Robert Paul Prager Essay
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Robert Prager
Robert Prager was born in Dresden, Germany, in 1886. He migrated to the United States in 1905, and like many of the young men who came to the United States by themselves, he had a difficult time finding steady work and settling down. He was arrested in Indiana for petty theft, and he spent a year in jail. When World War I broke out, he was working in St. Louis, and he felt great enthusiasm for his new country. He became a citizen and tried to enlist in the Navy, but he was turned down because he had a glass eye. He moved to southern Illinois, where he worked for a time as a baker.
Prager seems to have been a disagreeable man, given to arguments. He tried to get a job in the mines in Maryville, and in order to do so he had to join the United Mine Workers. The head of the union rejected him because he was a socialist, but also partly because he was a German. It may also be that the union worried that he was a company spy, trying to find out the plans of the union. For whatever reason, a group of coal miners chased Prager out of town. Perhaps feeling a bit guilty, the head of the union, James Fornero, tried to help Prager and take him to his home in nearby Collinsville. Prager responded in his usual belligerent fashion, and threatened to sue the union and Fornero.
That night the men who had chased him out of Maryville were drinking in a tavern in Collinsville, and they decided they wanted to teach Prager a lesson. They went to his house, stripped him to his underwear, and draped him in an American flag. They then made him march in front of them through the town. A local policeman put him in protective custody in the jail, but by now the rumor was spread that a German spy was in town.
A mob gathered at the jail, and the taverns emptied as more and more rumors swirled. Ultimately, the mob broke into the jail, found Prager hiding in the basement, and marched him to the edge of town. The first attempt to hang him failed, and Prager was lowered and allowed to write a death-scene letter to his parents. He was then strung up again, and this time he died.
There was a subsequent trial and the members of the mob were acquitted.