A bloody episode in Southern Illinois’ Long War. After the 1922 ‘Herrin Massacre’ where UMWA miners decisively defended their strike from scabs and hired Klan gunmen killing dozens of strike-breakers and thugs, a reign of terror descended on the Southern Illinois coal fields. The Klan took over whole towns, deposing elected bodies, and made a concerted effort to infiltrate and smash the UWMA. Militant mining communities revolted, and a complicated class war raged in the coal fields for decades, with the bloodiest years in the mid-1920s.

‘Klan Leaves Trail of Death in Herrin, Illinois’ from The Daily Worker. Vol. No. 2 No. 141.  September 3, 1924.

Murderers Backed by Protestant Churches

HERRIN, III., Sept. 2. Removal of Sheriff George Galligan as a means to peace in Williamson county will be asked of Gov. Len Small, by a committee representing the county ministers’ association and other citizens, it was decided this afternoon after the same committee had called on the county board to urge that body to use its influence to bring about the removal.

The committee is headed by Rev. I.E. Lee, of the First Baptist church. It is charged the Protestant churches are in alliance with the Ku Klux Klan.

The governor is the only person empowered to remove a sheriff. It is now charged the governor is also a Klansman.

The Christian church here, deputies charge, has been used as an arsenal to store ammunition for the Klan. It is rumored that the police cleaned it out of ammunition Saturday night.

HERRIN, III., Sept. 2. Six men dead and several wounded. This is the toll of the latest outrage perpetrated by the Ku Klux Klan in what the Illinois Chamber of Commerce is pleased to call “bloody Williamson County.”

Sheriff Galligan and his deputies were served with warrants charging them with murders of three persons killed last Saturday. A warrant is issued for the arrest of State’s Attorney Delos Duty, charging him with conspiracy in the murders.

Doctor J.T. Black, head of the Herrin Hospital, is released on a $15,000 bond. The Klan-controlled city administration charges him with being an anti-klan sympathizer.

Thirty automobile loads of ammunitions were unloaded at the rear of the city hall last night. All efforts to trace the autos were unsuccessful. Police and firemen were not giving out any information. Fear of whizzing bullets seals lips.

Started in 1922.

The people are in deadly fear of the next outbreak. Since the 1922 riot at the scab mine, during which several strikebreakers were killed, the county is divided into warring factions, one the Klan faction backed by the operators and the Protestant churches, the other friendly to the miners’ union.

Adj. Gen. Carlos Black announced that he would withdraw the troops, which were sent into Herrin on the request of Sheriff Galligan. State’s Attorney Duty, charges Gen. Black with being a member of the Klan. People are beginning to think that Governor Len Small is also sympathetic to the hooded order. Not because Small believes in the purpose of the Klan, but for reasons of political expediency.

The latest death-carnival started last Saturday after the Shelton brothers were acquitted of the charge of murdering Constable Cagle, a Klan policeman, during the Glenn Young raids. The constable’s death occurred on February 8.

Klan Killed Skelcher.

After the acquittal, a deputy sheriff, who had loaned a Dodge car to Jack Skelcher, another deputy, to hunt Glenn Young in the Ohaw bottoms last February, went to Smith’s garage to recover his car. Smith is a prominent Klansman. Skelcher was murdered by the Klan and the Dodge carried bullet marks.

The Dodge was stored in Smith’s garage by Klansmen after they had shot and killed Skelcher a few months ago. The immediate cause of the shooting was the attempt of deputy sheriffs to recover their car from the Klansmen. It is reported that an Essex, filled with Klansmen, drove past the deputies as they stopped in front of the garage and fired at them, killing Bud Allison.

Sheriff Galligan was in charge of the deputies. He was present during the trial of the Shelton boys.

The six dead men are: Bud Allison, deputy sheriff; Otto Roland, deputy sheriff; Charles Wollard, reputed Klansman; Chester Reede, a by-stander; Green Dunning, reputed Klansman, and Dewy Newbold, reputed Klansman.

Klan and Anti-Klan.

The Herrin officialdom is with the Klan. The county authorities are on the other side.

Chief of Police, Matt Walker, an appointee of Mayor Magee Anderson, stated that he would not be surprised if fifty people were arrested by night fall.

The police chief, who plainly showed his Klan sympathies, denounced the sheriff’s forces and threatened to jail every deputy in Benton and Marion.

According to eye witnesses of Saturday’s battle, the Klansmen bore down on Smith’s garage in an Essex car, heavily armed, and started the shooting.

It is rumored that Sheriff Galligan intends closing up the garage on the ground that it is a public nuisance and Klan hangout.

The undertaking establishment where the bodies of the anti-Klan victims of last Saturday’s battle are lying, is constantly crowded with miners who come to pay their last respects to the dead. The morgue where the Klansmen are lying, is practically deserted.

Another attempt to oust Sheriff George Galligan from office is to be made today, the county ministers’ association announced, following a session at which Rev. I.E. Lee was appointed to call on the county board at its meeting this afternoon and ask that body to use its influence to force the sheriff to relinquish his position. The president of the board is Samuel Sterns, who for many months was closely associated with S. Glenn Young, Williamson county’s imported dry raider.

Several previous attempts to remove Galligan have proved fruitless.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1924/v02a-n141-sep-03-1924-DW-LOC.pdf