One thing was conspicuous as usual, and that was the loudest talking agitators wanted somebody else to do the fighting. They were willing to hold the coats but their precious heads were not put in jeopardy.
—Editorial, Collinsville Advertiser, April 13, 1918
It was past 11:30 p.m. as motorman James Moore and conductor J. P. Harrison brought their East St. Louis and Suburban streetcar up and out of the Mississippi River Valley on the Caseyville Road, taking the long, steady incline into Collinsville, Illinois. Theirs was one of the last cars of the day headed out of the Edgemont Station, near East St. Louis.1
Given the time of day, passengers were few on the brisk Thursday evening of April 4, 1918. They included the young Reverend P. G. Spangler and his wife, Ruby. The day before had been their six-month wedding anniversary, and they had enjoyed the evening in St. Louis, a respite from the demands of being the wartime pastor of the First Baptist Church in Collinsville.2 Patriotism ran high in the city, as did tension. Increasingly, Spangler was conflicted by his congregation’s desire to support the war effort and his given call to spread the word of God.3 Quite often the two did not align, at least in his opinion.
A few rows away, Maida Gilmore, eighteen and attractive, rested as she rode the interurban line to her parents’ home. It had been a long day, first with her shift at American Carbon and Battery Company.4 The plant was so busy with orders for the War Department it could scarcely find enough girls to hire. After work she and some of her coworkers visited a sick friend before seeing a moving-picture show in Belleville.5
The streetcar climbed the grade up into Collinsville, then turned onto the St. Louis Road east, headed toward Collinsville’s Main Street. The car seemed to slow early for the next stop, at the West End Saloon and the Hardscrabble Mine of the Abbey Coal Company. It was unusual for this time of night. And the noise of a loud and boisterous crowd soon told the passengers why.
At the Hardscrabble stop, more than two hundred men and boys were cheering and shouting.6 Two men carried the American flag in front of the disorderly procession, but the main attraction was held by two others in the mob. They brought a small man with thick brown hair and a moustache to the center of the streetcar tracks, allowing its bright white light to illuminate him for the passengers to see.7 He was a prize worth showing off, the men said, because he was a German spy. A pro-German, the kaiser’s man, the crowd said. But tonight he would share in their drink of patriotism.
His gaze was uneven, his face drawn with fear. Those on the streetcar didn’t know quite what a German spy should look like, but it didn’t seem it would be the slight and hobbled figure held before them tonight. As the mob paraded him down the side of the interurban, some of its members said he would meet with tar and feathers. Others said they would kill the spy. Whatever would happen, this mob would have its way.
The mob told the man to sing “The Star Spangled Banner” and shout patriotic expressions for the benefit of those on the streetcar.8 Earlier there had been talk of placing the pro-German over the tracks and having the motorman run over him, but nothing came of it.9 Unlike the man they held captive, the faces in the mob were familiar to the riders from Collinsville. Mostly they were coal miners. And mostly they were drunk. Many were but half-grown boys who whooped and hollered just for the fun of it all.10
One face in the mob was very familiar to Maida Gilmore. She moved to the window as she spotted her red-haired father amid the unruly troupe.11 She didn’t know what they were up to, but she knew it would not be good. “Papa, come on home now,” she cried out to Calvin Gilmore in a trembling voice.12 His response was to continue west with the mob. Maida went east on the streetcar toward home.
So did Reverend Spangler and his wife. He didn’t feel the pro-German was in great danger, or he would have made an effort to dissuade the mob.13 Quite a few men like that captive had been paraded up and down the small-town streets of southern Illinois in recent weeks. A few had been tarred and feathered, but mostly they had just been made to display their patriotism to Uncle Sam. There was a war on, after all.
Robert Paul Prager, thirty, continued west with the mob too, but he had no choice in the matter. In his broken English, the German immigrant continued his feeble efforts to sing patriotic songs.14 Tears welled up in his brown eyes whenever he kissed the flag for the men. He occasionally would shout out a patriotic phrase for the benefit of his captors. “Three cheers for the red, white, and blue.”15
With a man on each arm, Prager was alternately pushed and dragged westward on the St. Louis Road, part of what was also known as the National Road. The two men holding him made it easier for the others to repeatedly hit Prager with their fists, sometimes hard enough to knock him down.16 It had been this way since he was abducted from City Hall nearly an hour earlier.17 And it would continue for nearly another mile, until the mob had him outside the city limits. Until the boys had their fill of him.
Whether he was truly a spy or merely pro-German, everyone wanted to teach him a lesson. Earlier some of the men had said that he planned to blow up the Maryville mine. But no one seemed to actually know him; it was just what they had been told. At this point it really didn’t seem to matter. The mob was much too riled up to care.
The leaders at the forefront were holding their prey, beating him, pushing the meandering effort to create the night Collinsville would just as soon forget. They were spurred on by the cheers and jeers of the younger boys and the older men who challenged them to give no quarter.18 Show the pro-German just how tough Americans are. The agitators stayed behind the mob, never steering the wheel but surely supplying the fuel. Those crying loudest for action would not soil their hands by touching Robert Prager.
Most people in the mob were actually little more than bystanders. They may have shouted at the pro-German occasionally, but they were primarily just curious about what would become of him. Several cars followed, most containing young men with no intention of missing one of the most exciting things to happen in Collinsville for years.19
There seemed no particular plan of what to do except torment the man and get him out of Collinsville.20 One of the cars following the mob contained four city police officers. Their goal was to see that nothing too wretched happened to the pro-German, inside Collinsville anyway, less the mob tarnish the city’s fair name.21 The police planned, one officer said later, to dash up and take Prager from the mob if it attempted to lynch him. All four were armed with revolvers, and no one in the mob was believed to have any type of weapon. Yet by the time they reached the western city limits, the officers had made no attempt to rescue Prager, and they simply returned to their station.
The motley entourage continued out the St. Louis Road and stopped about one quarter mile past the city boundaries, atop Bluff Hill. Where the pavement ended by the streetcar tracks, Prager was ordered to remove his socks and shoes so he would have to walk on the rough surface with bare feet.22 Someone asked if there was any need to continue down the hill, but no one could offer a reason. By this time the crowd had thinned to about one hundred people, a few actively involved in tormenting the hapless prisoner but most passively watching.23
At first the leaders were uncertain of what to do with Prager.24 Eventually, their inebriated kangaroo court decided a coat of tar and feathers would well suit the pro-German.25 They believed tar could be found at Schmidt’s Mound Park, a tavern and resort four miles west, between Collinsville and East St. Louis.26 Never mind that the mob had walked within a stone’s throw of a barrel of tar at the Hardscrabble Mine, less than a mile back.
One of the mob leaders approached an automobile driven by eighteen-year-old Harry Linneman. He was driving the service car for Bitzer Garage that night, but curiosity had gotten the better of him. He and some friends decided they would follow the midnight parade. Three or four members of the mob stepped onto the running boards and ordered Linneman to drive to Schmidt’s Mound Park. He already had eight passengers and protested to no avail that the car would be overloaded, that he didn’t want to go. Drive, Linneman was told, and he did.27
Schmidt’s Mound Park was so named because it sat next to an ancient Indian burial mound. Its proprietor, John Schmidt, offered a tavern and beer garden, with fried chicken dinners also served. The interurban line stored tar at Schmidt’s to maintain the roads and its rail beds.
When the overloaded car arrived from Collinsville, the men on the running boards jumped off and beat on the door of Schmidt’s home. It was about midnight. Impatient—and on a mission—they began their search before Schmidt could come to the door. They found baled packages of asphalt, which they didn’t take, but somehow overlooked fifteen casks of tar. We’ll get it back in town, they told Linneman, and ordered him back to Collinsville.28
Atop Bluff Hill the mob leaders used the interlude to harass and interrogate Prager. Was he a German spy? Had he planned to blow up the Maryville mine? Why didn’t he keep his date to meet with a miners’ union official in Edwardsville yesterday? Prager denied their accusations. Some questions he did not answer.29
Returning from their fruitless journey, Linneman drove up the steep incline of Bluff Hill to the north side of the blocked roadway. The men jumped off, and the leaders once again discussed their options. One man went to the service car driven by Linneman. In the tonneau compartment, he found a length of half-inch manila rope, used for towing disabled cars.30 At this early morning hour, it would serve a different purpose.
Mobs hold great power, not great wisdom. They have the ability to bring out the worst in all who partake. They pander to the loudest voices, the lowest thoughts, and the most abhorrent behavior. People of otherwise little account become leaders, become empowered. It was Joe Riegel, a drunk, impulsive troublemaker, who became a leader this evening. A twenty-eight-year-old army veteran, he was earlier at the front of the charge to take Prager from police custody. Since then Prager had scarcely left his grasp.31
“The mob,” Diogenes said, “is the mother of tyrants.” And so it was that the drunken Riegel was given unto the City of Collinsville that night. When he found the rope in the car, Riegel knew just what to do with it.32 The German spy, Riegel said, would hang.
Rope in hand, Riegel walked over to a sprawling hackberry tree, barren of leaves, on the south side of the roadway. “This will do,” he said.33 He then scrambled up the tree like a squirrel, placed the rope over a limb about twenty feet in the air, and slid back down.34
These sobering preparations had the effect of stilling what had been a boisterous and rowdy crowd.35 Many backed away, wanting no part of what they thought could occur next. Conspicuous now in their silence were those who had earlier called loudest for Prager to die, those who had been most vocal in demanding violence.
Also silent were a number of businessmen and community leaders, men whose curiosity had earlier gotten the better of them when they decided to follow the mob. Now in the instant when it seemed the affair would turn deadly, none stepped forward, individually or as a group, to lodge any protest. They included store proprietors, a city alderman, a barber, and both Collinsville newspaper publishers, who may have followed just to get the story. They were men of standing in the community, men whose word would be respected. Yet they would say nothing to the mostly younger, drunken men and boys leading the action. Driven by fear of the mob or perhaps disdain for the German alien, their quiet complicity would help leave a stain on Collinsville for generations to come. They, like the men who had been so vocal earlier, slipped back into the shadows cast by the newly risen half-moon.36
Harry Linneman felt increasingly uneasy too and started to drive back into Collinsville. But he was stopped and told to point the car toward the tree, so the headlights could be used for illumination. Some of the other drivers were directed to do the same.37
When Prager was finally led to the tree, he seemed resigned to his fate. Cecil Larremore, seventeen years old, searched Prager’s pockets and looked for anything incriminating.38 Asked if he had anything to say, Prager was stoic, “Yes, I would like to pray.” He knelt on the ground, clasped his hands in front of him, and prayed fervently in German.39 Those who understood said he called on God to witness that he was innocent and being made a scapegoat of unreasonable hate. Yet he also called on God to forgive those who persecuted him. Prager asked for remission of his sins, confessing that he had many faults, but said he was loyal to the United States. Hearing enough after about three minutes, someone pulled Prager to his feet.40
Unwilling to intercede yet knowing the hanging would be a travesty of justice, some onlookers still could not tear themselves away. One man said to another: “They ought not to do that.” The other man agreed, saying: “It’s plain murder, but what can you do?”41
Just before he was strung up, Prager asked that the Stars and Stripes be brought to him one more time. When his captors complied, he kissed the flag, tears again welling up in eyes. Prager lifted his head up and said: “All right, boys, go ahead and kill me,” in his halting English. “But wrap me up in the flag when you bury me.”42
With the noose secure on Prager’s neck, Riegel called for people to help with the rope. In response most of the crowd stepped farther back. Riegel pulled up on the rope by himself three or four times, but he was unable to lift Prager. He called out to the crowd, “We’ve gone this far, boys. Don’t let there be any slackers here.”43 Another appeal was made for people to at least touch the rope, to show they were all involved. Again many took a step backward.44 But fifteen or twenty men did step toward the rope, and together they lifted Prager off the ground.45
But no one had bothered to tie his hands behind his back. As Prager was raised into the air and started to choke, he instinctively grabbed for the rope above his head to relieve the pressure on his neck. Riegel called out for him to let go of the rope, but Prager did not and continued to struggle. Another man in the crowd yelled, “Let him down. Let him say something if he wants.”46
Once again on the ground, Prager was asked if he was going to tell who he was “mixed up with.” Perhaps not understanding the question, Prager said he had three partners but refused to divulge any names. He also said his parents were living, and he wanted them to be contacted. “Brothers, I would write a letter,” he said.47
It is uncertain whether Prager was trying to buy time or if he truly wanted to reach out to the family in Germany he probably hadn’t seen in thirteen years, but the mob allowed him to write. Riegel and twenty-year-old Charles Cranmer led Prager over to the three surrounding automobiles. They moved to the front fender of Louis Gerding’s machine, the only one with a spotlight.48 Cranmer, who earlier had gotten off work at National Stockyards in East St. Louis, still had a pad of waybill sheets in his pocket. He gave Prager one of the sheets and a pencil.49
As Prager started to write the note in German, some protested at not knowing what he was writing. “All right,” Riegel said, “let him go ahead.”50 Prager simply wrote that he was going to die and made a final request of his family: “Please pray for us, my dear parents.” He said it was his last letter and “sign of life.”51
After completing the note, Prager handed it to Riegel and gave the pencil back to Cranmer. Riegel scanned the note and asked Prager what it said, to see if the German was “putting anything over on him.” Prager then asked Cranmer to write his father’s name and address on the note.52 Someone asked how they might get a letter to Germany during wartime. “Through Washington,” Prager said.53 With that Prager was escorted back to the tree.
Again he was asked if he had any local family members or partners in his alleged crimes. Prager shook his head no this time. He didn’t seem to want to talk anymore. “Well if he won’t come in with anything, string him up,” someone said.54
This time Prager’s hands were tied behind his back with a handkerchief. More men moved to the rope as he was lifted ten feet into the air. Five or six men then tied the working end of the rope to a roadside telephone pole.55
Hanging, done correctly, provides a means to quickly break a man’s neck. The shock of the body weight against the rope will typically break one or more cervical vertebrae or perhaps stop all blood flow to the head. Breathing ceases, and the heart peacefully stops within a few minutes.
But the hanging of Robert Prager, like most lynchings, was not done in the most humane fashion. With no sudden drop to break his neck, he was left to suffocate on the rope, first struggling for air, then convulsively jerking due to lack of oxygen. The last desperate struggles of Prager served to drive most of the dwindling crowd even farther away from the tree or to leave. One man nonetheless walked up and pulled on the German’s bare toes.56
For more than fifteen anxious minutes, his body grotesquely twitched and convulsed at the end of the rope.57 Finally some of the men decided they would finish the matter. They untied the line and let the body fall three times before jerking the rope to try to break his neck. “One for the red, one for the white, and one for the blue,” someone said, proclaiming their patriotic work done for now.58
Only a few men were left to watch Prager’s final earthly moments. A handful quietly celebrated, but most broke off in twos and threes to silently make their way home.59 The top of Bluff Hill was quiet once again, almost tranquil. In early April with the trees not yet full, those atop the bluff could see the lights from St. Louis, only ten miles west.
Just across the St. Louis Road from the hanging tree lay Hillside Park, where five days earlier Collinsville had celebrated Christ’s resurrection with an Easter egg hunt. More than two thousand residents turned out for the event, called “one of the great successes of the kind ever given in this City.”60
One of the highlights Sunday had been the performance by the Collinsville Concert Band. When it played “My Country ’tis of Thee,” the whole crowd joined in singing.61 Standing by the hilltop tree where Robert Prager’s lifeless body now hung, one would have heard the lyrics:
My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountain side
Let freedom ring.