4. Reverend Balogh's Letter

Immigrants did what they could to tell their side of the story. The following letter is from Rev. Fr. Michael Balogh, who was priest at St. Mary's Byzantine Rite Catholic Church in Windber during the strike of 1906. He was also a speaker at the union meeting that day and an eyewitness to the massacre of Windber miners. He understood the importance of refuting the nativist, antilabor and often hysterical accounts that Berwind-White had promoted, and the Associated Press carried. Some of these reports had even been reprinted in ethnic newspapers! In order to correct such stories and accurately inform his fellow immigrants and Greek Catholic parishioners, he sent this letter to the official newspaper of the Greek Catholic Union and apparently to other publications.

CORRECTION OF THE LEAD STORY ON THE MATTER OF THE MASSACRE IN WINDBER, PA.

In the previous issue of The Messenger, we published a lead story from Johnstown, Pa., under the title, "The Situation of the Miners," about the terrible massacre which the sheriff committed with his deputies on the poor miners of Windber, Pa. We took the lead story from the English-language newspapers. On April 24th we met with His Eminence, O. Michael Balogh, the Greek Catholic Carpatho-Rusyn priest in Windber, Pa. He warned us that our description of this event did not correspond to the genuine situation of the matter there, and related to us in detail what had happened, and on the basis of this, we are publishing a new description of this unfortunate incident and indeed of its consequences, a description that His Eminence O. M. Balogh also published in the Slovak Daily.

"On the afternoon of April 16th, the strikers held a huge meeting, at which meeting, in a field, the speakers were: Rev. Michael V. Balogh, the local Greek Catholic priest; Rev. Leo Stefl, the Roman Catholic Slovak priest; and James Saas, a Roman Catholic priest there; Mr. Paul Pachuta, curator of the Carpatho-Rusyn church and a union butcher.

The meeting opened about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The first speaker was organizer Ginter, and he spoke in English and introduced Michael Balogh, the first other speaker, who spoke in Ruthenian to the people; the second speaker was Rev. Leo Stefl, who spoke in Czech; the third was Rev. Saas, who spoke in Polish; the fourth was Mr. Paul Pachuta, who spoke in the Ruthenian language and in Slovak.

All speakers expressed the same idea, that union miners should stay out on strike and behave peacefully and quietly, that they would not obtain anything through violence but only through a peaceful path within the boundaries of the law. The people acknowledged that, obeyed, and began dispersing. But the company was exceedingly angry at that, and also that the strikers had been peaceful and quiet for six weeks, and so it was looking for a reason, an incident, that through violence and with cause, they could incite a riot, and, therefore, under this pretext, see to it that there would come in the Pinkertons, among whom are two men who had fired on the people at Lattimer and Homestead. In order to have its own "action" as a pretext, it sent deputy McMullen as a messenger to the meeting. So he went there. The people told him that he had to leave, and everybody did so with quiet strength, although this man had no right to be there. Our youths wanted to throw him out, but he pulled out his own guns from both pockets and started shooting from them. This upset the people, and they surrounded him, and he began running away, shooting. When he came to Eighth Street, he ran into the house of Ellis Davis, a town official. The people were looking for him, and they wanted to catch him, but he hid in the cellar, and the crowd did something that wasn't necessary. They rushed into the house and smashed furniture. Because of this, several innocent people were caught, arrested, and taken away to jail. People followed those arrested with the good intention of bailing them out, but for some reason the burgess of the town didn't listen or allow that. People condemned this refusal with a lot of noise. In that moment, somebody from the crowd threw a brick on the jail's window, and at that point, the Pinkertons suddenly began to shoot and fired directly on a group of people who wanted to go on their way to church vespers.

The first victim was Stefan Popovic [Steve Popovich], A Carpatho-Rusyn who came from Vola, a place in Zemplén province. He had a wife and three children here. He had no guilt of any kind at all. Also, it appears that he had his hands inside his pockets, and that near him and on him, no weapons were found. He was standing off to the side of the street in front of a store.

The second, Matus Tomen, from Moravia, had a wife and three children in the home country.

The third, Simeon Vojcek, a Pole from Galicia, had a wife and four children in the home country.

The fifth [fourth] was a 10-year old English boy Keerney [Curtis Kester].

There wasn't a weapon found on any of them. Besides these victims named above, there were 18 people wounded, shot through their the arms and legs, and they were all taken to the hospital.

But the worst of all is that the company has prevailed in the matter so far as not letting the arrested people go free unless they pay such exorbitant bail that it is difficult to collect. But some of the arrested have succeeded in obtaining freedom. In other ways, also, they twist things and indeed say that the strikers, the unionists, caused the riot, when exactly the opposite is true."