Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 30, 1921 Staples, West Virginia – Miners Die Fighting in Battle with Brockus
From the Baltimore Sun of August 29, 1921:
FIVE MEN FALL AS MINERS AND POLICE CLASH ———- West Virginia Troops Fired On When They Order Band To Surrender. ———-
STATE POSSE THEN FORCED TO RETREAT ———- 1,500 To 2,000 Armed Men Reported Gathered At Blair, Logan Co. ———-
State Police Headquarters, Ethel, W. Va., Aug. 28.-Five men fell in an encounter early this morning between an armed band and State troopers on Beach Creek [which runs into Spruce Fork near Sharples, about 6 miles north of Blair], Logan county, near the Boone-Logan county line, Capt. J. R. Brockus, commanding, State police and deputy sheriffs, reported this afternoon. There was much shooting on either side, he said. Whether all the men who fell were killed, Captain Brockus was unable to state.
STATE TROOPS RETREAT.
He added that after his men had seen those who had fallen picked up and carried away by their companions the State troopers and deputies retired because some of their number were in civilian clothes and it was difficult to distinguish them in the darkness from the men comprising the armed band.
The clash was at close range, according to Captain Brockus’ report, the men firing at each other where but eight to ten feet apart.
Prior to the fight, Captain Brockus said, 11 prisoners had been taken by the patrolling party which set out from Logan yesterday, ostensibly toward Blair and Sharples. Four of the prisoners escaped during the engagement, it was said, and one of them is believed to have been killed.
Captain Brockus was at the head of the advance guard of troopers and deputies. It was this detachment, comprising 12 men that engaged the armed band. The patrol, while proceeding toward Sharples, Captain Brockus reported, ran across five men on foot. All were armed with rifles and one had a shotgun, he said.
CAPTAIN BROCKUS’ REPORT.
“We called upon these men to disarm, which they did,” the Captain continued.
“We placed them under arrest and proceeded down the road. Further on we met two automobiles and placed six additional armed men under arrest.
“With the 11 prisoners we marched on toward Sharples and came upon another squad of five armed men. Some one called to us that we would not be allowed to pass. We called upon them to surrender their arms, but received in reply a volley of shots.
“Our men returned the fire and in the fight five men fell to the ground. We waited until we saw that they were picked up and carried away, and then decided to discontinue the advance for the present. It was very dark and some of our deputies were in civilian clothes, hampering our distinguishing them.”…..
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[Emphasis added, map added from New York Daily News of Aug. 27th.]
Note: this is the same Captain Brockus who perpetrated the raid on Lick Creek Tent Colony in Mingo County in which Striking Miner Alex Breedlove was shot and killed with his hands in the air and a prayer on his lips.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 29, 1911 Chicago, Illinois – Barnes Resigns as National Secretary of Socialist Party
From the Appeal to Reason of August 26, 1911:
RESIGNATION OF BARNES. ———-
J. Mahlon Barnes, national secretary of the Socialist party [Socialist Party of America], has resigned. The resignation was accepted by the national executive committee and John M. Work, who has been head clerk in the national office was made national secretary until an election can be held.
This a consummation of a hard and bitter fight that has been waged against Barnes. There was no charge against his official acts, but only relative to his private life. Twice the national executive committee investigated the charges, and in both case found that while there were many charges, there was no definite proof of his guilt. So soon, however, as an affidavit was presented showing that in day s past Barnes had been guilty of immorality, being charged with paternity of a seven-year-old girl, the action indicated above was taken. Barnes denies guilt, but admits it was best for the party that he retire.
This much must be said of the case, that the Socialist have handled the matter as no other party would dare do. With democrats and republicans it has been assumed that the private life of the individual has absolutely nothing to do with the fitness for public office. The notorious Tom Taggard, who was proven guilty of running numerous house of ill-fame and who was accused in the Ella Gingles case, was chairman of the democratic national central committee, and nothing was said about it. So soon, however, as it was charged that the private life of a Socialist official was not all it might be there was agitation, that amounted to a clamor, for his removal, and when the first affidavit, which made definite and positive charges, was brought to light, resignation was offered and accepted.
Nothing could more clearly show the attitude of the Socialist Party on questions of personal purity and nothing could demonstrate more clearly that the Socialist party is capable of managing its own affairs and having its will executed.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 28, 1921 Madison, West Virginia – Keeney and Mooney Convince Miners to End March
From The Wheeling Intelligencer of August 27, 1921:
GEN. BANDHOLTZ INDUCES ACTION BY THE LEADERS ———-
600 OF THE MARCHERS HAD REACHED MADISON ———- Conditions Reported Quiet on the Boone Highways Friday Night. ———-
Madison, W. Va., Aug. 26.-The march of miners from Marmet to Mingo in protest against martial law came to an end late today, when President C. F. Keeney, of district 17, United Mine Workers of America, induced 500 or 600 of the men to agree to return to their homes. Keeney said that special trains would be provided for the men here, while the thousands along the road between Madison and Peytona had already taken the back track.
Mr. Keeney said he was trying to have a train get here tonight. It is only a short run over the Coal River branch of the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad to St. Albans, on the main line, and an equally short one from there to Charleston.
To Board Trains for Home.
He planned, he said, to get the men here aboard the train at the earliest possible moment., for they were footsore and weary, and many of them had marched a long distance before they reached Marmet.
A meeting of the advance guard of about 600 marching miners was held in the baseball park here, the men occupying the grandstand. Enough stragglers had come in along the Peytona- Madison road to swell the audience to about 600.
They sat in the bright sunshine and listened intently while Mr. Keeney and Secretary Mooney explained to them the details of the conference they have had with Brigadier General H. H. Bandholtz, U. S. A., representing the war department, in Charleston this morning. Mr. Keeney told the men that General Bandholtz had insisted that march end at once, and suggested the possible course of the federal government if the men persisted in the determination to pass through Logan and into Mingo county.
Told to Go Home.
Two or three of the miners, who were said to be leaders among the men, also addressed the meeting. The more conservative of these speakers urged the men to take such advice as Mr. Keeney had to offer.
Mr. Keeney promptly told them to go back home.
That broke up the meeting and some of the audience who had joined the marching force from this vicinity, immediately started for their homes…..
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SITUATION AGANIN CRITICAL WHEN MARCHERS REFUSE TO TURN BACK ———-
Failure of State Authorities to Send Trains Criticized -Band of 500 Seize Train, and Are Headed for Logan County. ———-
Charleston, W. Va., Aug. 26.-
The situation here tonight is critical. State officials made a serious mistake in not sending trains to Madison before dark to take the miners back to their homes.
This statement was made at 11:30 tonight by C. Frank Keeney, president of District No. 17, United Mine Workers, who is reported to have “turned the men back” in their march from Marmet toward the West Virginia side of Tug river, in Mingo County.
At the same time, State Tax Commissioner Walter S. Hallanan and other state officials received reports that a crowd of armed men estimated at 500, had commandeered a train at Clothier, on Coal river and were headed toward Blair, Logan county. Most of the armed men boarded the train at Danville…..
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 27, 1921 Madison, West Virginia – Advance Forces of Miners’ Army Reaches Danville
From The Washington Times of Aug 26, 1921:
Page 1:
By International News Service.
MADISON, W. Va., Aug. 26.-The advance forces in the union miners’ “army” of 5,000 men, which is marching toward the Mingo county strike zone, arrived at Danville, a little hamlet along the Coal river, two miles northeast of this place, at noon today.
The men had been marching since 3 o’clock this morning, at which time they broke camp at Racine, sixteen miles northeast of here. The marchers were tired but maintained orderly lines. They hope to reach the Boone-Logan county border by tonight.
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By International News Service.
CHILLICOTHE, Ohio, Aug. 26.-Two hundred Federal soldiers from the Columbus barracks arrived at Camp Sherman today to join the 19th United States Infantry here, which is prepared to move at a moment’s notice, into Mingo county, West Virginia.
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By International News Service.
MADISON, W. Va., Aug. 26..-C. F. Keeney, of Charleston, president of district No. 17, United Mine Workers of America, left here this morning to head off the invasion of Logan county by 5,000 armed union miners.
Guns and Planes Ready.
Just before leaving Kenney said he had been advised that the sheriff of Logan county had machine guns planted covering all roads and that airplanes were loaded with bombs. Any attempt to march through Logan county would mean a massacre of the union miners’ force. Keeney made haste to reach the men before bloodshed resulted.
The marchers left Racine today for Madison and will not reach here until late this afternoon or tonight. The miners’ army is 12 miles from here now.
Deny Pitched Battle.
Published reports that Sheriff Don Chafin of Logan county and 300 Deputies had engaged in battle late Thursday with the miners’ army were flatly denied by both Kenney and local authorities. A small rumor was magnified into a great fact last night, it was stated. There was no battle or trouble of any kind.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 26, 1921 Marmet, West Virginia – Telegram Read by Mother Jones Declared “Bogus”
From The Wheeling Intelligencer of August 25, 1921:
Charleston, W. Va., Aug 24.-Reports received at the offices of Governor E. F. Morgan that the men, estimated by county officials to number more than 5,000, most of them armed, assembled at Marmet from the coal fields of eastern Kanawha county, had taken a vote today to break camp and return to their homes, were denied tonight by C. Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney, president and secretary-treasurer respectively of District 17, United Mine Workers of America.
It was the first statement that has come from the offices of the miners’ union here, since the men began to assemble last Saturday. It was in answer to a statement coming from the governor’s office to the effect that Keeney and Mooney had a “tilt” with “Mother” Jonesover the purported speech to the men this morning advising them to return to their homes during the course of whichshe was said to have read a telegram from President Harding urging the men to break up their camp.
Both Keeney and Mooney declared the telegram purporting to have come from the president was “bogus.” They said they called George B. Christian, secretary to President Harding by long distance telephone this afternoon who told them, they say, that “no such telegram was sent by the chief executive.”
Alleged Harding Message.
[Keeney and Mooney said:]
“Mother” Jones went to the camp of the miners on Lens Creek, Tuesday night and told the men she would bring them a message from President Harding on Wednesday.
This morning the men sent a committee of two to Charleston to request us to go to Marmet and verify the telegram. We returned with the committee, arriving in time to hear “Mother” Jones address some 500 miners assembled at the lower end of the camp, advising them to go home. She read a telegram which she said was signed by President Harding, in which the president asked the miners to stand by the constitution and return to their homes and work and promising them he would use his power to drive the Baldwin-Felts guards from the state, never to return.
After she had finished reading the telegram, we asked “Mother” Jones to show it to us. She refused to comply and some strong words were exchanged.
Keeney and Mooney said they then returned to Charleston and called President Harding’s secretary, who, they say, denied that any telegram had been sent.
“Mother” Jones Leaves.
“Mother” Jones could not be located here tonight. At the hotel at which she stopped while in the city, it was said she checked out today and left on Chesapeake & Ohio train No. 2 for the east.
Keeney and Mooney said they investigated the reports that the men assembled at Marmet had taken a vote to return home and “found them unfounded and untrue.”
Small groups of armed men straggled into the camp today, according to information received by Sheriff Henry A. Walker, and he estimated the number now assembled to be approximately 6,000. Reports earlier in the day that the men would be joined by others from the coal fields of Indiana and Illinois could not be verified. Trains coming in from outside the state have not carried more than the usual number of passengers today, railroad men said tonight.
Two large automobile trucks belonging to C. H. James & Son of this city were chartered by five men from Marmet today, and provisions were solicited from Charleston stores and restaurants. Purchases were also made for the men in camp in Charleston stores, 15,000 loaves of bread having been bought from a grocery company. The trucks were manned by five residents of Marmet led by C. Silvas and [?] Medley both miners.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 25, 1921 Marmet, West Virginia – Mother Jones Headed for Miners’ Camp at Marmet
From The West Virginian of August 24, 1921:
MOTHER JONES GOES TO MARMET
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Charleston Citizens Still Hope
There Will Be No Trouble
CHARLESTON, August 24-Mother Jones, well know as a leader among miners, left here this morning for Marmet where about 3,000 miners have been in camp as a protest against the state of martial law in the Mingo county coal field.
She was to have addressed the men, who had moved their camp five miles from the original site, which was described as a more comfortable location.
While recognizing the gravity of the situation occasioned by the presence of so large a body of men within striking distance of the capital public officials and leading citizens here expressed the opinion that under proper leadership the incident would be closed without serious result.
It was recognized, however, that the situation still contained elements of danger particularly if the original program was carried out and the men carried out their march through Boone and Logan counties to Mingo.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 23, 1921 Dedham, Massachusetts – July 14th, Sacco and Vanzetti Convicted of Murder
From the Industrial Pioneer of August 1921:
Sacco-Vanzetti: Victims
By Art Shields
Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Nicola Sacco, Rosina Sacco
AMERICAN workers are getting hardened to the prostitution of capitalist courts,—so the conviction of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in the court house at Dedham, Mass. [on July 14, 1921], does not bring the shock that such action would have brought ten years ago, but none the less the case is the most glaring perversion of that abstraction known as “justice” that has been seen in years.
The multitude of evidence proving the innocence of these two working men of the charge of killing a paymaster and a shoe company guard at South Braintree, Mass., in May, 1920 has been put before working class readers time and again, so there is no need to go over it here. Nor is it necessary to recount again the methods which the Department of Justice and the labor-hating state police of Massachusetts used, to put over their nefarious act. It has been told before in this case and others, the putting of stoolpigeons into adjacent cells with stories of their I. W. W. connections and their desire for dynamite to blow up the prison, for the purpose of entrapping the defendant into conversation in order to pervert his remarks later. The use of witnesses, who were far away from the scene, the burglarizing of defense offices; these and a dozen other dirty finkstunts are nothing new to any intelligent worker.
The point is that these workingmen, whose crime was their advocacy of economic direct action in the shoe and cordage mills of New England, and their determined resistance to the murder tactics of the secret police in the case of their fellow worker, Andrea Salsedo, who pitched to his death from the fourteenth story window of the Department of Justice in New York, the point is that these men have lost a legal battle with the owners of the law.
The lives of Sacco and Vanzetti will not be saved without direct action. This does not mean to state that further legal efforts will not also be necessary. But what is meant it that the added power, the kind of power that obtained the release of Ettor, Giovannitti and Caruso from the death cage at Salem, after the Lawrence strike of nine years ago, comes from the force of organized labor in motion.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 22, 1921 Miners Gather at Marmet with Plan to March on Mingo by Way of Logan
From the Baltimore Sun of August 21, 1921:
Charleston, W. Va., Aug. 20 (Special).-Fifteen hundred coal miners from the Lens Creek, Cabin Creek and Paint Creek regions are camped tonight in a narrow valley at Marmet, eight miles east of here. Augmented by about 500 others from Little Coal river, they declared they will start tomorrow for Mingo county by way of Logan county in protest against martial law there.
Newspaper men who visited the camp this afternoon estimated at least 700 of the men were armed. Most of those had rifles and shotguns and others carried side arms. The two newspaper men who went to Marmet were escorted back to Charleston by six miners armed with rifles, who came as far as Kanawha City with them. As soon as they were forced to leave the valley a force of 100 men, armed with rifles, surrounded the camp to prevent outsiders from intruding…..
UNION HEAD “HANDS OFF.”
S. F. [C. F.] Keeney, president of District 17, United Mine Workers of America, said tonight that the men could march to Mingo as far as he was concerned and that he would not interfere. He said that he had been informed the miners were to have a meeting at Marmet, but that he had not been invited to attend. “I wash my hands of the whole affair,” he declared. “I’ve interfered time and again to stop such enterprises. I seem to have halted them only temporarily. This time they can march to Mingo, so far as I am concerned.”…..
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