Amos Finds Strike Duty Lively Job

Popular Sergeant Was Hero of Street Car Riots Years Ago

By Harry Tucker

Sergeant Hatton Amos was something of a spotlight figure in the big street car strike 30 years ago. He was picked to do a lot of gumshoe work and as a consequence the tall, lean and lank officer was the butt of many onslaughts, serious as well as inconsequential.

Before the strike assumed its tragic period, and there was no apparent cause for military interference, Sergeant Amos was detailed to ride around in the empty cars to do what he could as the bodyguard of the strike breakers. A modern Javert, and the soldier that he was, Amos never flinched.

He'd go into a hornet's nest and run up against a buzz-saw upon the call of duty. He once ran into three Jackson Ward darkeys rolling over the cobblestones within earshot of the Third Station firing seven-shooters into each other's pants.

Amos, that time, was standing in the Broad Street entrance to Masonic Temple, contemplating the beauties of the Klondyke Saloon and the water trough at Brook Avenue. Ladies of the evening sat at the windows on the "wrong side" of Broad Street, introducing the feminine habit of cigarette smoking.

His old friend, the cub reporter, was at his side.

"Nice night," the sergeant observed.

"Quite nice," the cub replied, as he dumped ashes from his clay pipe donated by Alderman George McDuff Blake.

Suddenly upon the Broad Street air rang that old familiar "rat-a-tat" of firearms.

Unlike the dusky redskin of the old dime novel, who placed his hand to his ear to catch the direction, Amos grabbed his pistol and started in a canter across to the head of Henry Street.

The he found three Negroes in what looked like the well-known death grip, just setting old clothes on fire from close range.

Looked like three tomcats stirring up the dust and the fur.

Amos ran right into the melee. Bullets were flying faster than the snow in the big blizzard of '88.

Placing his heavy brogans on the shanks of two of them the sergeant seized the back of the neck of the third Negro and commanded silence in the name of the law.

"Yessir, boss," came a chorus from the dusky trio.

In the meantime the cub reporter came from behind the friendly tree.

The sergeant directed the reporter to scurry around to the station house and call the hurry-up wagon.

When Interne Charlie Labenburg with his one-horse ambulance reached the station and examined the three combatants he found that one had his left little finger lacerated; and was making noise like an abattoire; the second had a slight wound in his right hip and the third was unscathed.

"I'll be dinged," mused the officer. "Wonder where all them bullets went."

Justice John Crutchfield sent the boys down for six months for disorderly conduct in a public street and firing dangerous weapons.

*          *          *

Which brings us up to the first car the sergeant took down through Fulton during the strike of a few weeks later.

Standing on the running board of the car, near the motorman, with his persistent friend the reporter braced in the second cross seat from the front, and nobody else aboard, the car bounded on down Main Street into Lester, along Louisiana Street.

Looking ahead and preparing to jump at the drop of a hat, the eagle eye of the reporter caught glimpse of a menacing crowd of what looked like 2,000,000 men and boys congregated in front of a grocery store at Louisiana and Williamsburg Avenue.

Boxes of apples, barrels of potatoes and cases of tomatoes littered the sidewalk in front of the store. On the opposite side was a pile of bricks used in building an annex to a corner store. Out Williamsburg Avenue at Denny Street they were repairing the roadbed and cobble stones lay loose around.

Just as the car reached the corner and was about to turn into Williamsburg Avenue a husky gent in the crowd seized a tomato about as big as a canteloupe and hurled it at the motorman.

This missile missed its mark, however, and struck Amos squarely in his map. The car stopped and brushing the debris from his face, the gallant officer grabbed his assailant and hustled him on the car.

Amid the hoots of the crowd and followed by a shower of apples and potatoes the car sped on toward Denny Street and the road up town.

Reaching First Police Station atop Old Market at Sixteenth and Main, Amos presented his prisoner before Sergeant Mathews.

He was booked on a charge of disorderly conduct, and was bailed for his appearance before Justice John Crutchfield the following morning.

"What's the charge?" asked the justice.

"Chucking tomatoes at a police officer," said Sergeant Thomas, the court cryer.

"What have you to say for yourself?" asked Justice John, "as he scrutinized the accused."

"Nothing," said the man, "except you got the wrong man. I was in Petersburg yesterday, and I couldn't have thrown a tomato at the policeman."

He produced a number of witnesses to verify his statement.

Amos looked at his friend the reporter and grinned.

"Same man with a different name," the officer commented.

"What can I do about it?" the Justice wanted to know. "Here are a dozen witnesses swearing this man was in Petersburg yesterday, and you say he lambasted you with a tomato. How about it?"

"He's the man all right." Sergeant Amos averred. "I have no witnesses, so it is up to you."

"Well," Justice John went on, "as this is a Democratic government and the majority rules, I have to dismiss the case."

*          *          *

The crowd of witnesses filed out and proceeded to their favorite corner in Fulton to have some more fun with the strikebreakers.

The strike waxed hot and hotter.

Out Seventeenth Street way there was trouble on a serious nature. Strikebreakers of the Farley-type had charge of the cars. The energetic reporter got mixed up in the affair, and suffered injury to his good right ankle.

Amos and the cub were on a car proceeding slowly along Seventeenth Street toward the Locomotive Works and the Railway shops. All went well on the north-bound trip.

"You fellows better watch out coming back," warned the motorman.

About 200 yards from the northernmost fence of the railway shops an open window to a shed loomed ominously.

"From that window," cautioned the motorman, "a shower of bolts and nuts and other small pieces of metal may come from the dark recesses. So, watch out, and be ready to dodge.

Sure enough, just as the car reached a spot immediately opposite the window, came a number of bolts and nuts.

The motorman was on the lookout, and while peering into the atmosphere between himself and the window a bolt struck him on the left cheek, carrying away about half his face. He fell back against the reporter and the officer rushed along the runningboard to his assistance. Blood flowed like water--and there wasn't a soul in sight, save the injured carman, Amos and the cub.

In the confusion the trolley pole escaped from the wire and dangled in mid-air. The car sped on, unattended and wild. Amos gathered the unconscious motorman in his arms and sought to stop the flow of blood. The reporter tried vainly to readjust the trolley rope and made things worse, as the car sped on toward Main Street.

At Grace Street a crowd of strikers and sympathizers, scenting a change of tragedy, rushed after the speeding runaway and one man succeeded in an effort to get the trolley back in position. Then he stopped the car, and a volunteer assisted in taking the car to the shop at Vine Street and Main from which point the injured man was removed to a hospital, where he remained under treatment for several days.

Amos made several arrests, but nothing came of it, for lack of witnesses.

Then came the military and from then on for several weeks the city almost resembled the same old town during war times.