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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 21, 1911
“Be Reasonable,” Says Worldly Wiseman, Cartoon by Ryan Walker
From The Coming Nation of October 14, 1911:
Month: October 2021
Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Art Young on the Necessities of Life: “Plenty of Demand-No Market”
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 20, 1921
Cartoon by Art Young: “Plenty of Demand-No Market”
From the Appeal to Reason of October 15, 1921:
Hellraisers Journal: W. V. Attorney General England Blames Gunthugs Employed by Coal Operators for Lawlessness
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday October 19, 1921
West Virginia’s Attorney General Puts Blame on Company Gunthugs
From The Labor World of October 15, 1921:
Hellraisers Journal: Sworn Affidavits Tell of Murder of Union Bricklayer in Logan County Jail by Deputies of Sheriff Chafin
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 18, 1921
Paul Comiskey, Union Bricklayer, Murdered in Logan County Jail
From The Nation of October 5, 1921:
THERE is just one point at issue in the whole sequence of violence and homicide that has led West Virginia into a state of virtual, although unacknowledged, civil war. It is the right to belong to a labor union as represented by the United Mine Workers of America. In the strife-torn territory—the southwestern counties of Mercer, McDowell, Logan, and Mingo—there are no demands for workers’ control, for higher wages or shorter hours. There is not even any immediate question of recognition of the union or collective bargaining.
It is important not to lose sight of this elementary fact in the detail likely to be uncovered in the promised investigation of the West Virginia situation by the Committee on Education and Labor of the United States Senate. Such an inquiry was begun in the summer but adjourned after a few days. Subsequently Senator Kenyon of Iowa and Senator Shortridge of California spent three days—September 18 to 20, inclusive in the coal fields of Mingo and Logan counties and a fourth in talking with State officials in Charleston. On this trip no formal hearings were held nor was any testimony taken under oath. The announced purpose was to get a picture of the country and to lay the base for a searching inquiry later on…..
Now as to suzerainty over county governments exercised by the coal companies and the use of hired gunmen. The two go hand in hand. The entire State of West Virginia has an unenviable reputation for control by the coal operators, but in the actual producing fields local government is at their mercy. Through their mines, their company-owned stores and dwelling houses, their subsidized preachers and teachers, the operators control the livelihood and the lives of virtually the whole population. Hence, politically, the region is their pocket borough. The operators admit and defend the practice of preserving order through deputy sheriffs, paid partially or entirely out of company funds. In addition to these privately-owned public officials, there are also mine guards, armed and exercising police functions without a vestige of authority. Among both these latter classes there are many men whose methods and records justify one in calling them thugs and gunmen. “Private detectives” of the Baldwin-Felts agency are used largely in Mercer, McDowell, and Mingo counties. They are not employed in Logan County. There Sheriff Don Chafin and his company-subsidized deputies rule supreme. When Senators Kenyon and Shortridge went into Logan County they sent word ahead that they especially wanted to see Chafin, but upon arrival he was not on hand and was reported to be away resting after his strenuous efforts in defending the county against invasion by the marching miners a few weeks previous.
His efforts then were indeed strenuous according to two affidavits filed with the Senatorial committee, Floyd D. Griggs, sworn before a notary public at Montgomery, West Virginia, on September 6, declares that he arrived in Logan on August 24 looking for work. Two minutes later he was arrested by a deputy sheriff and taken to the jail. Greggs then states:
On August 29th about 12:30 a. m. I was taken from jail by three armed deputies and taken to the County Court House and into the presence of Don Chafin, sheriff of Logan County, who pinned a white band around my left arm, and was then conducted by the aforesaid Don Chafin into another room of the Court House which was filled with arms and ammunition and told to select a Winchester rifle and go to the front to fight.
I told him that I carried a rifle for eighteen months in the Fifth Regiment, United States Marines, and that I did not intend to go out there and fight against a working man as I was a working man myself. He then drawed a .45 calibre revolver and putting the muzzle in my face told me that I would either fight or die. I told him to shoot as I was not going to fight. He then ordered me sent back to jail.
On Thursday, September 1st, about 7 p. m., I saw a union bricklayer [Paul Comiskey] from Huntington, W. Va., shot down in cold blood murder in the corridor of the jail, not three feet from my cell. Two shots were fired. Two deputies then taken the man that was shot by the feet and dragged him from the jail and across the C. and O. R. R. tracks toward the river.
Greggs concludes by saying that on the night of September 2 he was released by Don Chafin personally, who gave him fifteen minutes to get out of town and until daylight to get out of the county “or get my head blown off.” The affidavit of Greggs is corroborated by one made by Colmar Stanfield, another inmate of the jail at the time, who adds the details that the murdered man was a union bricklayer from Huntington and that he was shot because he refused to fight against the marching miners. Both affidavits name the man who did the shooting, but owing to the gravity of the charge and the absence of an indictment I omit it…..
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[Emphasis and paragraph break added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Industrial Worker: “Union Scabs Working on Harriman Lines; 30,000 Shop Men on Strike”
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 17, 1911
30,000 Shopmen on Strike on Harriman Lines; Union Scabs Continue Working
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of October 12, 1911:
It is estimated that there are 30,000 shop men, members of the Federated Shopmen’s Union, now on strike on the Harriman lines. The strikers comprise four crafts, which includes the blacksmiths, carmen, machinists and boilermakers. Up to the present time the men remain firm in their demands and few desertions are recorded, if any. Much of our news has come through the capitalist press and therefore we are forced to read between the lines. That there has been an earnest effort on the part of the strikers to keep the professional scabs from going to work in many places is certain. We have not heard of any bricks being thrown at the switchmen, who are also members of the A. F. of L., neither has many firemen, who are firing the coal into the engines that pull scabs around the country, had their heads knocked off.
There is some hope expressed that the strike may extend. We hope so. We hope that every craft now employed on the Harriman system will discover the fact that they are also employes of the Harriman management and have interests in common with the strikers and so long as they continue to work when four crafts are battling for better conditions, that they are scabbing. If the strike goes the way of many strikes it cannot be said that it was LOST. It will be of some benefit to the workers, as it will point the way to a more solid organization. It will demonstrate that it was not the so-called professional scabs that caused the temporary defeat, but was caused directly by the union scabs who stayed and helped the master whip those who were battling for better conditions. Until all the slaves working for the one industry and all the slaves working for all the industries recognize that “an injury to one is an injury to all” it will be a case of recording defeat after defeat. Not a train has been bottled up so far on the Harriman system and it would be absurd to say that the object in a strike is not to bottle up a railroad or other industry and FORCE the boss to come to terms. To FORCE concessions is the object of any strike, then why not have enough FORCE?
Is it creditable to go into an affray knowing that you have not enough FORCE to be victorious? Is it creditable to be always getting whipped? We hope the federated crafts will win their strike. We hope all strikes could be won. It is our one desire to not only win the little strikes known as skirmishes, but to win the BIG STRIKE when the boss will be FORCED to do his share of the work of the world instead of living off the toil of labor. If the strikers will only discover the fact that there are other scabs than professional scabs and will treat other scabs in the same way and with the same contempt as they are those who are directly taking their places or attempting to, the strike will be of short duration. Bottle up the railroad. Make the other crafts strike or forever damn them as the lowest scabs on earth. Make them fight to help you if possible. Send back their resolutions of sympathy and call a spade a spade. Call a scab a scab. Let every railroader on the Harriman lines lay down his tools or be condemned as a traitor to the working class. It’s a skirmish in the great class struggle, then fight it on class lines.
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[Emphasis and paragraph break added.]
Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks to Detroit Auto Workers
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 16, 1911
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Speaks to Detroit Auto Workers
From the Spokane Industrial Worker of October 12, 1911:
GURLY FLYNN IN DETROIT
———-ELIZABETH GURLEY FLYNN
-DAUGHTER OF INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTION
-DELIVERS THE GOODS IN DETROIT
-GOOD CROWD PRESENT.
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Local No. 16, Automobile Workers, I. W. W., engaged Turner Hall for a lecture to be held in the afternoon of September 24. On account of the train being late three hours that was to bring the speaker from Cleveland the meeting had to be postponed until 7:30 p. m. Money for tickets was refunded at the door to those who thought of spending the evening some other place. Later on it rained to beat the band, but many came anyhow. No use in giving an account of her lecture. Let the workers go and hear her message of hope to the toilers, her masterful arraignment of the futility of craft unionism, her logical , convincing and comprehensive explanation of industrial unionism as a bonafide expression of industrial or shop solidarity. The I. W. W. de facto and not the “ism” as an ideal to the exclusion of the real, was emphasized at every opportune time. Only “ism” propounders should take notice. It’s the goods that count every time and the I. W. W. is the means to get the goods.
No questions were asked except on the position of the I. W. W. toward politics. And one “Sabotage” was “recognized.” Ha!ha! Recognized! by whom? By the desk revolutionists that never worked in a shop but want to be “it” in every respect in the labor movement, of course. Answer, brilliant. Go and ask that question at her meeting and get it first hand. We also took up a collection to continue the propaganda-nearly $10; some “subs” taken and literature sold. If not for the rain a full house would have listened to her. As it was the crowd was full-of enthusiasm.
An incident worth mentioning took place in the afternoon in front of the hall. Section sidewalk of the S. L. P. was busy distributing some of their labor “savioring” dope. “A Mutt” cam along, ordering them away from the entrance to the hall. Well, they went away and never came back in the evening to put their questions.
“A. MUTT.”
Hellraisers Journal: Progressive Woman: “Socialism Will Not Rest on the Drudgery of Little Children” by Ralph Barton
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 15, 1911
Cartoon by Ralph Barton: Predatory Wealth and Child Labor
From The Progressive Woman of October 1911:
The Capitalist: “Suffer the little children (of the working class)
to come unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of Capitalism.”—————–
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1901, Part III: Found Writing for the International Socialist Review
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 14, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1901, Part III
Found Writing on Behalf of Working Class Men, Women, and Children
From the International Socialist Review of September 1901:
A Picture of American Freedom
in West Virginia
———-[By Mother Jones]
SOME months ago a little group of miners from the State of Illinois decided to face the storm and go to the assistance of their fellow-workmen in the old slave state of West Virginia. They hoped that they might somehow lend a hand to break at least one link in the horrible corporation chains with which the miners of that state are bound. Wherever the condition of these poor slaves of the caves is worst there is where I always seek to be, and so I accompanied the boys to West Virginia.
They billed a meeting for me at Mt. Carbon, where the Tianawha Coal and Coke Company have their works. The moment I alighted from the train the corporation dogs set up a howl. They wired for the “squire” to come at once. He soon arrived with a constable and said : “Tell that woman she cannot speak here to night; if she tries it I will jail her.” If you come from Illinois you are a foreigner in West Virginia and are entitled to no protection or rights under the law—that is if you are interested in the welfare of your oppressed fellow beings. If you come in the interest of a band of English parasites you are a genuine American citizen and the whole state is at your disposal. So the squire notified me that if I attempted to speak there would be trouble. I replied that I was not hunting for trouble, but that if it came in that way I would not run away from it. I told him that the soil of Virginia had been stained with the blood of the men who marched with Washington and Lafayette to found a government where the right of free speech should always exist.
“I am going to speak here to-night,” I continued. “When I violate the law, and not until then will you have any right to interfere.” At this point he and the constable started out for the county seat with the remark that he would find out what the law was on that point. For all I have been able to hear they are still hunting for the law, for I have never heard from them since. The company having called off their dogs of war I held my meeting to a large crowd of miners.
But after all the company came out ahead. They notified the hotel not to take any of us in or give us anything to eat. There upon a miner and his wife gave me shelter for the night. The next morning they were notified to leave their miserable little shack which belonged to the company. He was at once discharged and with his wife and babe went back to Illinois, where, as a result of a long and bitter struggle the miners have succeeded in regaining a little liberty.
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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1901, Part II: Found in Carbondale, Speaking at Golden Jubilee Celebration
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 13, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1901, Part II
Found at Carbondale, Pennsylvania, Golden Jubilee Celebration
From the Scranton Tribune of September 4, 1901:
BIGGER even than that of Monday was the crowd thronging Carbondale yesterday, when Labor held sway in the semi-centennial celebration.
All the industries and most of the stores were closed and their thousands of employes turned out en masse to participate in the jubilation. The mines in Carbondale and from Forest city to Archbald were idle for the third day in succession and the minters in consequence were rife for a march.
It was in fact a miners’ celebration for they composed three of the four divisions of the parade; it was their leaders who were the distinguished guests, and nearly all the events of the day had a mine flavor.
Quite appropriately it might be called “Mitchell Day.” The president of the United Mine Workers was far and away the feature of the day. He was the chief guest of honor, the principal speaker at the labor mass meeting, the honoree of the evening reception and everybody wore a Mitchell badge…
The weather was of the same delightful character as that of yesterday except in spots, and one of these was a very aggravating spot. Just as President Mitchell was warming up to the principal address of the meeting, the rain commenced to fall heavily.
The crowd seemed bent on weathering the storm but President Mitchell abruptly terminated his speech, with regrets that the meeting was interrupted…..
The first event of the day was the reception of President Mitchell and the other labor leaders who came up from Scranton on the 8:30 D. & H. train. A delegation of the Central Labor union escorted them from the station to the Harrison house and introduced to them the hundreds who were assembled to give them greetings.
The remainder of the morning was given over to the labor parade. There were nearly twenty thousand in line, including many of the most celebrated of the miners’ leaders.
At 1:30 o’clock occurred the unveiling of the tablet marking the site of the first underground anthracite mine in America. Addresses were made by Mayor Kilpatrick, Reese Hughes whose father worked in the mine; President Nicholls, of District No. 1, of the United Mine Workers; “Mother” Jones, of the American Federation of Labor, and Charles Law, son of Archibald Law, the man who opened the mine.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for September 1901, Part I: Found in Cleveland, Ohio: Gives Interview, Celebrates Labor Day
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 12, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1901, Part I
Grants Interview in Cleveland, Speaks at Labor Day Celebration
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer of September 2, 1901:
“Mother” Mary Jones, who has been associated with the miners and silk workers in their strike, arrived in Cleveland on the Big Four yesterday afternoon [September 1st]. She is registered at the Forest City house. Mrs. Jones was met at the train by a committee of four and conducted to her apartments at the hotel. The committee consisted of two members of the Central Labor union and two of the Woman’s Labor union.
An address will be given by Mrs. Jones this afternoon at Scenic park to the members of the Central Labor union. The theme of her lecture will be “The Necessity for Organization in the Field of Labor.” A reception will be given her after the address.
Mrs. Jone came to Cleveland from the New river district in West Virginia, where she has been working among the miners for the past two months. In the evening she will leave for Carbondale, Pa., where she will give a lecture. From there she will return to West Virginia.
“Come right in!” called Mrs. Jones in a hearty, motherly voice, in response to a rap at the door, “I like to talk to newspaper men. They belong to the workers.”
What do I think of the present steel strike? I believe all strikes are good. They are bringing us nearer the goal we are striving for, that is, equalization of wealth.
I don’t believe that the Amalgamated association struck merely to show its power. The men had real grievances. If they weren’t dissatisfied they wouldn’t have quit work. Perhaps they won’t win, but whether they do or not a great deal will be accomplished.
[She continued:]
We are a nation of strikers. We inherited the disease from our revolutionary fathers, and have been striking ever since. We will continue to strike and strike until the laboring men are emancipated.
I don’t know when that time will be, but it won’t be as long as most people think. Something will have to change before long or we will have another French revolution. The poor people who are oppressed will not stand being trodden upon too long. “The worm will turn.”
In the West Virginia mines there are boys six years old who work ten hours a day, and this is in order that a few may live without work.
[She exclaimed, her eyes flashing:]
It’s a shame and an outrage. We call ourselves Christianized and civilized, and such things in our midst. It’s a mockery.
The whole system of labor is wrong and must be changed. I hope at the ballot box, but-well-it must be changed.
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