Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 20, 1921 Lick Creek Tent Colony, Mingo County – Attorney West Describes Raid
From The Wheeling Intelligencer of June 18, 1921:
MINE WORKERS’ LAWYER MAKES ALLEGATIONS OF RUTHLESS ACTS AT THE MINERS’ TENT COLONY ———- Declares State Police and Volunteers Were Disorderly and Destructive When They Raided the Homes of Union Miners ———-
Lick Creek Tent Colony after Raid of June 14, 1921
Special to The Intelligencer.
Charleston, Va., June 17-Secretary-treasurer Fred Mooney, of District Seventeen, United Mine Workers of America, tonight made public the following report just received from the union’s lawyer, Thomas West, who was detailed to make an investigation of the activities of the state police in raiding tent colonies of union coal miners in Mingo county:
Williamson, W. Va., June 16.
H. W. Houston, Charleston, W. Va.
Dear Sir-On yesterday morning I visited the Lick Creek tent colony for the purpose of taking some statements regarding the outrage perpetrated there on the day before [June 14]. I found that the state police and their volunteer confederates [company gunthugs] had ripped up twenty or more tents. Some of them had probably a hundred slits up them, averaging about six feet each, and had knocked the legs out from under their cooking stoves and the stove pipes down, and where they found anything cooking on the stove they swiped it off into the coal box, as a rule found just back of the stove. They found some tables set for dinner and they turned these with the legs up and the dishes and food left on the under side.
They broke open every trunk and rifled every drawer. They dumped all the clothes they found out into the middle of the floor and kicked them all over the place. They dumped an organ out of one man’s tent over the hill and hit a phonograph with an axe or some other heavy tool.
They poured kerosene oil into a churn of milk found in one of the tents and in others they found such oil and poured it into the meal and flour. In one tent they found a considerable quantity of canned fruit and they put this on the bed clothes after turning them upside down on the bed and broke it up. They put the mattresses on the floor and ripped them open and put the springs on top of them.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 19, 1921 Lick Creek Tent Colony, Mingo County – The Death Alex Breedlove
June 18, 1921, Affidavits of James Williams and Willie Hodge:
STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA, County of Mingo, to wit:
James Williams, being duly sworn upon his oath, says that he is a resident of the Lick Creek tent colony and that he was there on the 14th day of June, 1921, when the same was raided by State police and their confederates and deputy sheriff, and when Alex Breedlove was murdered; that he was about 30 feet from Breedlove when he was shot and saw James Bowles, State policeman, shoot him; Bowles was about 6 or 7 feet from Breedlove, and Breedlove had his hands up above his head at the time he was shot; Bowles said to Breedlove, “Hold up your hands, God damn you, and if you have got anything to say, say it fast,” and Breedlove said, “Lord, have mercy,” and instantly the gun fired and Breedlove fell. They were standing facing each other and Breedlove just above him on the hill.
At the same time Victor Blackburn, a special State police, was shooting at Garfield More, who was behind a tree, the same tree that Breedlove had just been behind, and after Bowles had called Breedlove to come out from behind the tree and put up his hands and come to him and he had done so and then was shot, Bowles immediately turned his gun on Garfield Moore, but did not have time to fire until he was shot in the back by another State police who was lying flat down on the ground straight down the hill below Policeman Bowles; that at the crack of his rifle a half dozen or more women who were there screamed out, “Look out, man, you are shooting your own men,” and ask him to get away from there; that he would get them all killed.
Affiant thereupon said to the man who had shot Bowles, “Yes; you done shot this man up here now,” and at that he said to affiant, “You are a damn liar, you damn black———-, you get away from there.” And thereupon the said police who had shot Police Bowles fainted and was carried off the ground by Willie Ball and carried under a bridge across Lick Creek. He remained under this bridge 30 or 40 minutes, with a lot of union miners who had taken shelter under said bridge.
JAMES WILLIAMS.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this the 18th day of June, 1921.
THOMAS WEST, Notary Public.
Willie Hodge, being duly sworn, says that he was present when Alex Breed love was shot and that the statement made about his shooting by James Williams is correct.
WILLIE HODGE.
Sworn to before me this the 18th day of June, 1921.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 17, 1911 Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1911 Found in Pittsburgh Speaking at Rally on Behalf of James McNamara
From The Pittsburg Press of May 28, 1911:
BIG RALLY BY HOSTS OF LABOR ———- Demonstration Against McNamara “Kidnaping” Transformed Into Meeting in Favor of the P. R. R. Strike ———-
DEBS, “MOTHER” JONES AND DE LEON SPEAK —–
One of the biggest labor demonstrations ever known in this community took place last night around the old bandstand in West Park, North Side, where from over 6,000 persons, mostly workingmen, gathered to listen to vehement addresses protesting against the arrest and “kidnaping” of Secretary James [John J.] McNamara, of the Bridge and Structural Iron Workers. Widely-known Socialist leaders, among them Eugene V. Debs, “Mother” Jones and Daniel de Leon, were the principal speakers of the occasion.
The demonstration, which was originally instituted in behalf of McNamara, was transformed by the remarks of Mr. Debs, before the meeting was half an hour old, into a rally in the interests of the striking Pennsylvania Railroad shopmen. Debs urged every man and woman present to throw the weight of his or her influence in favor of the strikers.
The meeting was preceded by a parade half a mile long from the Labor Temple on Webster avenue to the Allegheny parks. Probably 4,000 men were in line. In the van was a large squad of the city mounted police. The procession proper was led by the local Socialistic organization, members of which turned out in large numbers. The strikers from the Twenty-eighth street shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad came next in order, and a big delegation from the Ormsby shops, on the South Side, formed the rear.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 16, 1921 Lick Creek Tent Colony of Mingo County – Striker Alex Breedlove Shot Down
From The New York Herald of June 15, 1921:
ONE KILLED, TWO HURT IN NEW MINGO FIGHT ————— 47 in Tent Colony of Idle Miners Are Arrested. ———-
WILLIAMSON, W. Va., June 14.-One men was killed, two others were wounded and forty-seven residents of the Lick Creek tent colony of idle miners near Williamson are held in the county jail as the result of the fight to-day at Lick Creek between authorities and the colonists.
Alex Breedlove is dead, while James A. Bowles, State trooper, was wounded and Martin Justice, in charge of the colony, received wounds in the cheek and leg.
The fight started after Major Tom Davis, commanding Mingo under martial law proclamation, had returned to Lick Creek with reinforcements of citizen State troopers to arrest about two-score of the idle miners, as his forces had been fired on in the vicinity earlier in the day. Trooper Bowles, in charge of a party of citizen State police [deputized company gunthugs], encountered several men near the colony. Orders from Bowles to throw up their hands brought shots, it was said, resulting in Breedlove’s death and in the wounding of Bowles.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 15, 1901 Mother Jones Leads Silk Mill Strikers to Victory at Scranton
From the International Socialist Review of June 1901:
The silk weavers’ strike at Scranton, Pa., which was directed by Mother Jones, and which has been pending for many months, was won by the workers, while the strike at Paterson, N. J., was lost, owing largely to the fact that the courts issued an injunction against the women and children, and the police assaulted them for attempting to persuade scabs to refuse to work. “Mother,” besides organizing for the unions, is now putting in some spare time in forming unions of domestic servants.
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We have just received the following letter from “Mother Jones,” which we must again offer in place of the promised article. We feel sure that our readers will appreciate the reason for the delay:
Dear Comrades:
I owe you an apology for not writing to you before. You know I had a strike of 4,000 children on my hands for three months and could not spare a moment. If that strike was lost it meant untold oppression for these little helpless things. They came out victorious and gave their masters a good hammering. I could not write a thing for June, but will for July.
I have had a very hard winter’s work, but have done just as much for socialism as if I were writing articles. One very cheering feature is that the cause is growing everywhere. I have been landing plenty of literature In the hands of the boys.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 14, 1911 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Freed
From The Philadelphia Inquirer of June 13, 1911:
WOMAN SOCIALIST FREED ———- Court Grants Appeal From Magistrate and Remits Fine
Appealing from the decision of Magistrate Scott, who fined her $10 for obstructing the highways, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, a labor organizer and social worker, received a favorable decision from Judge Kinsey in Quarter Sessions Court yesterday by having the magistrate’s action reversed and the fine remitted.
This is the second time within a week that Miss Flynn has succeeded in having the court overthrow the action of the police of the Twentieth and Buttonwood streets station. She was arrested twice while speaking in the vicinity of the Baldwin Locomotive Workers.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 12, 1901 Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1901, Part II Found Organizing in Pennsylvania and West Virginia
From The Muncie Daily Times of May 16, 1901:
SERVANT GIRLS’ UNION. ———- Mother Jones’ Rules For Kitchen and Nursery Work.
“Mother” Jones is preparing to organize a servant girls’ union at Wilkes-barre, Pa., as well as in Scranton and has drawn up these rules, says the New York World, which the union will enforce at each, “place:”
Ten hours’ work a day and no more.
An increase in wages according to the the size of the house and the work required.
No one shall work for less than $3 a week.
Cooks shall not act as ladies maids or take care of babies.
Nursegirls shall not be required to act as cooks.
It shall not be necessary to stay in nights while the mistress goes out.
If more than ten hours work a day shall be required, a double shift must be employed.
An amusement room shall be furnished for the girls so that they shall not be required to sit in the kitchen all the time.
Visitors shall be allowed to call upon them any night they are off duty.
Wages must be paid every week.
They shall have the privilege of putting their clothes in the family wash.
Their meals shall be the same as those of the family.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 11, 1901 Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1901, Part I Found Standing with Silk Mill Strikers of Pennsylvania
From The Scranton Republican of May 2, 1901:
SILK MILL STRIKERS
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Girls at the Klotz Works
Back at Their Frames
-Mill at Taylor Still Idle.
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MOTHER JONES’ BIRTHDAY ———-
Today all is serene at the silk mills of Scranton. Klotz mill, the first to go on strike, resumed operations yesterday. The reason they did not start Tuesday was because the proprietor persisted in retaining Emily Mailet, a forewoman who was unsatisfactory to the strikers. A committee from the Klotz local waited on Mr. Klotz Wednesday afternoon with the result that he agreed to recognize the union, allowed them the 8 and 12 per cent. advance, and grunted the usual half holiday for five months of the warm weather. Besides this, he said that if the action of the forewoman in question should result in any further trouble he would investigate the matter thoroughly, and discharge her if the case so demanded.
[…..]
It is an interesting fact that yesterday marked a complete resumption of work among the Scranton silk mills, and it was also the birthday of “Mother” Jones, to whose vigorous efforts among the strikers this resumption is largely due. Yesterday marked the 58th milestone in her journey of life, and she said that before two years more shall have passed and she will have reached her 60th year, she expects to fight many another battle in the cause of labor. It is remarkable that a woman of her age, who has gone through so many excitable experiences, should be hail and hearty at the dawn of her 59th year and possess the vigorous mind that “Mother” Jones does.
Last evening she opened the entertainment of Harvey’s local in the “New hall” on Pittston avenue, and received hearty applause from the audience.
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