MARVIN FLETCHER
War in the Streets of Athens
On an August evening in 1904 terror
struck the citizens of the small
southeastern Ohio town of Athens.
Thousands of Ohio National Guard
and regular army troops were on joint
maneuvers in the area. On the
evening of August 19 some of the
regulars marched into town with
the aim of freeing one of their comrades
who had been arrested by
some national guardsmen and locked in
the county jail. When the mil-
itary police tried to stop them, the
regulars fired their pistols. After
the smoke cleared, no regulars were
visible, but four bodies lay upon
the street. Beside them lay an army hat
with the red band of the field
artillery and the number fourteen on it.
For many soldiers mock war-
fare had become all too real.
This incident took place at a time of
transition and tension in the
relationship between the regular army
and the national guard. Influ-
enced by the ideas of Emory Upton, an
American military theorist
who sought to model the U.S. Army along
Prussian lines, most pro-
fessional officers of the regular army
considered the volunteer militia
units of the national guard poorly
trained and militarily useless. Sup-
porters of the guard, organized into the
politically influential National
Guard Association, held that the concept
of the citizen soldier was an
intrinsic part of American democracy.
Moreover they argued that
guard units had proved their military
efficiency almost equal to that of
the regular army during the recent
Spanish-American War.1
This debate was never fully resolved,
but a compromise of sorts
was worked out when army-guard relations
were reorganized in the
years immediately following the
Spanish-American War. One of the
strongest and most influential
supporters of the guard was Ohio
Congressman Charles W. Dick, himself a
major general in the state
Marvin Fletcher, Associate Professor of
History at Ohio University, wishes to thank
John Keifer, J.D., for help in unraveling
the legal complexities of the cases which
grew out of the Athens riot.
1. Russel F. Weigley, History of the
United States Army (New York, 1967), 275-78.
406 OHIO HISTORY
militia.2 Working closely
with Secretary of War Elihu Root, the Na-
tional Guard Association and the
congressional military committees,
Dick shaped a militia reform bill in
1903 which forced upon the
regular army greater recognition of
state guard units. Under the new
law, popularly known as the Dick Act,
the guard was to be considered
not merely a manpower reserve for the
regular army but a real second
line of defense. The federal government
issued arms and equipment to
the guard without charge, and in return
guard units had to hold at
least twenty-four drills or target
practice periods a year, plus a sum-
mer encampment of not less than five
days in the field. Additional
funds were specified for those state
troops that trained at regular
army camps. The Dick Act forced guard
and army to work together,
but this mandatory cooperation did not
lessen the historic antagonism
of the two groups.
Given the impetus of the 1903
legislation and the role of Major Gen-
eral Dick, the Ohio guard tried hard to
improve its skills. In 1904 the
governor asked the War Department to
allow the guard to join a regu-
lar army training camp, as a small group
had done the previous year
during maneuvers at West Point,
Kentucky. When his request was
denied, the national guard pursued an
alternate course. For the first
time the whole state guard went on
maneuvers and invited a few reg-
ular army troops to join them. In late
August field exercises were
held in the hills of southeastern Ohio
and the troops were housed in
three camps near Athens. Camp Armitage,
named after a nearby
railroad station, was located about
three miles from town and was
close to the Hocking River. The First
Brigade, which included the
First, Second, Third, and Sixth
regiments of the guard, as well as
the Ninth Battalion, a black unit, was
stationed there under the com-
mand of General William V. McMakin.
These guardsmen were joined
by the regular army First Battalion,
Twenty-Seventh Infantry; Troop
L, Fourth Cavalry; and the Fourteenth
Battery, Field Artillery.
Nearby was Camp Herrick, the
headquarters of the guard during the
maneuvers. Governor Myron T. Herrick,
after whom the camp was
named, as well as General Dick, stayed
there during the war games.
Furthest away from Athens was Camp
Beaumont, where the Fourth,
2. Charles Dick was born in 1858 and
served in the Spanish-American War. He
was a member of the House of
Representatives from 1898 to 1904, when he was ap-
pointed to fill the vacancy caused by
the death of Senator Marcus Hanna. He re-
mained in the Senate until 1911.
3. Jim Dan Hill, The Minute Man in
Peace and War: A History of The National
Guard (Harrisburg, 1964), 184-89; Louis Cantor, "Elihu
Root and the National Guard:
Friend or Foe?" Military
Affairs, XXXIII (December 1969), 361-73; U.S., Congress,
Report of the Secretary of War, 1904,
58th Congress, 3rd session, 1904,
28-30.
Incident in Athens
407
Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth infantries
were posted. They were joined
by three regular army detachments of the
same size as those regulars
stationed at Camp Armitage. Camp
Beaumont was under the com-
mand of General John C. Speaks.
Altogether there were about 7,000
national guardsmen and regular army
troops encamped near Athens.4
For many Athens area residents the
maneuvers were like a large
carnival. The Athens' railroads ran
excursion trains out to the camps
many times during the day. It cost ten
cents to ride to Camp Herrick
and fifteen cents to travel to Camp
Beaumont. Others used their car-
riages and rode out to view the soldiers
whose firing of blank ammu-
nition during the maneuvers gave them a
realistic flavor. A review
of all the troops on Sunday highlighted
the war games for civilian
onlookers.5
No one foresaw any problem controlling
the soldiers during their
off-duty time. General Dick felt that
because of the distance of the
camps from the city and the arduous
nature of the maneuvers, the
men would want to remain in their camps
in the evening. To be safe,
however, precautions were taken.
Officers searched the men and
confiscated any unauthorized weapons and
live ammunition. This
reduced the potential for shooting
incidents at the camps, but there
remained the problem of soldiers
disrupting nearby Athens. On Au-
gust 16 the national guard set up a
military police, or provost guard,
to patrol in the town. Passes were
issued "only in cases of absolute
and urgent necessity," and anyone
without one was arrested.6
Despite these precautions, some soldiers
did slip into town. These
visits to Athens led to fraternization
and friction between guardsmen
and regulars. The regulars felt
themselves militarily superior to the
Ohioans and resented orders given them
by the guardsmen, especially
those on provost guard duty. Friction
increased during the first few
days of the exercises, and small
incidents grew in significance. In one
incident a drunken regular lost his side
arms and accused the provost
guard of taking them. On another
occasion fifty regulars tried to run
the guard lines; it was not until the
provost guard fixed their bay-
onets that the regulars retreated. One
reporter commented that the
4. Ohio, Annual Report of the
Adjutant General to the Governor of the State of Ohio
for the Fiscal Year Ending November
15, 1903, 5; Ohio, Annual Report of
the Adju-
tant General to the Governor of the
State of Ohio for the Fiscal Year Ending November
15, 1904, 6-7, 25 (hereafter cited as 1904 Report); Athens
Messenger, August 18, 1904.
5. Athens Journal, August 18, 1904; Messenger, August 18, 1904.
6. Orders, Ohio National Guard, August
15, August 16, 1904, contained in Records
of the Adjutant General's Office, Record Group 94, National Archives (hereafter cited
as AGO).
408 OHIO HISTORY
feeling between the regulars and the
guardsmen "can hardly be classed
as cordial."7 In this
situation, it took only a small spark to set offa major
conflagration.
That spark was supplied with the arrest
of a member of the Four-
teenth Battery, Field Artillery, Private
Charles Kelly, on the afternoon
of August 19. Kelly resisted arrest,
firing his pistol at the provost
guard. The fact that Kelly had some
illegal ammunition, despite the
many searches, should have alerted the
officers that trouble was pos-
sible. The provost guard bound him hand
and foot and put him in the
county jail. Quickly the rumor reached
Kelly's regular army com-
rades at Camp Armitage that the guard
had clubbed him into insensi-
bility.8 That afternoon he
was visited by one of his comrades, Edward
Plumb. About eight o'clock that evening
a group of eighty to one hun-
dred soldiers crossed the Hocking River
on the railroad bridge,
brushing aside the small guard there.
They marched into the city,
down Court Street and turned right onto
Washington Street.
Near the jail the mob of regulars came
face to face with the eight
national guardsmen who constituted that
evening's provost guard.
The military policemen, all from the
Fifth Infantry, blocked the street.
After hesitating an instant, the
regulars began firing. Their shots
killed one man and wounded three others.
Charles Clark, a twenty-
four-year-old guardsman from Warren,
Ohio, due to be married in
two weeks, was killed by one bullet,
which went through both lungs
and cut the artery above the heart. The
rioters wounded Watson Ohls,
a salesman in civilian life, William
Blessing, a plumber, and Albert
Heald, a drayman.9 The only
visible piece of evidence was the hat of a
field artilleryman found on Washington
Street after the riot. 10 The in-
cident revealed that old enmities had
not been dissipated by the Dick
Act. Whether the culprits could, or
would, be brought to justice now
became the pressing issue.
Immediately after the shootings, Athens
Sheriff Andrew Murphy
telephoned the news to General Dick's
headquarters. Fearing more
trouble, he ordered the provost guard
reinforced with part of the First
Infantry. The provost guard worked with
the sheriff to clear the streets
and to close the saloons."
7. Journal, August 25, 1904; Cleveland Plain Dealer, August
18, 1904.
8. Messenger, August 25, 1904.
9. Ibid.; Certificate of Post-mortem Examination on Charles
Clark, August 25,
1904, Document File #914805, Records
of the Adjutant General's Office, Record Group
94, National Archives (all the legal
documents about this incident are in this file;
hereafter cited as AGO, Legal).
10. 1904 Report, 138.
11. Messenger, August 25, 1904; Plain
Dealer, August 21, 1904.
Incident in Athens 409 |
|
An investigation to find the guilty parties began immediately. Gen- eral Dick ordered each unit to conduct a roll call to see who was miss- ing. A guard line was placed around the camps to check returning soldiers for arms and ammunition and examine their hands and faces for the presence of powder stains. Those men from Camp Beaumont picked up in this way were not implicated in the riot, for the officers believed that the camp was too far from Athens for the men to have participated in the fracus. However, those caught by the dragnet at Camp Armitage, closer to town, were prime suspects. These soldiers, both national guardsmen and regulars, were the center of the subse- quent civilian investigation.12 The riot placed the War Department in a great dilemma because
12. W. T. Duggan to Adjutant General, Department of the Lakes, August 24, 1904, Document File #1135832, Records of the Adjutant General's Office, Record Group 94, National Archives (this file is the Brownsville Consolidation File; hereafter cited as AGO, Brownsville); 1904 Report, 130. |
410 OHIO
HISTORY
the incident threatened the fragile
working relationship between the
guard and the regular army. While
supporters of Emory Upton would
not have been sorry to see the new
relationship to the guard come to
an end, the incident was also
embarrassing because it was regular
army troops, not raw guardsmen, who were
apparently guilty of whole-
sale indiscipline. In this situation the
army temporized. They did not
launch their own investigation, but they
gave some help to that con-
ducted by the Athens
civilian-authorities. Adjutant General Fred C.
Ainsworth immediately telegraphed
Governor Herrick that the officers
at Athens were instructed "to cooperate
in fullest measure with civil
authorities."13
The shooting incident was not soon
forgotten. Though the man-
euvers resumed, the mimic war seemed to
take a back seat to the
real one. Several days after the fight,
some men from the First Infan-
try were bathing in the Hocking when
they found the body of a soldier
drifting in the water. The man was
identified as Corporal Malcolm
Nelson, a member of the Fourteenth
Battery, Field Artillery.14 The
time and place of Nelson's death seemed
to indicate that he was in-
volved in the disturbance in Athens. A
great deal more was revealed
at the coroners inquest. Frank Hendley,
a physician, testified that the
cause of death was "heart failure
produced by the cold water striking
him when heated" and County Coroner
J. J. Lane ruled that Nelson
died by drowning. The cartridges and
pistol found on the body were
the kind issued to artillerymen and it
was subsequently learned that
the hat found in town after the
shootings belonged to Nelson.15 The
evidence suggested strongly that Nelson
had been involved in the riot
and had died while trying to swim the
Hocking and get back to camp.
Leading the subsequent search for the
guilty soldiers was Israel
M. Foster, an ambitious, liberal-minded
young lawyer in his first term
as Prosecuting Attorney for Athens.l6
Foster and Lane went to both
Camp Armitage and Camp Beaumont the
Monday after the shooting.
Gathering evidence through a close
questioning of a number of men,
the investigators came to the conclusion
that soldiers from a number
13. Plain Dealer, August 21,
1904; Fred C. Ainsworth to Myron Herrick, August
22, 1904, AGO, Brownsville.
14. Messenger, August 25, 1904;
W. C. Mabry to Commanding Officer, Camp Armi-
tage, August 22, 1904, AGO, Legal.
15. Testimony Taken at
Coroner's Inquest Over the Remains of Corporal Nelson,
Deceased, Athens, Ohio, August 22,
1904, AGO, Legal; 1904 Report, 138.
16. Israel Foster was born in Athens in
1873. He received a bachelor's degree from
Ohio University in 1895 and a law degree
from Ohio State University in 1898. After
eight years as prosecuting attorney,
Foster served six years in Congress, from 1919 to
1925. He was a strong advocate of child
labor legislation.
Incident in Athens 411
of units, both national guard and
regular, were involved in the shoot-
ing. Since most soldiers denied any
knowledge of the affair, their prob-
lem became how to place any particular
soldier at the riot scene.l7 At
the coroner's inquest into the death of
Charles Clark, Foster got a
break. John Baydos, a member of the
Fourteenth Battery, admitted
going into town and taking part in the
riot. He named four others
from the Fourteenth Battery who were
present at the riot: John Lott,
Harvey Snyder (a sergeant), Fred Thuler,
and William H. Raymond. But
he refused to name any others he had
seen, saying "The others that
went down don't want to tell they were
there."18
When the inquest reconvened two days
later, some of the witnesses
changed their earlier testimony and now
admitted their presence at
the riot scene. As the result of the
urging of Lieutenant John W.
Corey, one of the Fourteenth Battery's
officer's, Fred C. Thuler and
William Caligan now asserted that they
too had been in town and
had seen a number of their fellow
artillerymen in the mob. With this
evidence, Foster arrested James Duffy,
William Raymond, and the
three admitted rioters, Gaydos, Thuler
and Caligan. Bond was set at
$2,500 and they remained in jail until
the preliminary hearing in mid-
September.19 Raymond and
Plumb were veteran soldiers, the rest more
recent enlistees.20
Foster continued to feel that there were
more involved than the
five he had arrested. Within the week he
had new evidence, but un-
fortunately it did not bring him any
closer to his goal. He received a
letter from the commander of the First
Infantry, Charles Hake, Jr.,
informing him that one of his soldiers
had heard Trumpeter Edward
Plumb encourage the men to leave camp:
"He (Plumb) addressed the
assembled men to force their way past
the guard at the bridge." Hake
also reported that a number of his men
told him that the mob leaders
said, "we are going to clean out
the officers of the guard."21
Foster now redoubled his efforts to get
more evidence out of his
soldier prisoners. He wrote General John
C. Bates, commander of
the army's Department of the Lakes, that
those in custody were
afraid to talk because they feared that
their comrades would murder
them. Foster asked for the cooperation
of the army in getting the
regulars to tell all they knew. He
suggested that maybe a promise of a
transfer out of the battery would induce
the soldiers to talk. Appar-
17. Foster to W. Duggan, August 23,
1904, AGO; Messenger, August 25, 1904.
18. Testimony Taken at the Coroner's Inquest over the Remains of Charles
Clark,
Deceased, Athens, Ohio, August 20,
22, 23, 1904. AGO, Legal.
19. Messenger, August 25, 1904.
20. Service Records, William Raymond,
Edward Plumb, AGO.
21. Charles Hake, Jr., to Israel Foster,
August 24, 1904, AGO, Legal.
412 0HI0 HISTORY |
ently General Bates felt that this request was justified, for he notified Foster that he had asked the War Department to transfer any of the soldiers who agreed to this idea. Foster showed this telegram to the soldiers and it was enough to convince Caligan, Thuler, and Gaydos to turn state's evidence.22 Gaydos said that about half the mob was from the field artillery, while the other half was from the Twenty- seventh Infantry. Caligan stated that he saw John Johnston first shoot in the air and then lower his pistol and aim it toward the provost guard. With this evidence in hand, Foster asked the army to turn over
22. Foster to W. Duggan, August 23, 1904; Foster to John C. Bates, August 26, 1904; Bates to Foster, August 28, 1904, AGO; Foster to Grosvenor, December 31, 1904; AGO, Brownsville. |
Incident in Athens 413
to him Lott, Snyder, Barnett, Johnston,
Plumb, Pearson, and George
Davison.23 Six of these men
had been named in the affidavits, men-
tioned in the evidence obtained from
Captain Hake, or testified about
at the Clark inquest. The army confined
these men at Fort Sheridan
but did not immediately send them on to
Athens for trial.
Foster also asked the help of the Ohio
National Guard in his at-
tempt to gather more evidence. Guard
officers were requested to for-
ward "any evidence that they may
have heard of in their various com-
mands concerning the trouble in
Athens,"24 and Foster began to
receive new information quickly. A
number of men in the Sixth Infan-
try made written statements about events
at the beginning of the riot.
For example, John Lang was one of the
three members of the provost
guard on the railroad bridge near Camp
Armitage on that Friday
night. He stated that about dusk a group
of fifty to sixty men ap-
proached the bridge. When challenged,
two of the men came forward
and asked the guards to let them
through. Refusing, the guards de-
manded to see their passes. The group
then advanced and pushed the
three men out of the way. Unfortunately
for Foster, Lang could not
identify any of the men he saw that
night. Sergeant Clyde Shively was
in town that Friday night and saw the
mob as it marched up Court
Street. Quartermaster Sergeant Charles
E. Huddleston, First Infantry,
was in a saloon on Court Street and
heard several men of the Four-
teenth Battery drinking and planning
trouble. One man was loading
his revolver, while another said,
"Let's go now." The third man re-
plied, "No, let's wait until the
other men come, they'll be here soon."25
While the national guard seemed to
cooperate with Foster, the
army was less accommodating. Reluctant
to send the seven suspects
to Athens, the army ordered Major
Blanton Winship, Judge Advocate,
to first interview the suspects who were
confined at Fort Sheridan
and then to proceed to Athens and
investigate the situation. Winship
reported that the three prisoners in
Athens had made statements
implicating the other seven. He also
noted that there was a great
deal of hostility against the soldier
prisoners and that they needed to
be represented by "good
counsel" when they came to trial.26
Winship's recommendations were promptly
carried out. The army
ordered him back to Athens to observe
the trial and defense of the
23. Affidavits of John Gaydos, Fred
Thuler, and William Caligan, August 30, 1904,
AGO, Legal.
24. Foster to Critchfield, August 26,
1904, AGO, Legal.
25. Statements of John Lang, Clyde
Shively, Calvin Snyder, Charles Huddleston,
AGO, Legal.
26. W. Duggan to Military Secretary,
September 1, 1904, AGO, Brownsville.
414 OHIO HISTORY
accused soldiers. This decision greatly
upset both Foster and Con-
gressman Charles H. Grosvenor, a
conservative Republican congress-
man and power in Athens politics.27
Foster thought that the army was
giving him "a great deal of
trouble," while Grosvenor claimed that
the appointment of Winship was part of a
government attempt to
"prevent an ascertainment of who
the murders were." He argued
that Winship had first come to Athens in
the guise of an observer and
had been shown all of the prosecution's
evidence. Now, claimed Gros-
venor, he was coming back as a defense
attorney, already armed with
the ammunition of the other side. In
defense of the action, Secretary
of War William Howard Taft later wrote
Grosvenor that "an enlisted
man is more or less a ward of the
Government, and if the Government
steps in merely to see that he is tried
according to law, it seems to me
that it is an exercise of a discretion
which the Government has."28
Despite the controversy, Winship was
present in Athens on Monday,
September 19, 1904, when Mayor Henry
Logan convened a prelim-
inary hearing in the case. Grosvenor
joined Foster in prosecuting the
soldiers while the defense was handled
by two local attorneys, James
P. Wood and Leonidas M. Jewett. Caligan,
who had turned state's evi-
dence, again described the riot and
named Plumb, Snyder, and John-
ston, Lott, Raymond, Barnett, Duffy, and
Davison as members of the
mob.29 Gaydos, another
prosecution witness, added Pearson's name to
the list of those members of the
Fourteenth Battery who were in the
mob. Thuler corroborated Caligan's
testimony. Mayor Logan, con-
vinced by the prosecution's case, ordered
the eight men held for the
November grand jury and set bond at
$3000 for each soldier.30
The November grand jury returned two
sets of indictments as the
result of the evidence presented. The
eight soldiers (Snyder, Lott,
Davison, Barnett, Johnston, Pearson,
Plumb, Raymond, and Duffy)
were charged with riot and conspiracy to
plan a riot. In addition, John
Lott was charged with assault with
intent to kill Warren Ohls. The
Athens Journal, upset that no one was indicted for killing Charles
Clark, reported "Life seems cheap
in Athens, when one man can be
27. Charles H. Grosvenor was a
conservative Republican and an ally of Joseph
Foraker who served in Congress almost
continuously from 1885 to 1907.
28. Foster to Florence Vangorder,
September 8, 1904, AGO, Legal; Grosvenor to
Taft, September 30, 1904, AGO,
Brownsville; Moorfield Storey quoting Taft to
Grosvenor in "Athens and
Brownsville" (extract from a speech before the Second
National Negro Conference), The
Crisis, I(1910), 13.
29. Testimony Taken at the
Preliminary Hearing Before Mayor Logan in the Case
of the State of Ohio versus James
Duffy, et al., Athens, Ohio, September 19, 1904,
AGO, Legal.
30. Ibid., Journal, September 22,
1904.
Incident in Athens 415 |
shot down on our streets, and no charges be made against the perpe- trators of these crimes."31 In the weeks before the men came to trial, Grosvenor reiterated his view that the army sought to avoid bringing the guilty parties to justice. He placed much of the blame for the riot on army officers who allowed the mob of soldiers to leave Camp Armitage, and he com- plained that the United States government had prevented evidence from being discovered and this in turn had led to the suppression of any murder indictments. To Secretary of War Taft, Grosvenor wrote "the conspiracy to shield the murders has been successful."32 The formal trials of those indicted began at the end of December. John Lott was the first person tried. The prosecution introduced a number of witnesses who saw someone striking Watson Ohls, but no one who could conclusively identify that assailant. The key prosecu- tion witness was William Caligan, who claimed that he saw Lott use his gun to strike someone's head. The defense tried to show that Lott
31. Messenger, November 17, 1904; Journal, November 17, 1904. 32. Grosvenor to Taft, December 19, 1904; Blanton Winship to George Davis, October 10, 1904; Davis to Taft, December 30, 1904; Taft to Grosvenor, December 23, 1904, AGO, Brownsville. |
416 OHIO HISTORY
was in camp during the shooting and that
Corporal Nelson had clubbed
Ohls.33 The jury deliberated
for three hours on the case and decided
that Lott was guilty of assaulting Ohls
and "of deliberate and pre-
meditated malice to kill." He was
sentenced to one year of hard labor
in the state penitentiary and fined the
costs of the prosecution,
$1227.07.34
Foster and Wood reached an out-of-court agreement
before the
start of the next trial. The jury would
be dispensed with; the trial
would be held before a judge; the
charges against Pearson and Davi-
son would be dropped; the defense agreed
not to contest the charges
against the remaining defendants. As a
result of this agreement the
trial moved along rapidly, in spite of
the prosecution's difficulty in
proving a charge of conspiracy. Defense
Attorney Wood noted that
the main prosecution witnesses, Caligan
and Thuler, gave "so con-
fusing" testimony that they would
not really help the state or hurt the
defense case.35
The six defendants were convicted of
causing a riot, but acquitted
on the charge of conspiracy. They were
given the maximum sentence
for their crime-one month in jail and a
$500 fine. The jail terms were
served in the Columbus Work House in
January 1905.36 The convic-
tions did not have an adverse effect on
the military careers of the de-
fendants. Lott was honorably discharged
from the army before the
trial. The others returned to the army
after their one month sentence
was over and served varying periods in
the Fourteenth Field Artillery
and other units. Snyder became a
Regimental Quartermaster Ser-
geant in 1910 and during World War I was
promoted to captain in
the Quartermaster Corps. Thuler was
honorably discharged while in
jail waiting to testify. Finally, after
many months of discussion the
chief prosecution witnesses, Gaydos and
Caligan, were transferred
to another battery in the field
artillery.
For Representative Grosvenor and other
Athenians, the outcome
of the trial proved immensely
frustrating. No one was brought to trial
for the murder of Charles Clark, while
those convicted of lesser
crimes served light sentences. Still
bitter about the affair two years
33. Testimony in the Case of the
State of Ohio vs. John L. Lott, AGO, Legal.
34. Ibid.
37. J. P. Wood to Taft, phone
conversation, December 14, 1906, AGO, Brownsville;
Journal, January 5, 1905; Testimony at Trial of Harvey M.
Snyder, et al., in the Court of
Common Pleas of Athens County, Ohio,
Indictedfor Riot, AGO, Legal.
36. Sentence in the Case of State of
Ohio vs. Harvey M. Snyder, et al., in the Court
of Common Pleas, Athens County, Ohio,
AGO, Legal.
Incident in Athens
417
later, Grosvenor commented that
"the whole encampment was filled
with factions and bitterness and
troubles of that character, growing
up almost necessarily between the
regular Army soldiers and the men
of the Ohio State Guard." He was
disillusioned because guardsmen
had been killed and the guilty parties
had not been found.37
The tensions involved in the guard-army
dispute virtually mandated
this unsatisfying outcome. The army's
inaction following the incident
is remarkable and can only be understood
in the context of the devel-
oping relationship with the national
guard. Interested parties here
were quite numerous. Old-line army
officers still felt it absurd to train
the guard to be like the regular army,
although others felt the Dick
Act had begun a process of integration
between the two which must
continue. In addition Congressman Dick
himself, a champion of the
guard, took a great deal of interest in
the case, as did Congressman
Grosvenor from an opposite point of
view. Given the complex situa-
tion, almost any positive action the
army took would antagonize
some group.
As a result the Army remained
essentially passive. Its officers did not
conduct any investigation into the facts
of the case. The War Depart-
ment merely turned the soldiers over to
the civilian prosecutor, sent
Major Winship to Athens as an observer,
and did little else. Upon
completion of their sentences, the
convicted soldiers returned to their
assignments. One of them eventually
became an officer. In the final
analysis, the army was cooperative but
certainly not helpful. A com-
parison between the army's reactions
here and those after the Browns-
ville Affair two years later is
instructive. There, with no National Guard
or Congressmen to worry about, the army
inspector general's office
launched an inquiry which lasted several
weeks and interviewed
more than one hundred soldiers in its
search for the black soldiers who
the local citizenry claimed had shot up
the town and killed a police-
man. Ultimately 159 soldiers were
dismissed from the army.38
Throughout the Athens disturbance, the
problem of improving re-
lations between the regular army and the
national guard provides the
key to understanding a puzzling affair.
The army's old hostility to-
ward the guard had made necessary the
Dick Act, which enforced coop-
37. U.S., Congress, House of Representatives,
Congressional Record, 59th Congress,
2nd session, January 9, 1907, 843-44.
38. Marvin E. Fletcher, The Black
Soldier and Officer in the United States Army,
1891-1917 (Columbia, MO, 1974), 123-26.
The N.A.A.C.P. later used the army's deci-
sion to defend the accused white
soldiers at Athens as evidence that racism motivated
the wholesale dismissal of the black
infantrymen at Brownsville. See The Crisis, I
(1910).
418 OHIO HISTORY
eration between the two, but the joint
maneuvers of 1904 were still
filled with tensions between the
parties. Regulars disdained guards-
men and would not tolerate having them
as military police. Trouble
was inevitable, though the shooting was
not. After the riot, the same
need to improve relations impelled both
sides to avoid a diligent
search for the guilty parties. Neither
branch of the military was eager
for a wide ranging, potentially
disruptive investigation. Despite Israel
Foster's best efforts, the origins and
solution to "the war in the streets
of Athens" lay far beyond the small
Ohio town.