Rioting

“ During a period of exceptional distress the rioting was caused mainly by the heavy charges at the toll-gates on the public roads in South Wales, and the rioters took as their motto the words in Genesis xxiv. 60, “ And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.” Many of the rioters were disguised as women and were on horseback ”

“ I reside at 200 West 37th Street. On Wednesday, August 15th, 1900, about ten o'clock P. M., I was up about West 41st Street near 7th Avenue, when I saw considerable rioting going on, and immediately made an attempt to get to my home, going to 8th Avenue, thence to 38th Street, and thence to 7th Avenue, and had got to within thirty yards of my home when I heard footsteps in the gravel behind me; I turned around and saw a man hatless and in citizen's clothes coming after me ”

“ The points which these facts demonstrate, is that the rioting is not the work of members of the American Railway Union, or in fact of workingmen of any organization, but the acts of toughs and pluguglies and boisterous boys, with whom this city like other large cities, abound. Though the crowd looks large and dangerous, the actual number of combatants is comparatively small, and the clubs of the police instead of the bullets and bayonets of the soldiers, would have been the proper weapons to use. ”

“ In the meantime he trusted that the soldiers would have arrived, and with this sort of mob which was animated by no real political passion or fury against social distinctions, it was in the highest degree unlikely that there would be any resistance to a military force. The presence of fifty soldiers would probably be enough to scatter the rioting hundreds. ”

“ In 1816 the rioting was resumed, caused by the depression which followed the peace of 1815 and aggravated by one of the worst of recorded harvests. In that year, although the centre of the rioting was again in Nottingham, it extended over almost the whole kingdom. The rioters were also thoroughly organized. ”

“ I am a general housecleaner, and work in all parts of the city. As I was walking home on 7th Avenue, about four o'clock in the afternoon, between 14th and 15th Streets, I saw a man run up to a police officer and say something to him. The officer then came up to me and said, "You've got a pistol; you give it up. I will arrest you." I handed him the pistol, and he arrested me. I said as I handed it to him, "I bought this pistol to protect my family at home. I heard of this rioting, and I bought this pistol to protect my home." He said, "Why don't you call to the officers for protection?" ”

“ Frequently rioting occurred at executions, and unpopular criminals would be pelted with missiles, and meet with other indications of disfavour, but usually the sympathies of the populace were with the culprit. ”

“ I boarded a car at the West Shore ferry at the foot of West 42nd Street and transferred to an 8th Avenue car at 34th Street, and had proceeded as far as 40th Street, when the car was assailed by a mob shouting, "There's another nigger! Kill him! lynch him!" I stood up and was ready to defend myself, when a passenger on the car asked me to sit down, saying that if the mob got on the car he would help me defend myself. I sat down as requested, and happening to look over my shoulder I saw three police officers in uniform running after the car. ”

“ If there had been a single band of rioters, no matter how large, a force of military and police, properly armed, could have been concentrated to have dispersed it. But bodies of men, larger or smaller, bent on violence and devastation, were everywhere; even out at Harlem eight buildings were burned, and the lower end of Westchester was in a state of agitation and alarm. A mob of thousands would be scattered, only to come together at other points. ”

“ It was a singular sight to see the gentlemen and Paul, and a portion of the mob labouring together at the fire, while the rest of the rioters were pushing their work of destruction, unresisted but by the small force of orderly work-people, which they soon put to flight. It was the aim of the leaders to show that they confined their vengeance to the machinery; but when vengeance once begins, there is no telling where it will stop. The very sight of the fire was an encouragement to the evil-disposed, and many thefts were committed and much violence done which had no connection with machinery. ”

“ Meeting an enemy on a field of battle, you go there to kill. The more you kill, and the quicker you do it, the better; but in this instance you had a division of six hundred men—my division was six hundred men. Colonel Guthrie was at Torrens, surrounded by a mob. The balance of my troops were at Twenty-eighth street, and here you had men who had fathers and brothers and relatives mingled in the crowd of rioters, and it was very natural for them to have a feeling that to fire then and kill these men, was like shooting their own relatives. ”

“ If a negro man, woman, or child fell into their hands, none were more brutal than the unsexed hags of the mob.
If on this, and other occasions, they had remained in their homes they would not have suffered, nor would the men have been so ferocious in their violence. They were the first to yield to panic, however, and now their shrieks were the loudest and their efforts to escape out of the deadly range of the guns the most frantic. In a few moments the avenue was cleared, and the military marched away, leaving the dead and wounded rioters where they had fallen, as the police had done before. ”

“ In the commencement of a riot, a defeat of the military gives increased confidence, and indeed, power to a mob, and snakes the sacrifice of life, in the end, far greater.
In the fourth place, clearing the streets does not always dissipate a mob. A whole block of houses may become a fortress, which it is necessary to storm before a permanent victory is gained. Half-disciplined men, unaccustomed, and unskilled to such work, make poor headway with their muskets through narrow halls, up stairways, and through scuttle-holes. ”

“ They ran with the crowds in pursuit of their prey; they took defenseless men who ran to them for protection and threw them to the rioters, and in many cases they beat and clubbed men and women more brutally than the mob did. They were absolutely unrestrained by their superior officers. It was the night sticks of the police that sent a stream of bleeding colored men to the hospital, and that made the station house in West 37th Street look like a field hospital in the midst of battle. ”

“ The waiting hundreds of citizens who, for the last hour, had lined the curbs about the open place, began [284] to withdraw. They did not care to be caught between the clubs of the rioters and the bayonets of the militia.
The mob, filling the main street from wall to wall, entered the plaza like a rushing stream which, confined between barriers at the side, is powerful and resistless, but, spreading out over the broad lowland, loses its momentum and its destructive force. It was so with the marchers. ”

“ Of course this does not refer to mere local disturbances, which the police force in the ordinary discharge of its duties can quell, but to those great outbreaks which make it necessary to call out the military. Not that there might not be exigencies in which it would be necessary to resort, not only to the military of the city, but to invoke the aid of neighboring States; for a riot may assume the proportions of a revolution, but for such no local permanent remedy can be furnished.
The objections to relying on the military, as we invariably do in case of a large mob, are many. ”

“ The mob fed the fire with whatever they could find fit for the purpose. The flames roared and crackled among the heaps of nourishment piled on the fire, and a terrible shout soon announced that the door had kindled, and was in the act of being destroyed. The fire was suffered to decay, but, long ere it was quite extinguished, the most forward of the rioters rushed, in their impatience, one after another, over its yet smouldering remains. Thick showers of sparkles rose high in the air, as man after man bounded over the glowing embers, and disturbed them in their passage. ”

“ A soldier belonging to a troop of the 14th, detailed to protect the council house, shot a rioter who had struck him with a stone, and this added to the rage of the mob. The streets were, however, cleared by the sabres of the dragoons, and were kept free during the remainder of the night. On Sunday the riot broke out afresh, and the sack of the mansion house was completed. The 14th were fiercely attacked, and, as they had no orders to retaliate, the men suffered severely. ”

“ This riot, begun ostensibly to oppose the enforcement of a single law, developed itself into a burning and pillaging assault upon the homes and property of peaceful citizens. To realize this, it was only necessary to walk the streets, if that were possible, through those days of riot and conflagration, observe the materials gathered into the vast, moving multitudes, and scrutinize the faces of those of whom they were composed,—deformed, idiotic, drunken, imbecile, poverty-stricken; seamed with every line which wretchedness could draw or vicious habits and associations delve. ”

“ Day by day the feeling on both sides grew stronger, till the non-union men were cemented together in a spirit of bitterest indignation, which materially lessened their zeal for work. Every act of violence intensified their rage. They armed themselves, in defiance of orders, tossed restraint to the winds, and sought the slightest opportunity of wreaking vengeance upon their enemies. Nor were the rioters less determined. Authority, after all, is but a hollow shell, which, once broken, is quickly disintegrated. ”

“ The rioters soon became appalled at their punishment. Like a dark blue wave, with bloody clubs forming a crimson crest, that unfaltering rank of men steadily advanced and ingulfed them. All within reach went down. Those of the police who were wounded still fought on, or, if disabled, the ranks closed up, and there was no cessation in the fatal hail of blows. The rioters in front would have given way, had not the thousands in their rear pressed them forward to their fate. ”

“ The end of a lane which led to a farm-house was blocked up by a car; and a body of about six hundred men resisted its removal and the further progress of the party. Orders were given by the magistrates to clear the passage; the violence of the people became greater. The Riot Act was then read. The troops were assailed with volleys of stones; some of the soldiers and officers were knocked down; and, after every attempt to persuade the people to disperse had failed, the magistrates ordered the troops to fire. This they did, and a considerable number of the mob were wounded, and several killed. ”

“ The whole military movement was evidently intended only for intimidation—to show the rioters what could be done if they resorted to violence; for the soldiers, instead of taking up their quarters, as they should have done, in the building, having exhibited themselves, marched away. But the mob, still retaining its position and threatening attitude, another force, a little later, consisting of only twelve men, was sent up. ”

“ This seemed a weak inducement to draw a crowd so far, when more distinguished victims were all around them. It is more probable that some personal enemy of parties in the vicinity, finding the mob ready to follow any cry, led them thither; for one man seemed to be the leader, who, mounted on a fine cavalry horse, and brandishing a sword, galloped backwards and forwards through the crowd, giving his orders like a field officer. ”

“ But now, shocked and angered at the brutal assault on the rector, and taking advantage of the temporary lull occasioned by it, they charged into the mob. Firmly, furiously, with the strength of twice their number, they drove the rabble back. There was savage resistance. There were broken heads. There were bullets that went wild. Bleeding men lay prone on the pavement. Then came a relief squad, hammering its way in; and from each blind end of the plaza the rioters were forced to the center, and up the narrow street toward the city. ”

“ If a crowd attempted to seize hold of the guns of my command, I should certainly give an order to fire. I would not give the order recklessly to fire. I would give the crowd time to get out of the way, by simply announcing to them that I would fire if the crowd did not disperse. If they had been firing into me, and committing acts imperiling the lives of my men, I do not know that I would give them that warning. These are little things a man would have to judge of as they occurred. I believe an overt act committed by a mob justifies the officer who commands the troops to fire. ”

“ The purpose of a soldier is simply to kill, and it was particularly ill advised on Saturday, in the teeth of protests made by representative citizens. It could effect nothing but what it did effect, and that was violence in every form.
Q. You had not sufficient police force here to cope with a mob of its extent and power?
A. No, sir.
Q. The sheriff had not sufficient force to cope with it?
A. No.
Q. And I understand it would be folly for the sheriff to attempt to raise a posse of citizens to cope with it—then there was nothing left but to call out the military? ”

“ Emboldened by these victories, the mob roamed about the city at will, showing especial wrath toward abolitionists and negroes on the ground that men were being drafted for an abolition war. On the Tuesday the riot was worse, as thieves and ruffians swelling the crowd went about bent on plunder under cover of the rioters’ grievance; but effective defensive measures had now been undertaken by the authorities. On Wednesday a notice that the draft had been suspended influenced many to retire to their homes ”