Month: October 2021

Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: Keeney and Mooney Were Far Away at Time of Alleged Crime

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————–

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 11, 1921
Keeney and Mooney Were at State Convention at Time of Alleged Crime

From the Duluth Labor World of October 8, 1921:

UNION LEADERS WERE FAR AWAY
———-
Keeney and Mooney Were at State Convention
at Time of Alleged Crime.
———-

UMW D17, Mooney Keeney, Lbtr p9, Aug 1920

HUNTINGTON, W. Va., Oct. 6.—At a mass meeting of citizens these ques­tions were submitted to Governor Morgan and the coal owners of southern West Virginia.

“We would like to know how C. F. Keeney and Fred Mooney, president and secretary of the miners’ organi­zation, can be held without bond for a murder which we understand was committed in another county while they were attending the West Vir­ginia state federation of labor meet­ing in the city of Huntington, and the personal aides of the coal owners’ as­sociation, who we know did kill Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers, still run at large on a small bond?

“We would like to ask if the law is being carried out which provides for a weighman at the mines also in re­gard to pay days.

“The coal owners of Logan claim they pay more for coal than is paid in union fields. In the same state­ment they say if their fields were or­ganized the price of coal would be so high the public could not buy. Please explain.”

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: Keeney and Mooney Were Far Away at Time of Alleged Crime” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Socialists of New Castle Freed; Other Socialist Editors Remain in Jail

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote BBH, Win Workers to Revolution, ISR p1096, June 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 10, 1911
Socialist Editors of New Castle, Pennsylvania, Freed

From the Appeal to Reason of October 7, 1911:

New Castle Socialists Freed
———-

New Castle PA, Free Press Fight by Warren, ISR Cv, July 1910

Charles McKeever, Frank M. Hartman and C. H. McCarty, editors of the Free Press, of New Castle, Pa., have been acquitted in the court of the charge seditious libel. This is the ease that has attracted so much attention all over the country. They are arraigned under an obsolete English law that was supposed to have been off the statute books of every civilized state. Had there been no publicity given to the matter no doubt the comrades would have been convicted, but when the people began to realize that a law belonging to the middle ages was sought now as a means of upholding the capitalist system there was such an awakening that conviction became an impossibility.

Although the seditious libel case was decided in favor of the defense, the unheard of action was taken of assessing them half the costs of the prosecution. All the costs of defense and half the cost of prosecution, when they were found not guilty, is a hard burden for them to bear and is an outrage against so-called civilization in America.

But in addition to this, they are under sentence of a fine for contempt of court. This case has cost them a great deal and the flight against the life of the Free Press has lasted for eighteen months. As a result it has been a severe blow to the comrades. Those who wish to help in this fight now that it is won should send fifty cents for an annual subscription to the Free Press. 

—————

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Socialists of New Castle Freed; Other Socialist Editors Remain in Jail” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for August 1901, Part II: Found in Indianapolis at Headquarters of United Mine Workers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Capitalists should surrender gracefully, AtR p2, Sept 14, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 8, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1901, Part II
Found at United Mine Workers’ Headquarters in Indianapolis

From The Indianapolis Journal of August 30, 1901:

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

“Mother” Jones Here.

“Mother” Jones, an official organizer of the United Mine Workers, is in the city for a few days, resting after a long campaign among the miners and children in the factories of the East and South. She will leave to-morrow for Cleveland, O., where she will deliver an address Labor day.

———-

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for August 1901, Part II: Found in Indianapolis at Headquarters of United Mine Workers” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for August 1901, Part I: Found Working Among the Miners of West Virginia, Organizing for U.M.W.A.

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Dorothy Adams re Mother Jones asleep moonlight, Tammany Tx p10, Aug 12, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 7, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1901, Part I
Found Organizing for United Mine Workers in West Virginia

From the Columbus Evening Dispatch of August 2, 1901:

MORE ORGANIZERS
———–
Sent to West Virginia to Unionize Mine Workers.

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

According to information received at the local mine workers’ headquarters, an effort will be made to more thoroughly organize the miners of West Virginia during the next few months. It is understood that the national organization has sent a number of organizers into the field and will soon send more.

Those said to be working among the miners at the resent time are Thomas Burke, Edward Cahill, John H. Walker and “Mother Jones.” of organizing fame.

Heretofore the organization has had a great deal of difficulty in getting the men into line, but owing to the consolidation of a majority of the companies of the state, it is now thought that the men will agree to join the union.

[Photograph added.]

—————

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for August 1901, Part I: Found Working Among the Miners of West Virginia, Organizing for U.M.W.A.” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Battle of Logan County”-Art Shields Reports from West Virginia, Part II

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote EVD Wlg WV Oct 24, Wlg Dly Int p2, Oct 25, 1900—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 6, 1921
Art Shields Reports from West Virginia on Battle of Logan County

From The Liberator of October 1921:

The Battle of Logan County
By Art Shields
———-

[Part II of II.]

WV Battle by Shields, Same Old Line Up by B Robinson, Lbtr p19, Oct 1921

The murder of Hatfield and Chambers in that premeditated fashion on the court house steps was the dramatic event that focused their eyes on the crisis before the whole labor movement of West Virginia. It was now or never for the cleaning up of Mingo County.

Up and down a hundred mountains where men delve deep for coal and even in the black diamond fields of Kentucky and Virginia, men began reaching for their high power rifles for the big hunt again, as in Cabin Creek days. Organization for the purpose was hastily improvised, outside of the United Mine Workers, which did not allow its district machinery to be used, and shortly after the middle of the month thousands of men began to move for the gathering place of Marmet. They came by train or car to this little town and its surrounding fields, there on the border of Boone and Kanawha counties, just sixty-five miles, as the bird flies, or more than a hundred by road, to the Mingo coal fields. The route led straight across the union grounds of Boone County and the thug-ridden lands of Logan.

Thousands of miners, black and white, came at the call: railroad men were there, atoning for the stain cast by the men who were transporting machine guns and thugs into Sheriff Don Chafin’s Logan County lands; building trades men came who knew that the powerful miners’ union held up all organized labor in West Virginia, and machinists and farmers’ boys gathered with the rest. Among the lot were more than two thousand who had taken post graduate lessons in shooting “over there.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Battle of Logan County”-Art Shields Reports from West Virginia, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Battle of Logan County”-Art Shields Reports from West Virginia, Part I

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote EVD Wlg WV Oct 24, Wlg Dly Int p2, Oct 25, 1900—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday October 5, 1921
Art Shields Reports from West Virginia on Battle of Logan County

From The Liberator of October 1921:

The Battle of Logan County
By Art Shields
———-

[Part I of II.]

WV Battle by Shields, Same Old Line Up by B Robinson, Lbtr p19, Oct 1921

“THESE are our hills and we love ’em. We had to fight for them long ago, against the bears and the panthers and the wolves and the rattlesnakes, and now I reckon Don Chafin’s thugs ain’t a-goin’ to scare us out.“

A sturdy old mountaineer of more than three score and ten voiced these sentiments as we stood together on one of the loftiest peaks of Blair Mountain and filled our eyes with the surrounding magnificence of giant shaded valleys and mighty ridges, tossed in forested glory against the sky. It was a garden of towering wonder that blinded my eyes for the moment to the shallow trench at my feet, where thousands of empty shells were ugly reminders that Don Chafin’s machine gunners and automatic rifle men had been nesting there a few days before.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Liberator: “The Battle of Logan County”-Art Shields Reports from West Virginia, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “Pyramid of Capitalism” -“We Work for All; We Feed All”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote BBH Corporation Soul, Oakland Tb p11, Mar 30, 1909

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 3, 1911
“The Pyramid of Capitalism” -Workers of the World Feed the World

From the International Socialist Review of October 1911:

Pyramid of Capitalism, ISR Cv, Oct 1911

—–

Pyramid of Capitalism, text re, ISR p253 Oct 1911

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: “Pyramid of Capitalism” -“We Work for All; We Feed All”” →

Hellraisers Journal: West Virginia’s Mine Guard System: “The Hired Thugs of the Capitalists and Coal Operators”-Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 2, 1911
West Virginia’s Mine Guard System, Brutal Thugs Hired by Coal Operators-Part II

From The Labor Argus of September 28, 1911:

HdLn re West Virginia Gunthugs, Lbr Arg p1, Sept 28, 1911

If there is a place on earth where every right of citizenship is ruthlessly tramped beneath the feet of the brutal tyrants, armed thugs and political traitors it is the nonunion and guard ridden coal fields of West Virginia. Since the introduction of the Baldwin detective agency into the New River and Cabin Creek coal fields, crime has increased instead of being suppressed. More crimes have been committed in Thurmond, Fayette Co. since the Baldwin Feltz detective agency have made it their headquarters than were ever know before, and all of these crimes are traceable to the detectives themselves. This Baldwin Detective Agency is nothing more than a legalized band of Molly-McGuires, commissioned by the Governor of the State and allowed to brutalize, rob and murder the unprotected citizen.

The murder of six or seven miners at Standford City [Stanaford Coal Camp], on Piney, in 1902 [February 25, 1903] by a posse of coal operators and thugs lead by United States deputy marshals was one of the most revolting and cold blooded murders of innocent working men that was ever committed. These poor miners were guilty of no crime; their only offence was they had dared to strike against conditions. The posse lead by deputy marshalls, went to Stanford City in the night arriving just before day light. The first, warning the miners had of their presence came when they were awaken from their sleep by the bullits fired through their thin board houses, by the cowardly posse, bent on murder. Men were shot down like dogs as they ran from the houses in their night clothes; several being killed outright and many more wounded.

An active union miner named Harless [Joe Hiser?] realized that it was death to leave shelter during the firing and remained in the house until after day light, but when he attempted to leave he was shot dead from ambush. Was anything done about this wholesale murder of the innocent? No, it was done in the name of the law. The authorities took the words of the men who did the murdering. But that was just, a beginning of the tyrannical rule of the outlaws.

[There follows a long “partial list of men who have been slugged, beat, robbed and murdered” by coal-company gunthugs.]

These are not all the crimes directly traceable to the detectives, as some will never be known and space will not permit us to enumerate them all. When these guards spot a man they wish to assault, they always try to pick a quarrel, or get into a controversy of some kind. An old trick of theirs is to slip an old pistol into their victims pocket, and arrest them for carrying concealed weapons, beat them up and take them before one of the fixed Justice’s and have the poor victim sent to jail for six months and fined all the money on his person.

All the crimes we have listed have been committed; we can name the guards guilty of the assaults and murders in many cases, but what have our authorities done to protect the life and liberties of these working men? Nothing. Not a man has been brought to account for any of these crimes.

The strong arm of the law is paralyzed and palsied when it comes to protecting the rights and lives of the working class, but let the property of the masters be endangered and you can see how quick the powerful arm of the law will be put into action.

Are conditions any worse than those pictured here in Russia or barborous Mexico? The coal baron rules West Virginia and our officials are but puppets to jump and do the bidding of their masters.

How much longer, Oh! patient and long suffering people are you going to submit to these damnable conditions? Have you and yours not suffered enough already? Then go to the polls next year and vote these conditions out of existence by voting the Socialist ticket. Elect the Socialist to office in Kanawha county in 1912 and it will be moving day with the guards.

—————

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: West Virginia’s Mine Guard System: “The Hired Thugs of the Capitalists and Coal Operators”-Part II” →