Robert Prager
Robert Paul Prager was a German immigrant who was lynched in the United States during World War I due to growing anti-German sentiment. Prager initially worked as a baker in southern Illinois before taking up work as a laborer in a coal mine. He eventually settled in Collinsville, a hub for mining activity.
During a period of heightened anti-German hostility, Prager applied for membership in the Maryville, Illinois, local chapter of the United Mine Workers of America but was rejected. Following this rejection, he angered local miners by posting copies of a letter around town in which he criticized the union's local president and expressed his dissatisfaction with the decision.
A mob of 200 to 300 men forced Prager from his home in Collinsville, making him walk barefoot and wrapped in an American flag along Main Street, where he was beaten and harassed. Although the police initially took him into custody, the mob regained control, seizing him from Collinsville City Hall and accusing Mayor John H. Siegel of being pro-German. Unable to find tar to carry out a tarring and feathering, as had been done to other victims, the mob's leaders instead used a rope to hang Prager to death at a prominent bluff outside the town.
Eleven men were tried for Prager's murder, but all were acquitted. Rumors circulated that Prager held socialist beliefs, which were viewed with suspicion at the time. Members of the mob alleged that he was planning to blow up the coal mine, but no evidence supported these claims, and Prager had not been charged with any crime.
Biography
Robert Paul Prager was born on February 28, 1888, in Dresden, Germany. He emigrated to the United States in 1905 at the age of 17. Initially working as an itinerant baker, he was sentenced to a year in an Indiana reformatory for theft. By the time the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, Prager was living in St. Louis, Missouri.Prager demonstrated strong patriotism for his adopted country. The day after President Wilson's war speech on April 2, he filed his first citizenship papers to begin the naturalization process. He registered for the draft and attempted to enlist in the U.S. Navy, as aliens were promised citizenship upon successful military service. Prager also displayed an American flag from his window at all times. When his St. Louis landlord objected to the display, Prager reported him to the police.
Prager was rejected by the Navy for medical reasons. After briefly living in various towns in Missouri and Illinois, he settled in Collinsville, southern Illinois, in the late summer of 1917. He initially worked as a baker for an Italian named Lorenzo Bruno. In early 1918, attracted by the high wartime wages miners were earning, Prager began working as a laborer at the Donk Brothers Coal and Coke Company Mine #2 in nearby Maryville. However, he was denied permanent membership in the United Mine Workers of America Local 1802, possibly due to his argumentative personality or suspected socialist beliefs.
Background
Labor issues in Collinsville
In 1918, coal mining was the economic backbone of Collinsville, with seven mines operating in and around the city. Over half of the city's male working population was employed in the mines. The industry also attracted itinerant miners, many of whom lacked familial ties to the community. A significant portion of the miners were immigrants or had at least one immigrant parent, with most originating from European countries.The United Mine Workers of America had five local chapters in the Collinsville area, and miners held a dominant influence in the community. However, radical elements within the UMW unions led to a series of wildcat strikes at Collinsville-area coal mines during the summer and fall of 1917.
Almost simultaneously with the wildcat strikes, a unionization strike at the St. Louis Lead Smelting and Refining Plant in Collinsville galvanized many coal miners and other union members in the community. The strike occasionally turned violent.
In an unusual development, Collinsville police officers and Madison County Sheriff's deputies—many of whom were former miners—sided with the striking workers from the Lead Works, as well as the coal miners supporting unionization. Industry owners responded by hiring strikebreakers, who faced harassment from both union members and law enforcement officers, often on local streets and in streetcars.
The strike at the Lead Works created social tensions similar to those that had preceded the East St. Louis Race Riots earlier in 1917. In that community, owners had hired Black workers to break strikes, fueling racial and labor unrest. In Collinsville, ethnic white workers opposed the use of "imported" labor, and many of the non-union workers hired at the Lead Works were Black, further exacerbating tensions.
The wildcat coal mine strikes and the unionization strike at the St. Louis Smelting and Refining Plant led to the radicalization of many Collinsville coal miners. They felt emboldened by the lack of resistance from community leaders and local law enforcement to their actions during 1917–1918.
Wartime patriotism and paranoia
The federal Committee on Public Information aimed to garner support for U.S. entry into the Great War, which had been raging in Europe since 1914. Many Americans held a largely isolationist viewpoint and believed the U.S. should not get involved in Europe's problems. At the same time, anarchists and socialists largely opposed U.S. entry into the war, focusing instead on addressing domestic issues such as labor injustices and economic inequities.The CPI's campaign reached the newspapers and produced buttons and posters to support the war effort, aiming to raise patriotic support. Additionally, the CPI controlled the release of news and photographs of the war to newspapers and magazines.
Meanwhile, Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917, which criminalized actions that could interfere with the military or military recruitment, such as making statements that might discourage potential soldiers from registering for the draft or enlisting. The Espionage Act also prohibited the mailing of materials that could harm the government's war efforts. The government used this act broadly to suppress anarchist and socialist activists, whom it opposed. There had been considerable labor and social unrest prior to the U.S. entry into the war.
Locally, many residents of Collinsville attended patriotic events, such as National Draft Registration Day on June 5, 1917, and the organizing meeting of the Collinsville Neighborhood Committee of the Illinois State Council of Defense on March 27, 1918. Many immigrants and their descendants were eager to prove their loyalty to the United States. A number of Collinsville men enlisted, while many more were drafted to report for military service starting in September 1917. However, the city's residents failed to meet Liberty Bond sales quotas for both bond drives in 1917. In November 1917, Leighton Evatt died from pneumonia in France, becoming the first war fatality from Collinsville.
Nearly every club or organization in Collinsville conducted regular fundraising to support the soldiers or the military effort. The Red Cross became the leading war support organization locally, with nearly 4,000 members by the end of the war. Although some residents complained about fuel and food conservation measures, most people in Collinsville complied with the guidelines, not wanting their loyalty to be considered suspect.
Government propaganda urged residents to be constantly on alert for enemy spies. The war heightened the unease of native-born Americans about the growing immigrant population in the country. On December 29, 1917, the Collinsville Advertiser reported, "Every German or Austrian in the United States, unless known by years of association to be absolutely loyal, should be treated as a potential spy."
Because Germany was opposed to Great Britain and France, ethnic Germans in the United States—who had previously been among the most respected immigrant groups—faced increasing anti-German sentiment. Examples of this sentiment included the changing of street names and the discontinuation of German-language classes in many communities. Groups such as the All-Allied Anti-German League and the Boy Spies of America reported any activities they deemed suspicious.
In the coalfields of southern Illinois, miners administered extralegal justice against both real and perceived enemies. In a form of charivari, they tarred and feathered some men and drove others out of town through mob harassment. A Lutheran minister from a Collinsville-area church was forced to leave the community because he reportedly refused to renounce his German citizenship. Nationwide, harassment of German immigrants and those of German descent peaked in early 1918.
Lynching of Robert Paul Prager
Prager's application to join UMW Local 1802 was rejected on April 3, 1918. After the union meeting that evening, miners paraded him near saloons in Maryville and then warned him to leave town. Prager was angered by his rejection from Local 1802 and the loss of his job. The following morning, he wrote a letter to the Maryville miners, complaining that he had been treated unfairly by Local 1802 President James Fornero. "I have been a union man at all times and never once a scab ," Prager wrote. He denied accusations that he was a German sympathizer, stating, "I am heart and soul for the good old USA. I am of German birth, of which accident I cannot help." On the afternoon of April 4, he posted copies of this letter near the Maryville mine and nearby saloons.Leaving work at the end of the day, the Maryville miners were enraged to see copies of Prager's letter. A group of about six Maryville men went to Prager's Collinsville home in the 200 block of Vandalia Street, bringing along dozens of men who had been drinking at a nearby saloon. The group arrived at Prager's door around 9:45 p.m. and ordered him to leave town. Soon after, they demanded that Prager come out and kiss the flag to demonstrate his patriotism.
Prager was instructed to remove his shoes; wrapped in the flag and barefoot, he was paraded along Main Street in Collinsville, passing numerous saloons where miners and other working men were drinking. Many of the drinkers joined the mob, which soon grew to about 300 people. At approximately 10 p.m., three Collinsville police officers took Prager from the mob at Main and Seminary Streets and placed him in jail for his safety, in the basement of City Hall, three blocks away.
The mob reassembled on Main Street, with several hundred men marching behind a U.S. flag and singing "The Star-Spangled Banner". They stopped at the front steps of City Hall. Mayor John H. Siegel and a few others attempted to calm the mob, urging the men to allow federal authorities to handle Prager's case. Siegel argued that if Prager were a German spy, federal investigators might uncover important information.
The mob, attacking Siegel and other officials for their German ancestry, accused them of being pro-German as well. During this time, there had been an unsuccessful attempt by police officers to move Prager from the building. Unable to find a way to secretly remove him, they hid Prager among the sewer tiles in the basement after taking him out of his locked cell.
Around the same time, the mayor was informed that Prager had been taken away by federal authorities, and he announced this to the mob. However, many in the mob insisted on searching the building themselves. Believing Prager had been removed, Mayor Siegel agreed. During the search, two members of the mob located Prager and took him back to the remnants of the mob, which had returned to Main Street.