Ray
Stannard Baker, was at that time reporting the strike for the _Chicago
Record_. He was asked by Commissioner Carroll D. Wright as to the
character of the United States deputy marshals. His answer was: "From my
experience with them I think it was very bad indeed. I saw more cases of
drunkenness, I believe, among the United States deputy marshals than I
did among the strikers."[27] Benjamin H. Atwell, reporter for the
_Chicago News_, testified: "Many of the marshals were men I had known
around Chicago as saloon characters.... The first day, I believe, after
the troops arrived ... the deputy marshals went up into town and some of
them got pretty drunk."[28] Malcomb McDowell, reporter for the _Chicago
Record_, testified that the deputy marshals and deputy sheriffs "were
not the class of men who ought to be made deputy marshals or deputy
sheriffs.... They seemed to be hunting trouble all the time.... At one
time a serious row nearly resulted because some of the deputy marshals
standing on the railroad track jeered at the women that passed and
insulted them.... I saw more deputy sheriffs and deputy marshals drunk
than I saw strikers drunk."[29] Harold I. Cleveland, reporter for the
_Chicago Herald_, testified: "I was ... on the Western Indiana tracks
for fourteen days ... and I suppose I saw in that time a couple of
hundred deputy marshals.... I think they were a very low, contemptible
set of men."[30]

In Mr. Baker's testimony he speaks of seeing in one of the riots "a big,
rough-looking fellow, whom the people called 'Pat.'"[31] He was the
leader of the mob, and when the riot was over, "he mounted a beer keg in
front of one of the saloons and advised men to go home, get their guns,
and come out and fight the troops, fire on them.... The same man
appeared two nights later at Whiting, Indiana, and made quite a
disturbance there, roused the people up. In all that mob that had hold
of the ropes I do not think there were many American Railway Union men.
I think they were mostly roughs from Chicago.... The police knew well
enough all about this man I have mentioned who was the ringleader of the
mob, but they did nothing and the deputy marshals were not any
better."[32] For some inscrutable reason, certain men, none of whom were
railroad employees, were allowed openly to provoke violence.
Fortunately, however, they were not able to induce the actual strikers
to participate in their assaults upon railroad property, and every
n