OCR Text |
Show MOB KILLS 6 OFFICERS L W. W. Leaders of Hop Pickers Open Fire Upon Officers Milli-tia Milli-tia Now on Grounds 1,700 Strikers Leave City at Night Sacramento, Cal . Aus I. W ith six companies of the National Guard of California, under the personal command com-mand Of Adjutant General B. A. Forbes, on control, the town of W heat-lank, heat-lank, which was the scene yesterday of the killing of four men and lh WdUnding of four others in B battle between a sheriff's posse and B00 hop pickers, is today quiet and orderly. Five hundred of the 17i hop pickers pick-ers on ihe Durst Brothers hop ranch, the scene of the rioting, left during the night Four suspecis giving the names of J. Quini:, Memy Bagan, Charles Bohn and John McConnell, were arrested here this morning. A determined effort is belug made to round up the leaders of the hop pickers an( to place the responsibility for the killing of E. T Manvvell, district dis-trict attorney of Yuba county and T. Riorldan, s deputj Bheriff. The other oth-er victims of the rioting were an negro ne-gro and an unidentified young Englishman, Eng-lishman, bop pickers, It Is believed the militia will be withdrawn from W'heatljud late today. to-day. All of the injurod will recover. The news of the death of District Attorney Manwcll and Deputy Sheriff E Reardon and the wounding of Sheriff George Voss and others of his posse spread rapidly through the farming country last night and volunteer vol-unteer posses hurried lroui every community to take a hand in quelling any further bloodshed. The militia did not reach the scpne of yesterday's trouble until nearly daybreak and In the meantime several sev-eral hundred assembled citizens had given vent to more or less hot head-h,i head-h,i talk not Intended to Improve the temper of the situation. General Forbes at once gave these citizen police po-lice to understand that he would look after the preservation of peace as long as there was auy danger of its violation. Constable U B. Anderson, who is suffering fiom a shattered arm. gave the following account today of the events leading up to the riot lug "The meeting arranged for Saturday Satur-day evening, between the grievance committee or in 17un hop pickers em ployed on the Durst ranch and R E. Durst, was held at 10 o'clock Sunday morning near Durst s offi. e 'Between 100 and r0ii pickers assembled as-sembled at their quarters and march ed in columns of four toward the meeting place. "The secretary of the pickers' com mittee read the demands. These I called for an increase in wages, ice water In the fields three times a day and sonttary towels. "Durst, after an hour's consideration, considera-tion, agreed to meet all of the demands de-mands except for an advance in wages. "Earlier in the day Durst had discharged dis-charged one of the complainants and ordered him to leave the place. When the man refused to go, Durst came to town to see me. I accompanied him to the ranch, not stopping to get a warrant W hen we reached the ranch. Durst asked me to arrest a man named "Blackie" Ford, who had followed us out. Ford demanded that a warrant be served on him. "Thirty men gathered around us an, three or four or them jerked Ford ! away from me They then threaten-ed threaten-ed me I suggested an amicable set tlement of th trouble, but that only enraged them the morp. They crowded crowd-ed about me and began striking me, at the same time applving vile epi thets. A woman struck me with her hand As I climbed Into my automobile, automo-bile, one man tried to pull my revolver revolv-er from me and others threw rocks and other missiles at me." Chlco, Cal., Aug. In a fiercely waged battle between 500 hop pick ers, led b members of the I W' W the Industrial Workers of the World and a sheriffs posse in the hopfields in Wheatland, twelve miles south of Marvsville. tonight at the. supper hour, six of the posse, including includ-ing District Utorney A E. Manwell of Marysvllle, were killed outright and a score of others are suffering from gunshot wounds, some of them perhaps fatally Three hundred armed men, In Charge of Chief of Police Charles Mc-Cay Mc-Cay of Marvsville. are at the scene of the trouble and a company of regu lar soldiers from the Presidio at San Francisco have been asked to be rushed to the scene to quell the trouble trou-ble that it Is feared will follow as the night proceeds. Wanted Japs Discharged Five hundred operatives in the hop fields have for several days been complaining com-plaining about the wages they were receiving. The trouble has bef-n brought to an acute stage by the efforts ef-forts of the members of the I W W who are said to have been grieved because there have been some Japanese Japan-ese employed in the field and whom the employers refused to discharge Last night there was an undercurrent of trouble brewing and the Wheatland Wheat-land officers were warned to be on their guard and to prepare for emergences. emer-gences. There have been numerous 1 fights In and about the fields caused by bickerings among the hundreds of operatives and no particular attention at-tention was paid to the warning. This afternoon about HOO of the operatives 6truck and demanded more ! pav Their actions became such that ithe managers of the fields took fright and sent to Marvsville for Sheriif Voss. urging him to bring deputies I sufficient to quell the pending out I break Voss. in company with Dla- trict Attorney Manwell Riordan and 1 Charles Matthews, hurriedly left In j an automobile and drove up at the hop yards about 5 30 o'clock. The strikers had been given an inkling that the officers were coming and met them on the roadside. Signal for Outbreak. The appearance of the auto in which Voss and his comrades rode was the signal for a general outbreak and demands were made that the officers of-ficers go back. Voss rose from his seat to remon-I remon-I strate with the men when a shot st mk him in the left leg He dropped to his seat and as he did so other shots were fired and a volley of rocks thrown at the officers. Ona rock struck Voss in the head and in-other in-other shot him in the neck. The sheriff, as he lay bleeding on the seat, called lo District Attorney Man well and pointing out the man in the crowd who fired the first shot, said : "Ed. that man ahot me. shoot him." Manwell raised in his seat to obey the command and as he did so several bullets lodged in bis body He fell dead on the floor of the auto Riordan was killed almost Instantly Instant-ly and the strikers then beat and stamped upon the sheriff until he was left for dead Constable Anderson and a posse of deputies appeared on the scene and attempted to drive off the strikers They were met with a volley of bullets bul-lets and rocks aud Anderson dropped In ihe lirst onslaught Two of the strikers were killed in the battle with the Anderson men. making three killed all told Others were injured and three of them shot down are believed lo be fatally hurt The main battle raged for an hour and It was not until everv officer and deputy bad either been killed or driven driv-en to Shelter that the strikers ceased Hour demonstration and then only to go back into the hop yards and start to demolish the vines and racks The hop pickers not in Bympath With the strikers fled iu terror aud refused to take up arms against their i ompanions Many of them rushed to places of Bafetj along the river, while Bome started to walk to Marysvllle, twelve miles distant. Sheriff Voss was picked up. placed in an automobile and hurried to Marvsville. where he is hlng in a hospital believed to be fatally hurt The others of the Injured were ta ken lo their homes and hurried calls were mnde to Marvsville for doctors, nurses and undertakers Hundreds of volunteers presented them6ehes at the office of the sherill und chief or police at Marysvllle and over 200 were sworn In as deput e, and tbev were hurried this evening to the hop fields. M. T Manwell. the dead district attorney, was one ot the oldest offi-cials offi-cials of Yuba county, having served as county school superintendent. nn |