Several hundred striking shop workers striking against the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad in Harrison, Arkansas were violently rounded up and with their families deported to Missouri in January, 1923 by the local government/Klan/businessmen, who also took union organizer Ed C. Gregor from jail and hung him from the local railroad bridge. Those behind the raids were well-known, and immune with no charges ever being made in the lynching.

‘Rail Heads Incited Lynch Mob in Arkansas’ by H.M. Wicks from The Worker. 4 No. 260. February 3, 1923.

It is now definitely established that the destruction of bridges on the Missouri and Northern Arkansas Railroad, which is said to have been the cause of the organization of the so-called “citizens’ committee” at Harrison, Ark., was due to defective fire-boxes in the broken-down engines of the road and not to strikers as has been charged by the prostituted press of the nation, which re-echoed the declaration of the mob that has terrorized the district for the past week,

The effort of the railroad company to destroy the shopmen’s union through employing strike breakers has resulted in the complete breakdown of all the engines on the road. Trains are always late and much produce perishes in transit. Many delays have been caused by the burning of bridges. The officials of the company’ and the petty country newspapers along the railroad lines, mostly edited by lickspittle editors who receive free cat fare and other favors from the railroad company, have been used by the company officials to vilify and heap contumely upon the heads of the railroad strikers by blaming them for the physical breakdown of the railroad property.

All other means of intimidation, such as the employment of strike-breakers, thugs and gunmen and the general time-worn tactics of corporations engaged in crushing the strike, having failed, the railroad officials determined to fan the flames of mob violence.

It is charged by J.P. Venable, a labor leader of the district who escaped the frenzied mob last week, that the mob, was organized and directed by the railroad officials.

Fight for “Open Shop”

The burning of bridges by the defective fire-boxes was merely the excuse of the railroad to start a widespread open shop drive and thru mob action endeavor to destroy every union and drive every union man or won an out of the district.

Engineers who handle the engines on the railroads declare that every day there are hundreds of burned spots along the right-of-way and that there is constant danger of starting damaging fires because of the condition of the engines.

Simultaneous with the outbreak of violence against strikers there appeared large placards in many places of business proclaiming the “open shop”. Strikers charge that these posters were prepared long before the outbreak and assert they ate evidence that the “uprising” was not spontaneous, but the result of a well formed plot.

A number of stores alleged to be in favor of the strikers were closed by the “committee of one thousand” which is the euphemistic name of the mob of hired assassins.

Committee On Grand Jury

This “citizen’s committee” sits on the grand jury, along with the regularly constituted jury, and hears “evidence” against rail strikers and participates in the deliberations of this alleged secret body, with the result that there have been twenty-five indictments against union men.

So thoroughly is the community under the reign of terror that two men who pleaded guilty to arson when they were accused of firing railroad bridges at Harrison, appeared before a joint legislative committee at Little Rock and admitted that they pleaded guilty because they feared for their lives, although they were innocent of the crimes charged. Before they pleaded guilty they had asked the judge before whom they appeared for a trial and were informed that while a trial would be granted he would not guarantee that they would be safe.

After reasserting that their lives were in danger the judge promised them they would be tried the next morning. After a conference with their attorney they decided they had better plead guilty to save their lives from the mob, especially since it was plain that the judge was a party to the conspiracy to murder them in case they attempted to defend themselves in court.

Murdered Striker Innocent

E.C. Gregor, the striker murdered last week by the frenzied mob that hanged him on a railroad trestle, was asleep in a bunk house 45 miles from the scene of the burning of the bridges, according to a story told by his bunk-mate.

For a long time previous to his lynching Gregor had been at work in a construction camp and had appeared in his home town on the morning of his murder for the first time in months. The fact that he was known as a strong union man resulted in the railroad company’s thugs picking him for their first victim.

So thoroughly under control of the terrorists is the entire community that every person known to be in sympathy with the strikers has either left the vicinity, or is in hiding, while local, county and state officials by their inaction condone the outrages.

A.F. of L. Starts Probe

The American Federation of Labor from Washington announces that it has star ed an investigation of the outrages of the “citizens’ committee” which included the lynching of Gregor and the wholesale beatings administered to other union men and sympathizers.

The taking over of the local government oy the blood-streaked mob of railroad hirelings and their dupes will be thoroughly investigated and action by the organization will depend upon the findings, according to the official announcement from the office of the A.F. of L. at Washington.

The shopmen of the Arkansas district have announced that they have started a campaign to raise over a million dollar fund for the detection and prosecution of the leaders of the mob.

It is about time that organized labor abandons its defensive policy in cases of murderous aggression by the vicious tools of the master class and definitely takes the offensive. The scab-herders use every means of publicity to inflame the small business men and the farmers against strikers, in addition to the economic pressure they can bring to bear upon these elements of the population. Unfortunately there are members of the working class so deluded that they also fall prey to the propaganda lies of the capitalist class organs. The best service the American Federation of Labor could perform for the labor movement in general would be a wide-spread campaign in every strike district in order to pillory the blood-suckers of labor so that they will not dare appear publicly for fear of the wrath of the aroused working class.

In order to effectively fight such outbreaks it is necessary to organize the working class into effective unions, a thing that has been woefully neglected by the officialdom of the American Federation of Labor and the petrified leadership of its affiliated unions.

Effective unionism in Arkansas would have made impossible the successful deportation thru terror of the strikers. The sort of unionism needed to combat such contemptible outrages against the working class is the unionism that made Herrin, Ill. the bright star in the firmament of unionism in America the past year. Teach the jackal pack of capitalism that they cannot with impunity murder strikers and there will be no repetition of the atrocities such as occurred at Harrison, Ark.

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/theworker/v4n260-feb-03-1923-Worker.pdf