Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 30, 1921 Mingo County – Governor Orders Army to Enforce Martial Law on Union Miners
From The West Virginian of June 28, 1921:
CHARLESTON, June 28.-Governor E. F. Morgan by proclamation here today reaffirmed his declaration of martial law in Mingo county and commanded the assessor to enroll all persons liable under the law for military duty.
He also ordered the sheriff to draft 130 men or to accept 130 volunteers who are to be mustered into the service of the state for 60 days to enforce all orders promulgated by the Governor.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 29, 1911 Mother Jones Tells of Women and Children in Rat-Infested Jail
From the Evansville Press of June 29, 1911:
PETER POWERS TALK -WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIGHT JAIL RATS.
Gilson Gardner’s story of women and girls thrown into a vermin-infested rat-hole called a jail because they “disturbed the peace” by beating a tin can and singing at a strikebreaker in Westmoreland-co, Pa., is not overdrawn.
I have just received a letter from Mother Jones, “the angel of the miners,” who has gone into Westmoreland-co, Pa., to lead in the unequal fight of the impoverished men, women and children against the gigantic corporations.
[Writes Mother:]
There were three generations in jail because they could not pay $10 apiece in fines to a corporation ‘squire, who might as well have demanded $10,000 as $10. There was a mother, her three months’ old baby and a grandmother besides two little children who could not walk, huddled together in a foul prison fighting off rats. Can such conditions prevail in Russia? I doubt it. I know they would not be tolerated in monarchial England or Germany. The men of this nation who permit such outrages are cowards.
The so-called judge who sentenced the women and children to jail without mercy is an ardent church-goer. Last Sunday 2,000 miners and their wives and children marched-it’s an old custom and second nature of miners to hold processions. The church people sent the Cossacs to tell us not to play the band or do any singing, as they were praying. Perhaps if we had disobeyed we would nave been in contempt or court.
Mrs. Dot Smith, Aged 19, and Her Three- Months-Old Baby, Sentenced to 20 Days in County Jail For Beating a Tomato Can and Making Sarcastic Remarks While a Scab Was Passing Her House.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 28, 1921 Washington, District of Columbia – Senate Committee to Investigate Mingo
From the Martinsburg Journal of June 25, 1921:
Washington, June 24.—Tho Senate is to investigate the situation in the coal fields of Mingo county, and to probe the causes leading up to the shooting which broke out in that community several weeks ago. The senate resolution directing the investigation to be made by a special committee of the senate was adopted by the senate Wednesday afternoon by a viva voce vote, and without opposition. Senator King immediately moved a reconsideration of the vote and the motion to reconsider went over. But the resolution was adopted by such a substantial vote that there would seem to be no more chance for its defeat on reconsideration.
Sam B. Montgomery, former state labor commissioner of West Virginia has been here for several days insisting upon the investigation being made by the senate. Senator Hiram W. Johnson, of California, was the author of the resolution which was adopted, and he also insisted upon its passage.
Thinks It Will Help.
Mr. Montgomery, in the last two days, has called upon the president, the attorney general and George Christian, secretary to the president and impressed on each of them the views of organized labor in West Virginia, to the effect that the investigation should be made.
In the opinion of Mr. Montgomery, the investigation by the senate will end all the trouble and prevent farther shooting in Mingo county. He pointed to the good results which followed the senate’s investigation of conditions on Cabin creek, and predicted that good will follow this investigation also, both for the operators and the miners.
While the motion for reconsideration is pending, the final adoption of the resolution will be delayed, and until its adoption the personnel of the investigating committee will not be announced. But it is the intention of the senate to have the committee appointed and the investigation started at the earliest possible moment.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 27, 1921 West Virginia Federationist Demands Removal of Gunthug Army
From the Duluth Labor World of June 18, 1921:
CHARLESTON, W. Va., June 16.—In an address to business men in this city Governor Morgan said: “Thank God, the awakening is coming in Mingo county.”
To this statement the West Virginia Federationist replies:
Yes, it is coming, but through no effort of you, the coal masters or any of the state officials.
The awakening will arrive when the federal investigation committee makes public their findings and expose the vicious system of the industrial overlords who have ruled with brute force and crushed a liberty loving people under the iron heel of greed by the usurpation of the constitution and the enforcement of a law of the gun and club in the hands of their thug army, aided and abetted by the public officials whom they own and control.
Governor Morgan was absolutely right when he stated that “the people of West Virginia don’t understand the situation as it exists today.” If they did there would be a mighty roar throughout the entire state demanding that he perform his sworn duty to uphold law and order by removing the private army of coal company thugs from Mingo, Logan and McDowell counties and restore constitutional rights to the citizenship thereof.
If he wanted to acquaint the people with conditions he could have quoted an editorial from the Charleston Mail in openly advocating mob law, said: “What is needed to settle that trouble on Tug river is a few tugs by the sheriff’s assistants at a stout rope.”
In other words, the Mail advocates that the thugs and bums recruited by agents of the coal masters to break the miners’ strike should string up the citizens of Mingo county who are struggling for their American rights and more bread and butter for their families.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 25, 1911 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Arrested for Talking Unionism
From the Appeal to Reason of June 24, 1911:
Gurley Flynn Arrested in Philadelphia
The police arrested Elizabeth Gurley Flynn while talking unionism before the Baldwin Locomotive works at Philadelphia, the other day, and that will help some. The bosses are blind as bats, for they are helping the agitation more than all we Socialists can do. In fact we could make poor progress if they were not such fools as to show the workers they are the kind that we Socialists proclaim them. They furnish the proof. She was held in $400 bail, took down the court proceedings in short hand, and went to the cell for free speech sake. The mass of men who were listening intently could hardly be restrained from knocking out the police for their brutality. It made many Socialists when no other kind of an argument could.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of June 22, 1911:
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 24, 1911 General Mosby and Rebel Army Defeated at Tijuana
From The San Francisco Call of June 23, 1911:
John R. Mosby
TIA JUANA, Cal., June 22.—Armed resistance to the authority of the Mexican government in Lower California has practically ceased. General Jack Mosby and his men, comprising the second division of the Mexican liberal army in Lower California, are prisoners of Company D, Thirtieth infantry, U S. A., Captain Frank A. Wilcox commanding.
About 100 men in all surrendered at the line, all Americans. They report their loss in the battle with 500 Mexican troops under Celso Vega, jefe politico of Lower California and Colonel Miguel Mayot, as three killed and one dying.
The dead are: George Morgan, Fred Rogers, Frank Smith.
Mortally wounded: Captain Holland of troop C.
Wounded and disabled: Lieutenant Barkalo, shot in groin.
The rebel prisoners of the United States troops were taken to San Diego this afternoon and conveyed to the guardhouse at Fort Rosecrans to await disposition of their cases by the government at Washington. In the meantime they will be treated as prisoners of war.
The rebels were divided into five troops, A, B and C, about 155 in all, Americans; and D and F, Mexicans, about 75 men. So far the Mexicans have scattered below the line, and some of them are said to be fleeing before scouting parties of the Mexican troops.
The loss of the Mexican force, at a late hour this afternoon, was not known, but it was believed to be heavy. B troop of the rebels at one time was within 50 yards of the federal firing line, and it is believed many Mexicans were killed at that time.
The Mexican force under Vega and Mayot occupies Tijuana, Lower California, this afternoon.
According to stories told by the rebel prisoners at the American troop camp the Mexican federal force had three machine guns and one field piece in action against them. The field piece was using canister and shrapnel alternately, they say. It was the machine guns and field piece that caused the retreat of the rebels.
The federal force was well placed three miles from Tijuana. It occupied hills commanding all approaches from Tijuana, and, greatly outnumbering the rebels, made an attack a forlorn hope at best.
The battle lasted little more than two hours and was witnessed at a distance by a great throng of spectators from San Diego and intermediate points.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 23, 1911 Poems of James Kelly Cole, Martyr of Spokane Free Speech Fight
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of June 15, 1911:
THE LIFE WORK OF KELLY COLE —————
By Frank Bohn.
James Kelly Cole was killed in a railway accident at Tomah, Wisconsin, November 17th, 1909. He was on his way to take part in the Spokane free speech fight and was riding free.
At that time I wrote a short letter in the [New York Socialist] Call, drawing attention to the self-forgetfulness which led to the untimely death of this young comrade. To me he was simply one of many who were then fighting for freedom of speech in Spokane and elsewhere. I had not even learned his name. It is therefore a peculiar pleasure to discover that, dying in the cause, he left us something very much worth while. A little book of poems entitled “Revolutionary Writings” suggest to us the deep loss suffered by the movement when he went to his death.
His picture as well as his poems makes one regret not to have known him personally. He was a representative of a type-the type of idealistic young Americans of both sexes who are now thronging into the Socialist movement. He was fortunate in having had educational advantages. He had been a student at one of the Chicago High schools and abundant leisure during his youth afforded him opportunity for wide reading on a variety of subjects.
The most significant feature about his personality and his work was the revolutionary spirit. His intense hatred for misrule coupled with his desire for emancipation from wage slavery once led him into a tactical error. He was forced to spend more than a year in the federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 22, 1911 Greensburg, Pennsylvania – Mothers and Babes Locked Up in Rat-Infested Jail
From the Arkansas Democrat of June 20, 1911:
MOTHERS AND BABES TO JAIL ———- In Famous Westmoreland Coal Strike, Which Has Been in Progress Nearly 18 Months, Company is Said to be Taking Severe Steps to End Trouble. ———-
(By Gilson Gardner.)
Greensburg, Pa.-(Staff Special.)-The famous Westmoreland coal strike, which has been in progress nearly a year and a half, has reached a new stage. To win, the coal companies now find it necessary to send mothers with babes and little girls to the county bastile.
A little crippled girl, 14 years old, was sitting on the front porch of her home when the village scab went by on his way from work. The little girl began to laugh at the scab and to sing, “Will There Be Any Stars in My Crown?” For this the town constable, Pat McDonough, in behalf of the Westmoreland Coal Company, swore out a warrant and had it served by the deputy constable. The little crippled girl was arrested, taken to Irwin, a village two miles away, where she was brought up before the local justice of the peace-“Squire” H. L. Meeroff. Tho squire found the cripple girl guilty of “breaking the peace” and sentenced her to the county jail for 20 days. So the prisoner was taken 10 miles to Greensburg, where she was locked up in a jail provided for hardened criminals.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 21, 1921 Miners’ of Mingo County, West Virginia, Fight for Right to Organize
From The Survey of June 18, 1921:
The Conflict on the Tug
[-by Winthrop D. Lane]
Kansas City Star of June 18, 1921
THE gunfire that has been awakening echoes in West Virginia Hills as well as in the United States Senate chamber, where a resolution calling for a Senate investigation of the industrial trouble in that state has been under discussion, is neither a new nor an unexpected feature of the conflict over unionism in the coal fields there. No doubt some of the pictures recently drawn of the reign of feudism in that country have been too vividly colored; private families are not now engaged in the planned extermination of each other as they once were. But if the feud is no longer an active and malignant eruption in the life of the region, the tradition of feudism remains. The men who shot their personal enemies from ambush or in the open did not die without issue; their descendants still tramp the West Virginia and Kentucky hills in large numbers, sit at clerk’s desks in stores and village banks and even occupy the sheriff’s and county clerk’s offices.
The fact is that in the mines and mining communities of those regions there are today men who saw their fathers or grandfathers take their guns down from the wall, go a hundred yards from the house and lie in wait for prospective victims. Life is not held as dearly in such a civilization as in some others. The traditional method of settling disputes is too much by the gun; and when two men cannot agree, the courts are likely to find that the arbitrament of the law has been superseded by the arbitrament of the levelled pistol barrel.
Introduce into such a community, now, an acute modern industrial conflict. Let capital enter and bring forth coal from the hills. Let the whole country become an industrial area. Let the trade union enter and try to persuade the workers to organize. Let the owners and managers of coal mines say: “You shall not organize. We will not let you.” The methods that have been used to settle other disputes will be resorted to in settling this. The nature of the trouble is different, but the way of meeting it is the same. There are in the mines of West Virginia many men who know nothing of this tradition, who were brought up in other environments. But there are also, both in the mines and among the general population, many to whom the tradition is a keen memory. They are familiar with the use of firearms; most of them possess guns. They regard a fight between capital and labor as no different, in the tactics evoked, from any family or domestic quarrel.
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