Illinois House of Representatives Committee on the Investigation of the Herrin Massacre, Transcript of Testimony (digital), 1923
Collection Number: 5180 (d)

Includes the testimony of key individuals involved in the incident along with that of the following major local and political figures: Carlo Black (adjutant general of the State of Illinois), Charles R. Edrington (commercial secretary for the Marion Association), Charles F. Hamilton (operator of the Enterprise Mine near Moke Station, and business partner of Lester), DeWitt T. Hartwell (county judge), Robert Herrin (chief of police in Herrin), Fox Hughes (sub-district vice-president and United Mine Workers of America official), A.B. McLaren (coal operator), Ralph B. Mitchell (general manager of Cosgrove Interests), Len Small (governor), William J. Sneed (state senator and president of sub-district, Illinois Miners Organization), S.D. Storme (county clerk and deputy under Thaxton), and Robert Tracy (locomotive engineer). The transcript also contains testimony of other figures involved in the incident, such as miners, hardware store clerks and newspaper reporters.

A violent incident, known as the Herrin Massacre, resulted from an attempt to run a strip mine in Williamson County, Illinois during the coal strike of 1922. Involved was a conflict between members of the Steam Shovel Men's Union (SSMU), an independent union, and members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW). The SSMU men were employed by William J. Lester to break the UMW strike at the strip mines in Herrin and Marion, Ill., owned by the Southern Illinois Coal Company, of which he was the president. On June 22nd, 1922, forty-seven men working at the strip mine surrendered, under a promise of safe conduct, to an armed force of several hundred striking miners. Twenty-one SSMU men were subsequently killed. In the ensuing trial, public opinion made it impossible to convict any of those individuals indicted for murder or related crimes.