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down here; but now that they’re here, let them take what’s coming to them.”
    Under their coal cars and behind their barricades of ties lay Lester’s hungry, frightened men. Shortly before dawn two of them slipped out from their place of refuge and brought back pitchers of lukewarm coffee. They remembered later that it was as “bitter as gall.”
    At six o’clock on the morning of June 22, Hunter and Davis knocked on the sheriff’s door. No one responded. They waited, walking around in the vicinity to kill time. On the street they heard that the men had come out of the mine, and that some of them had been roughly treated. More than two hours passed before Thaxton made his appearance; he had understood, he said, that he was to meet the officers at eight. Davis told him of the rumors they had heard, and urged that they try to head off theLester men and their escort of striking miners before some of the former were killed. The sheriff made light of the possibility, and insisted on proceeding directly to the mine.
    It was nine a.m. when the three men, with one of Thaxton’s deputies, reached the mine. All the cars and buildings were on fire. From the crowd they learned that the strikebreakers had surrendered and had been marched off toward Herrin three hours earlier.
    After deciding that the mob was beyond control, the party separated. The sheriff and his deputy started for Herrin, Hunter and Davis returned to Marion. There, at 11.15, Hunter telephoned the Adjutant General and reported that the men had surrendered that morning and were on their way to Herrin in accordance with the terms of the truce. When Black informed him that he was certain, from newspaper dispatches, that the terms of the truce had been violated, and that many men had already been killed, Hunter was incredulous.
    The two officers picked up Judge Hartwell, drove back to the mine, and started over the route the prisoners had taken. They found the spot where McDowell had been killed, and at the powerhouse woods saw bloodsoaked ground and fragments of flesh and clothing on the barbs of the fence. By that time there was nothing to do but collect the dead bodies, and make sure that those who still lived suffered no more from the mob.
    *
In strip mining, or surface mining as operators now prefer to call it, the vein of coal nearest the surface (if no more than fifty feet underground) is uncovered by a giant shovel, after which a smaller shovel is used to break up the coal and load it on trucks or cars. The process is much more economical than shaft mining. In 1922 it was relatively new.
    †
If Lester made this statement—and the powder salesman testified under oath that he did—he made it for effect, and without regard for truth. His only experience in strip mining had been as a superintendent in companies controlled by R. H. Sherwood, now of Indianapolis. Mr. Sherwood tells me that no company of his has ever attempted to operate during an authorized strike.
    ‡
Since John L. Lewis has been accused repeatedly of precipitating the Herrin Massacre, the findings of Theodore Cronyn, representing the
New York Herald,
are pertinent. Cronyn wrote from Herrin on July 11, 1922:
    “Officers of the union deny that Lewis’s telegram had any provocative effect whatever or that it was intended to have. Lewis has denied it; his whole organization has denied it. And men who are as free from prejudice as can be found in the county tell the writer that however the telegram may have been construed by those who read it the mine would have been Lewis sent his message.”
    One “veteran of Williamson County” told Cronyn:
    “Well, you can never make me believe John Lewis intended to have anybody go out and do some killing. I should say he was merely settling a disputed point in the routine of his business. But I will say that John Lewis was unfortunate in his choice of language. Everybody down here knows how the union miners feel about these things.… When Lewis