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Leaving the depot and stopping at the restaurant on the corner, we met several reporters of the Chicago capitalistic press, who were being roundly abused by some of the Lemont citizens, both workers and business men, for the false and slanderous reports sent out daily from Lemont. The reporters answered that they were not to blame, as they took the statements of the "authorities" each day. It was made perfectly plain, however, that the reporters of the capitalistic papers are more than anxious to accept the statements of the "authorities" and reject or misrepresent those of the people who are being murdered, insulted, and lied about by the so-called authorities now dominating the people of Lemont.
A reporter told me that the following note had been handed to the wife of a man who wanted to go to work at Singer & Talcott's quarry:
Keep Pat at home to-morrow, or your house will be burned at night.
Of course, this note is a forgery. Everybody in Lemont says it is a trick of the quarry-owners to make out some reason for keeping the military in the town. The people of Lemont know that is was written or instigated by some one of the many detectives which Despot Signer and his gang of robbers have employed to oppress and spy among their slaves.
At the meeting of the business men held the day before it was proposed to appoint a committee of the strikers to wait upon the bosses and try to bring about a settlement of the difficulty. Mt Murphy, who is one of the largest dry-goods and grocery merchants in the town, said it would not do to appoint such a committee, as the men who acted on it would be discharged and lose their bread for acting in such a manner, and gave instances where men had been discharged before by Signer and other bosses for serving on similar committees.
Polus, the man who received a bayonet-thrust which entered the breast to the backbone, and a saber-wound in his side, died of his wounds yesterday. He was 48 years old and leaves a wife and six children. His family are utterly destitute, and the neighbors have to supply them with food to keep them from starving. A subscription
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