaded, the request was granted without hesitation. This mob ought to have been promptly dispersed by the police authorities. There are those who believe, and will continue to believe, that there was a superabundance of caution displayed on the part of the police authorities, in their dealings with such mobs as that which operated through the central part of the city Wednesday afternoon.

At sundown, Wednesday evening, nearly all the manufacturing establishments in the city had been closed, in many instances, at the request of a committee of the Internationalists—closed without protest or resistance. There seemed to be a wonderful want of nerve and determination among the people, and it will not be denied, that the municipal police authorities were evidently unduly impressed that the combinations against lawful authority were exceedingly powerful and dangerous.

The operations of the committees of the International, and the irresponsible mob of roughs who seem to have started out on their own account, and roamed at will, without the least interference, aroused the people to a sense of the situation of the city, and the danger that threatened it on account of the untrammelled action of the mob. Grown bold by indulgence, there was no telling what might not be undertaken by the roughs.

These movements, therefore, served to quicken the energies, and inspire the courage of the friends of law and order.

General A. J. Smith, whose military achievements during the War between the sections were highly honorable to his reputation, and to the cause he served, offered his services to the Mayor, and at once took up his quarters in the Four Courts building. General John S. Marmaduke, a gallant and able commander on the Confederate side, during the war, also tendered his services, and remained at the Four Courts, during the day, assisting in organizing the companies that had volunteered their services, to protect the city from the lawlessness of the irresponsible mob of roughs, who had shown their capacity for destructiveness in other cities.

There was but one organized company of militia in the city, and that was a colored company. The officers of that company early offered the services of themselves and comrades to the city authorities.

In the evening, Mayor Overstolz issued a call upon merchants and business men to close temporarily, in order that their employes might have an opportunity to enroll for the protection of the property of the city.

The Board of Police Commissioners, now fully aroused, but still doubtful of their ability to arrest the progress of the rioters—although they had not ventured upon an attempt—issued an order to Sheriff John Finn, commanding him to “prepare to summon the posse comitatus to the number of five thousand men.” In obedience to this mandate Sheriff Finn issued a proclamation, in which he declared his sympathies with the workingmen, and expressed his convictions that the incendiary deeds which had been committed in other cities, had been done by vagrants and tramps. Nevertheless he called upon them to rise in their honesty and integrity to put down lawlessness.

The city authorities, and “ruling citizens” now thought it necessary to raise fifteen thousand armed men—to put down that terrible “Executive Committee” and its adherents! All over the city were recruiting stations, and men were hastening to enroll in the great army of protection. The city was in an uproar. Company A National Guards, Captain Pearce in command, had reorganized and were on duty in the city. Other companies had been organized, and before ten o’clock, General A. J. Smith was in command of the nuclei of three or four regiments and battalions. True, they were not such soldiers as could endure a well sustained attack of regulars, but then they were able to assail the terrible armies of “The Executive Committee,” with a reasonable prospect of success. Mayor Overstolz had established his headquarters in the Four Courts building, in order, it was said, to be in close communication with the Military Commanders. Governor Phelps had been advised of the precarious condition of affairs, and was announced as on the way from Jefferson City to St. Louis, to take personal supervision of movements. The Mayor and the United States officials in the city, had announced to President Hayes that the situation in St. Louis was critical, and General John Pope had sent General Jeff. C. Davis from Leavenworth, and that officer was en-route with six companies of Regulars.