Month: February 2022

Hellraisers Journal: From New York Call’s Lawrence Strike Edition: Articles, Poetry, Letter from Eugene Debs to Joseph Ettor

Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912
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Quote EVD, Starve Quietly, Phl GS Speech IA, Mar 19, 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 18, 1912
The Lawrence Strike Edition of The New York Call

From The New York Call of February 14, 1912:

re Lawrence Strike Edition of Feb 15, NY Call p1, Feb 14, 1912

From The New York Call of February 15, 1912:

THE LAWRENCE STRIKE EDITION

New York Call Masthead, Lawrence Edition, Feb 15, 1912—–
HdLn Lawrence OBU, NY Call p1, Feb 15, 1912HdLn Lawrence Strikers Unyielding, NY Call p1, Feb 15, 1912

[From page 2-Letter from Debs to Ettor:]

Debs Letter to Ettor, NY Call p2, Feb 15, 1912

[From page 5-“The Children” by Adelbert Truando:]

Poem Lawrence Children Poem by A Truando, NY Call p5, Feb 15, 1912

[From page 6-“The Coming of the Children” by Jane A. Roulston:]

Lawrence Coming of Children Poem by Jane A Roulston, NY Call p6, Feb 15, 1912

Note: also included in The New York Call‘s Lawrence Strike Edition are articles by Joshua Wanhope, Charles Edward Russell, Margaret H. Sanger, a story by Theresa Malkiel, “My Experience as a Lawrence Mill Worker” by A. I. Wolftraub, poems by Sydney Greenbie and M. J. Connolly, and more!

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From New York Call’s Lawrence Strike Edition: Articles, Poetry, Letter from Eugene Debs to Joseph Ettor” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1902, Part II: Found Speaking at Convention of the United Mine Workers of America

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 17, 1902
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1902, Part II
Found Speaking at Indianapolis United Mine Workers Convention

From The Indianapolis News of January 21, 1902:

MOTHER JONES TALKED.
———-
A Speech to the Convention While
Waiting for Miss Meredith.

Mother Jones, Ipl Ns p11, Jan 21, 1902

While the convention awaited the coming of Miss Meredith to make charges against the national officers, this forenoon, the committee called for “Mother Jones” and she responded in a stirring speech.

She said it was a critical time for the miners’ organization, and she urged cautious and intelligent action on the part of the organisation in order to accomplish its purposes. She related, in an interesting way, her experiences in strikes and in the mining districts in the East.

One characteristic incident was of a time when a strike was on and the mining company’s policeman called on her to keep her from taking the miners’ part.

“Who are you?” she asked the policeman.

“The company’s watchman,” the officer replied.

“Well,” replied “Mother” Jones, “the company doesn’t own me. I’m responsible to God Almighty and He and I stand in on this question.”

This met with vigorous applause from the miners.

She urged greater respect for the Mine Workers’ organization, and censured the man who refused to pay dues to the national organization.

[She exclaimed:]

You poor, benighted, brainless creature that you are. You poor, ignorant, slaving serf. If the company offered you a barrel of beer, you would take it and fill your stomach; but won’t pay 25 cents to help the national organization.

She said the miners must be intelligent enough to emancipate themselves.

You have emancipated the mules that work with you and demanded that they shall be turned out to grass, but you nave not emancipated yourselves. The mule enjoys the air and grass, while you still toil down in the bad air of the mine working more than eight hours a day.

In a pathetic way she told of miners’ children, and in conclusion she said:

I plead with you men to go home and do your duty as men. Young men miners who work in the mines all day long and come out at night and never read a book. You don’t seem to study your coal trade only over men whom you have to deal with. Study your work and be prepared to take your post. You must be ready to go to jail, and must be willing to face bullets or even be hanged for your principles.

[Note: Miss Meredith charged that President John Mitchell and Secretary-Treasure William B. Wilson had minimized embezzlement committed by ex-Secretary W. C. Pearce, which charges were unanimously rejected by the Convention]

—————

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1902, Part II: Found Speaking at Convention of the United Mine Workers of America” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1902, Part I: Found Describing United Mine Workers Organizing Drive in Old Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 16, 1902
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1902, Part I
Found Describing Organizing Efforts in Old Virginia

From the New York Worker of January 5, 1902:

CAPITALIST TOOLS IN OLD VIRGINIA.

Mother Jones, Ipl Ns p11, Jan 21, 1902

Mother Jones is at present in old Virginia, organizing for the United Mine Workers. As usual she finds labor conditions in that state as deplorable as else where, more so perhaps, because modern industrial methods are comparatively new there and the capitalist exploiter has unrestricted sway. That Mother Jones has anything but a “soft snap” is shown in a private letter, recently received. She says:

This is an American Siberia if one exists anywhere on the continent. Let me tell you what happened to me yesterday. I had a meeting scheduled several miles from here. The federal judge located here got on the train and went down ahead of me. I had the meeting billed for the colored church, but before I arrived the company served notice on the trustees that if they allowed me to speak they would annul their deed. The poor negroes got scared and begged me not to talk. When I arrived the federal judge was waiting to arrest me if I spoke.

I fooled both him and the company, however, for I called the meeting in a secret place, and had a fine crowd of the boys. The company officials are trying to find out where the meeting was held, but none of the boys will give it away, and so they cannot arrest me.

Nevertheless, they tied to bluff me and sent a company policeman up to serve notice on me not to speak or they would put me in jail. I sent back word, “Jail be hanged. I am going to hold that meeting.”

The company policemen have no bondsmen, are responsible to no one but the company, and they can put you in jail without a cause, and there is no redress. This fellow who spoke to me was a dandy.

He said the company hired him for $35 a month, twelve hours a day, and night work besides. He boasted of working seven years for one man for $3.50 a week, took care of a wife, paid house rent, bought fuel and clothes and fed themselves, and when he quit he had $37.67 saved up. He thought I should not come in there and “bother the company.” In our conversation it developed that he did not know who Thomas Jefferson was. He asked me if Jefferson was a minter. When I spoke of George Washington he asked me if I meant the company doctor. And this fellow is an officer of the law in the state of Virginia!

[Photograph added.]

—————

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1902, Part I: Found Describing United Mine Workers Organizing Drive in Old Virginia” →

Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Found in Lawrence Making Arrangements to Send 1,000 More Children from City

Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912
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Quote EGF, Heaven n Hell, ISR p617, Jan 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 15, 1912
Lawrence, Massachusetts – Plans in Place to Send More Children out of Strike Zone

From The New York Call of February 13, 1912:

EGF, Bst Glb AM p1, Feb 13, 1912
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

LAWRENCE, Mass., Feb. 12…..

Children for Philadelphia.

William H. Yates, one of the strike leaders, announced today that 200 children would be sent to Philadelphia on Wednesday morning, arrangements for their care in that city having been made by Miss E. Gurley Flynn, one of the national organizers of the Industrial Workers. Considerable criticism has been heard about sending the children to New York, and to this General Organizer Thomas replies, that it is better for the little ones to be where they can get food and clothing than here were they can have none of these things……

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

—————

From The New York Call of February 14, 1912:

LAWRENCE, Mass., Feb. 13…..Miss Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, of New York, is here today rounding up 1,000 more children from the homes of mill strikers to be taken to Washington, New York and Philadelphia.

Miss Flynn assisted in the reception of the little strike exiles who went from here to New York Saturday, and she gave an enthusiastic report of their arrival and the heartiness with which they were welcomed.

[Emphasis added.]

———-

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Found in Lawrence Making Arrangements to Send 1,000 More Children from City” →

Hellraisers Journal: More Little Lawrence Strikers to Be Sent to New York City in Care of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, IWW Organizer

Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912
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Quote EGF, Heaven n Hell, ISR p617, Jan 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 14, 1912
Lawrence, Massachusetts – More Children of Strikers to Leave City

From The Boston Daily Glob of February 13, 1912:

HdLn Lawrence Children EGF, Bst Glb AM p1, Feb 13, 1912—–
Lawrence Children EGF, Bst Glb AM p1, Feb 13, 1912—————

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: More Little Lawrence Strikers to Be Sent to New York City in Care of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, IWW Organizer” →

Hellraisers Journal: West Virginia Miners and Families Are Destitute and Suffering; Committee Seeks Aid in New York

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote EVD, Starve Quietly, Phl GS Speech IA, Mar 19, 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 13, 1922
West Virginia Miners and Their Families Are Destitute and Suffering

From The New York Times of February 12, 1922:

ASK AID FOR 35,000 STRIKING MINERS.
———-
West Virginia Labor Committee Here Seeks Food,
Clothes and Medicines for Idle Men.
———-

WV Battle by Shields, UE by M Becker, Lbtr p16, Oct 1921

Thirty-five thousand striking miners and their families are destitute and suffering in West Virginia, according to a statement yesterday by a committee of West Virginia labor officials who came to New York seeking food, clothing and medical aid for the unemployed workers and their dependents.

The committee said it also would appeal to the national Red Cross organization at Washington and to the convention of the United Mine Workers at Indianapolis next Tuesday for emergency help. The committee consisted of William T. Harris, President of the West Virginia State Federation of Labor; Fred Mooney, Secretary-Treasurer, District 17, United Mine Workers, and Frank W. Snyder, editor of The West Virginia Federationist.

The committee said a survey of conditions showed that more than 70,000 West Virginia miners were out of work, many of them since the signing of the armistice.

WV Battle by Shields, RR demand by M Becker, Lbtr p17, Oct 1921

High wages had nothing to do with the unemployment, the committee said, pointing out that coal was being sold in the unionized Kanawha fields at lower prices than in the non-union Guyan region. Kanawha coal, they said, was selling at $2.15 a ton f. o. b. mines last week, and in Guyan at $2.35.

In the face of the unemployment, the commutes said, the operators were attempting wholesale evictions. Many miners and their families had been forced out of their homes, but these evictions had been checked by the intervention of the Department of Labor at Washington.

“In the mining fields,” said Mr. Mooney, “there are 35,000 destitute families. They are without food and clothing. The bread winners in some of these families have not worked more than three months since the armistice. The families have been living from hand to mouth on charity furnished by their neighbors and friends.”

The committee arranged with the American Civil Liberties Union here to raise a relief fund here in New York.

[Emphasis and drawings by Maurice Becker added.]

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Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: West Virginia Miners and Families Are Destitute and Suffering; Committee Seeks Aid in New York” →

Hellraisers Journal: Children of Lawrence Strikers Receive Enthusiastic Welcome from Socialists of New York City

Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912
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Quote NY Lawrence Strike Com Welcome Children, NY Call p1, Feb 10, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 12, 1912
New York, New York – Children of Lawrence Strikers Welcomed by Socialists

From The New York Call of February 10, 1912:

NY Lawrence Strike Com Welcome Children, NY Call p1, Feb 10, 1912

From The New York Times of February 11, 1912:

150 STRIKE WAIFS FIND HOMES HERE
—————
Great Throng Waits in Cold to Give Warm
Welcome to Children from Lawrence, Mass.
———-

BANNERS OF RED WAVE
———-
And Crowd Sings the Marseillaise

–Children Answer with Strikers’ Cry
–Homes Offered to Many More.
———-

The Grand Central Station was the scene of a great demonstration last night when 150 boys and girls, ranging in age from 2 to 12 years, arrive here from Lawrence, Mass. They are the children of the striking textile workers, and they come here to be cared for by working people of New York, who have promised to feed and house them until peace has been restored in Lawrence and the great mills there are again in operation.

More than 700 persons applied for one or more of the children. Among them, it is said, were Mrs. O. H. P. Belmont, Miss Inez Milholland and Rev. Dr. Percy Stickney Grant. The children, however, were all given into the care of the families of laboring men or members of the Socialist Party.

To greet the children a crowd of 5,000 men, women, and children packed the Grand Central Station concourse, singing the “Marseillaise” in many tongues. They waved red flags, some with black borders, and all bearing Socialistic mottoes. It was noticed that not one in that crowd waved aloft the Stars and Stripes.

The men that waved the big red flags said they were not anarchist but Socialist flags, but, whatever they were, they were red everywhere except the lettering and the black borders. The black borders, it was said, were marks of mourning for those of the strikers who have lost their lives in Lawrence. Besides the flags, there were banners, also red, on which were displayed in big type what the crowd called “mottoes.” One painted in gold letters on a long, red streamer, read:

Ye exploiters, kneel down before the of your victims.

Another banner announced that the “libertarians of New York affirm their solidarity to the strikers of Lawrence.” Still another banner bore the same message, except that instead of “libertarians,” it read “the Liberians of New York,” &c. There was also another flaming piece of bunting on which was painted the information that certain Harvard students favored “a free country.”

Long Wait For the Children

 The train on which the children were expected to arrive was due at 3:30 P.M., but it was an hour late, and it came in without any of the Lawrence Children. When it did roll in a brass band was playing in the concourse, and the crowd was lined up against ropes that were stretched for the purpose of preventing a too hearty welcome being given to the children.

The crowd did not understand why the children were not on the 3:30 train, and so great did the excitement become that the police had an inquiry made all along the New Haven line to Boston. It was learned that the children missed their train in Boston, and it was announced from the bulletin board that they would arrive on the train that was due at 5:42 P.M., but which would not get in until 6:50 P.M.

It was about 4 o’clock when the unwelcome information was bulletined and the crowd, which had stood for two hours in the bitter cold waiting for the train, dispersed to gather again about 6 o’clock in still greater force. At 6:30 P.M. the Grand Central concourse was packed to capacity, and the reserves of the East Fifty-First Street Station formed lines behind which the crowd was forced to stand until after the children had come out of the station.

At 6:50 the searchlight of the electric engine that pulled the train from Highbridge was sighted coming into the train shed. Then the excitement started in earnest. Slowly the hum of the “Marseillaise” started, gradually gathering in volume. It ended when the train came to a stop and then ensued a series of frantic shouts and yells in a dozen languages. In all the medley there was not heard a single English word except the sharp commands of the police and the station men who were assisting.

Announce Themselves as Strikers

 Orders had been issued that the children were not to leave the train until the other passengers had left it and were safely out of the shed. When the children were escorted from the cars they were in charge of fourteen men and women from Lawrence, one of whom was a trained nurse. The children were formed in columns of twos, and at a signal from a young man who was one of those in charge they announced their arrival with a yell.

This is the way the yell goes, and the children shouted it all the way out of the station:

Who we are, who are we, who are we!
Yes we are, yes we are, yes we are.
Strikers, strikers, strikers.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Children of Lawrence Strikers Receive Enthusiastic Welcome from Socialists of New York City” →

Hellraisers Journal: 175 Boys and Girls, Children of Lawrence Textile Strikers, Sent to New York City for Care and Safekeeping

Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912
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Quote Lawrence Strike Committee, Drunk Cup to Dregs, Bst Dly Glb Eve p5, Jan 17, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 11, 1912
Lawrence, Massachusetts – Strikers Children Sent to New York City

From The Boston Daily Globe, Evening Edition, of February 10, 1912:

Lawrence Strikers Children to NYC, Bst Glb Eve p1, Feb 10, 1912

Upper Picture-Strikers’ Children from Lawrence in
South Station [Boston], Waiting to Board a New York Train.
Lower Left Hand-Child of a Striker. Lower Right Hand-
Miss Florence Sawyer, with One of the Youngest in the Party.
———-

One hundred and seventy-five boys and girls, children of textile strikers in Lawrence, were brought to Boston this morning on their way to New York city, where they are to be cared for by different families until the strike is settled. The children left at noon for New York. They were to have departed on the 10:03 train out of the South Station, but they reached the North Station too late to make the connection. They went to the South Station by an elevated train, and from the time of their arrival at 10:30, until their departure, at 12, made the waiting room of the great terminal building lively with their songs and pranks.

The children were in charge of five women and 10 men. The man who conducted the party described himself as being Henry Lindworth, a Frenchman, who said he was “a comrade” and was “secretary in charge of the party.” Lindworth had a pocket full of letters from Socialist Democrats and plain Socialist in New York applying for one or more of the juveniles, whom they promised to give homes during the pendency of the strike. Each of the children had pinned to his or her garments a slip of paper on which was written the name, age and address of the child.

The children ranged in age from 4 to 14, and all of them seemed to be comfortably dressed, although the clothing of most was of rather poor quality, and some of them wore patches, but the little ones all seemed happy, and looked upon their trip as a great lark. They were ever ready to burst into song when Lindworth called on them to do so, which he frequently did. The song they most sang at the South Station was “La Internationale,” which Lindworth said was the hymn of those who are opposed to society as it is now constituted.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: 175 Boys and Girls, Children of Lawrence Textile Strikers, Sent to New York City for Care and Safekeeping” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for September 1921, Part III: Found Speaking at Indianapolis Convention of United Mine Workers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Hang That Old Woman, UMWC p733, Sept 26, 1921—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 10, 1922
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1921, Part III
Found Speaking to Delegates at Convention of United Mine Workers 

Indianapolis, Convention of the United Mine Workers of America
Sixth Day, Afternoon Session,  Monday September 26, 1921

“I can fight…”

Mother Jones, Still w Miners, Speaks at UMWC, IN Dly Tx p9, Sept 27, 1921
Indiana Daily Times
September 27, 1921

Vice-President Murray: I understand that Mother Jones has just arrived in the convention and I am going to request Brother David Fowler to escort her to the platform. It isn’t necessary that I should introduce Mother Jones to you at this time; it isn’t necessary that I should eulogize the work she has performed for the coal diggers of America, and I will simply present to the convention at this time our good friend, Mother Jones.

ADDRESS OF MOTHER JONES

Mr. Chairman and Delegates: I have been watching you from a distance, and you have been wasting a whole lot of time and money. I want you to stop it.

All along the ages, away back in the dusty past, the miners started their revolt. It didn’t come in this century, it came along in the cradle of the race when they were ground by superstition and wrong. Out of that they have moved onward and upward all the ages against all the courts, against all the guns, in every nation they have moved onward and upward to where they are today, and their effort has always been to get better homes for their children and for those who were to follow them.

I have just come up from West Virginia. I left Williamson last Friday and came into Charleston. I was doing a little business around there looking after things. We have never gotten down to the core of the trouble that exists there today. Newspapers have flashed it, magazines have contained articles, but they were by people who did not understand the background of the great struggle…..

I walked nine miles one night with John H. Walker in the New River field after we had organized an army of slaves who were afraid to call their souls their own. We didn’t dare sleep in a miner’s house; if we did the family would be thrown out in the morning and would have no place to go. We walked nine miles before we got shelter. When we began to organize we had to pay the men’s dues, they had no money.

At one time some of the organizers came down from Charleston, went up to New Hope and held a meeting. They had about fourteen people at the meeting. The next morning the conductor on the train told me the organizers went up on a train to Charleston. I told Walker to bill a meeting at New Hope for the next night and I would come up myself. He said we could not bill meetings unless the national told us to. I said: “I am the national now and I tell you to bill that meeting.” He did.

When we got to the meeting there was a handful of miners there and the general manager, clerks and all the pencil pushers they could get. I don’t know but there were a few organizers for Jesus there, too. We talked but said nothing about organizing. Later that night a knock came on the door where I was staying and a bunch of the boys were outside. They asked if I would organize them. I said I would. They told me they hadn’t any money. Walker said the national was not in favor of organizing, they wanted us only to agitate. I said: “John, I am running the business here, not the national; they are up in Indianapolis and I am in New Hope. I am going to organize those fellows and if the national finds any fault with you, put it on me—I can fight the national as well as I can the company if they are not doing right.”

[…..]

When we began organizing in 1903 the battle royal began. The companies began to enlist gunmen. I went up the Stanaford Mountain and held a meeting with the men. There wasn’t a more law-abiding body of men in America than those men were. While they were on strike the court issued an injunction forbidding them to go near the mines. They didn’t. I held a meeting that night, went away and next morning a deputy sheriff went up to arrest those men. He had a warrant for them. The boys said: “We have broken no law; we have violated no rules; you can not arrest us.” They notified him to get out of town and he went away. They sent for me and I went up. I asked why they didn’t let him arrest the men. They said they hadn’t done anything and I told them that was the reason they should have surrendered to the law.

That very night in 1903, the 25th day of February, those boys went to bed in their peaceful mining town. They had built their own school house and were sending their children to school. They were law-abiding citizens. While they slept in their peaceful homes bullets went through the walls and several of them were murdered in their beds. I went up next morning on an early train. The agent said they had trouble on Standifer [Stanaford] Mountain, that he heard going over the wires news that some people were hurt. I turned in my ticket, went out and called a couple of the boys. We went up the mountain on the next train and found those men dead in their homes, lying on mattresses wet with their blood and the bullet holes through the walls.

I want to clear this thing up, for it has never been cleared up. I saw there a picture that will forever be a disgrace to American institutions. There were men who had been working fourteen hours a day, who had broken no law, murdered in their peaceful homes. Nobody was punished for those murders.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for September 1921, Part III: Found Speaking at Indianapolis Convention of United Mine Workers” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for September 1921, Part II: Found Denouncing the Private Army of Gunthugs Ruling West Virginia

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones re RR Men Haul Gunthugs n Scab Coal, Coshocton Tb OH p3, Sept 17, 1921—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 9, 1922
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1921, Part II
Found Denouncing Government by Gunthug in the State of West Virginia

From The New Castle Herald of September 6, 1921:

MOTHER JONES HAS SOLUTION

DECLARES FORCE OF RIGHT MUST SUPPLANT
RIGHT OF FORCE IN WEST VIRGINIA
———-

By HARRY HUNT

Mother Jones, Lecompton KS Sun p10, Sept 8, 1921

WASHINGTON Sept. 6.-“The secretary of war doesn’t understand. The president doesn’t understand.”

There is a great wrong being perpetrated in West Virginia. This wrong will not be corrected by jailing miners or shooting them. It will be settled only by social and industrial justice.

It was ”Mother” Jones speaking. She had just left the office of Secretary of War Weeks, where she had gone to protest against the sending of federal troops into the zone of the West Virginia mine war. 

“Just what is the situation?” she was asked. “You were there last week. What is the trouble?”

[Mother Jones replied:]

The miners under arms in West Virginia are not fighting the government, either state or nation. But they are determined to defend themselves from the oppression and domination of the hired gunmen of the mine operators who constitute a private army of the interests in West Virginia.

Companies Obdurate

The government rendered a decision on the wage question in this district in 1919. But the mine companies have not recognized the authority of the government in that decision and have not followed it.

The men, being Americans, revolted. They sent out word asking to be organized.

Then they were thrown out of the miserable company shacks in which they lived.

The mine workers in this district are robbed to pay an army of professional murderers, maintained to keep the workers in subjection.

The money that ought to go to the miner who slaves underground is diverted to maintain gunmen to enforce the demands of greedy overlords of industry.

The fathers want that money, which they earn, to help educate their children, to improve their homes, to get churches and schools and the rights of American citizens.

Force of Right 

The trouble in West Virginia must be settled by the force of right, not by the right of force.

You can shoot down these men in West Virginia, but they will rise again against the outrage of being robbed to pay a private army to enforce the brutal demands of coal operators.

If the employers can form their army, the workers naturally think they can do the same. That’s logical, isn’t it?

And that situation is the ulcer from which flows all the poison. Until it is removed, there will be no peace.

Fought Same Battle

We fought this fight out in the Kanawah and New River fields 23 years ago. We had a few battles. A good many of us were put in jail. I was carried 84 miles to jail myself, to get me out of the zone where it was thought I would be troublesome.

But we got the whole of these fields organized. The gunmen had to leave. The men began to get their pay in Uncle Sam’s currency, not in company money that could only be spent at company stores.

They are living in peace today in the Kanawha and New River fields and in the Fairmont district. Their homes are happier, their work better, the relations of the men and their employers more just.

But along the Norfolk & Western in the Mingo fields, a private army rules.

—————

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for September 1921, Part II: Found Denouncing the Private Army of Gunthugs Ruling West Virginia” →