We saw the street lined all around the station with police and a company of soldiers marching up and down…. Some of the children tried to get in the station and the police would not allow them…. But when we got in the station there were about forty children, and we bought tickets for those forty children for Boston…. When it came time for the train to start, and I was on the point of going out of the station with two children in hand, when a soldier put a bayonet across the door and said I could not get out…. He wouldn't tell me any reason…. When I got out of the station two policemen grabbed me. They beat me with a club. I saw them take up little children and pick them up by the leg and throw them in a patrol wagon. I saw one of the women put up a little resistance and a policeman grabbed her by the neck and choked her. (Testimony of Max Bogatin.)

I had an auto truck in use by the military department at the station and when they started for the train I formed two lines of policemen and we prevented them from going on the train, and we put them into the auto truck and took them to the police station. (Testimony of City Marshal Sullivan.)³³

Five women were held for “neglect of children,” but no case came to trial. In most … a fine of $i was imposed … a number of children were detained, but after the police judge had heard two of the cases, he referred the rest to a committee and all the cases were ultimately dismissed…. March 1, forty or fifty were sent to Philadelphia, with no interference on the part of the police except they secured a list of the names and addresses of all children sent…. It was rather because the sending of the children away from Lawrence seemed an un-American and an unnecessary war measure which hurt the community's pride that vigorous steps were taken to prevent the children going…. The police authorities are entitled to the credit of having acted with sincere good intentions and upon grounds not wholly unreasonable…. The strikers felt that the refusal of the authorities to allow the children to leave Lawrence was a serious interference with their rights. They had undertaken

Page Number: 

234