Month: October 2022

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for September 1912, Part I: Found Speaking at Mass Meeting of Striking Miners at Charleston, W. Va.

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Rather sleep in guard house, Day Book p2, Sept 9, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 21, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1912, Part I
Found Speaking at Mass Meeting of Striking Miners at Charleston, W. Va.

From the Baltimore Sun of September 1, 1912:

TROUBLE AT CABIN CREEK.

Mother Jones, Rock Isl Argus p8, Sept 12, 1912

Trouble broke out afresh tonight at Cabin Creek Junction. Just what caused it cannot be learned at this time, but it is said it was started by the miners, who opened fire on the mine guards, seriously wounding two of them. If any or the miners were killed or wounded it is not known at this time. The wounded guards were hurried off to the hospital and their names are kept secret. Several of the guards who have been here for a long time have been marked by the miners, and it is possible that the injured men are of that number.

MILITIA RUSHED TO SCENE.

As a result of the battle tonight, five companies of militia which had been ordered home were rushed to the scene of the trouble.

Before they could arrive, however, a company from headquarters at Camp Pratt, on Paint creek, was rushed to Cabin Creek Junction…

Unless the situation improves materially within the next 48 hours martial law probably will be declared….It is admitted in official circles that the situation is more critical now than at any time since the miners went on strike in the Kanawha field last April. In case martial law is declared more troops will be needed.

MORE OUTBREAKS EXPECTED.

Further outbreaks between strikers and guards are expected at any or all of a dozen places on Paint and Cabin creeks as a result of the tense feeling which exists. In every instance the arrival of the militia has been sufficient to restore order.

Up to the present the strikers have been friendly to the militia, although a change may occur at any time.

“Mother” Jones has sent out word that the militia provost must be removed from the trains on the two creeks, but this guard will not be abandoned. As a result an attack on the passenger trains on either creek would cause little surprise. Close watch is being kept on the railway tracks to prevent the dynamiting of trains.

“Mother” Jones is scheduled to speak at Kingston tomorrow and orders have been issued to the militia to prevent such meeting. 

[…..]

Dogged Mother Jones’ Footsteps.

[T]he statement that the operators, or their agents, the mine guards, would prevent one individual from visiting another may seem to be overdrawn. It is not. Here is a case to illustrate:

About 10 days ago Mother Jones went to Kayford to hold a meeting. An account of that meeting was given in THE SUN of last Sunday [Aug 25th]. It was held after considerable trouble. She arrived at Kayford in the early afternoon and had tramped a good distance up the road before she reached the place. At every step she took she was followed by mine guards. She had had nothing to eat from the time she had an early breakfast and she was hungry. One of the miners, Lawrence Dwyer, the man who had arranged the meeting, asked her and the correspondent of THE SUN to go to his cabin for a cup of tea and a bite to eat. The invitation was accepted and we started to Dwyer’s house. No sooner had we stepped off the road and started up the lane leading to the cabin than Mayfield, the chief of the guards, ordered us off with an oath, threatening to arrest us if we took another step. His manner was rough in the extreme, especially to the white-haired old woman who really needed her cup of tea.

Dwyer remonstrated, saying he thought he had the right to take anyone he pleased to his house. He was told, with an oath, that he thought too much. Perhaps that is true. He is not fat. Like Cassius, “he hath a lean and hungry look,” and be certainly “thinks too much” for the peace of mind of the guards. However, Mother Jones went without her tea and she kept off private property.

Felts Blames Her For Trouble.

Later she came to a place where the road ran through the bed of the creek and she attempted to leave the county road on which she had been trudging and walk along the railroad track. Again she was ordered off. Even the railroad track was private property. This time the correspondent of THE SUN protested to Detective Felts. Felts was pleasant enough, but he was firm.

“That woman is old enough to be your grandmother,” he was told, “and no matter how much you may be opposed to her, remember that she is an old woman.”

“That makes no difference,” was the reply. “She is responsible for all the agitation and trouble that is taking place in these mines, and even though she is an old woman we do not propose to allow her any privileges here, or to show her any courtesies. She has got to keep to the public road, and keep off private property.“

That is the point. It would have been a “privilege” if she had been permitted to walk on the railroad track; it would have been a “courtesy” to have permitted her to go to Dwyer’s for her cup of tea. She might have done either, or both, by the grace and the favor of the company, but she could do neither as a matter of right.

[Photograph added.]

From the Baltimore Evening Sun of September 5, 1912:

3,000 MINERS TO MARCH IN
PROTEST TO CHARLESTON
———-
“Mother” Jones Will Lead Delegation
Before Governor Glasscock.
———-

MAYOR OF ESKDALE PLACED UNDER ARREST
———-
Court-Martial Disposing Of Cases Rapidly
-All Civil laws Suspended.
———-

Charleston, W. Va., Sept. 5.-Three thousand miners of that part of the Kanawha coal district which is not under martial law are coming to the State House at Charleston tomorrow to make a demonstration against the guard system in behalf of the men who are striking.

They will march through the streets of Charleston led by “Mother” Jones.

“Martial law is all right, but what after martial law?” is the legend to be displayed on a banner in the parade.

Governor Glasscock will be urged to come out and answer that question. “Mother” Jones will make a direct appeal to Glasscock.

Could Have Been Settled Long Ago.

[Said Mother Jones:]

The guard system will come back as soon as the soldiers are withdrawn. Months ago Governor Glasscock could have settled all difficulties by declaring that there shall be no guards. He did nothing at all; now the State and the miners are paying heavily.

Mayor And Miners Looked Up.

Martial law reached out last night and caught 20 miners and guards, including the Mayor of Eskdale, in the strike zone. The men were charged with disorderly conduct. They occupy joint jail quarters in the railroad station at Paint Creek Junction, which, has been turned into a prison.

Court-Martial Working Quickly.

The court-martial is working as quickly as a city court. In two days the military judges have tried 15 men. The verdicts were sealed and sent to Governor Glasscock for approval. The court can fix any penalty within its discretion. All statutory penalties are suspended.

The military authorities today ordered a Socialist paper that has been circulating in the “war” district suppressed as inflammatory. Free speech is one of the constitutional guarantees suspended by martial law.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for September 1912, Part I: Found Speaking at Mass Meeting of Striking Miners at Charleston, W. Va.” →

Hellraisers Journal: Editorial from the Baltimore Sun: “Belated Justice”-at Long Last for IWW Philadelphia Longshoreman

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Ralph Chaplin, Prison Reveille, Lv New Era p2, Apr 4, 1919—————

Hellraisers Journal –Friday October 20, 1922
Fellow Workers, Fletcher, Nef and Walsh, Offered Belated Justice

From the Baltimore Sun of October 18, 1922:

BELATED JUSTICE.

IWW Local No 8 MTW Button, Feb 1917

Exactly six months ago it was announced by the Department of Justice that the cases of four Philadelphia longshoremen, imprisoned under the Espionage act, were being subjected to individual review. At that time it was admitted by the Administration that evidence was not available to disprove the assertions of many men of reputation, the former United States District Attorney in Philadelphia for one, that their war records were blameless. In particular their work in the responsible duty of loading munitions for overseas was shown to be of the most patriotic character.

On Monday three of these men were offered liberty on condition that “they will be law abiding in the future.” Those three, whose names should be well known to SUN readers, are Walter T. Nef, former secretary-treasurer of the Marine Transport Workers of Philadelphia; John J. Walsh and Benjamin H. Fletcher, members of the same union. All are members of the I. W. W. Three Swedish workmen, likewise said to be members of this organization, were also offered liberty-to be deported.

When we remember the number of political prisoners still in jail we see no reason to congratulate the Government on this belated act of justice. Imprisoned under a Democratic administration and held in jail by its Republican successor, they are free at last-after all of the few bomb-plotters and German spies ever convicted under the Espionage act have been given liberty. Apparently nothing illegal was ever proved against these men. Simply because they were members of the I. W. W. they were held five years in prison. And at the end Mr. Daugherty, over-busy with injunctions, found six months necessary to “review their cases.”

Considering the whole ignoble history of the Espionage act, it is perhaps scarcely surprising that the Department of Justice could not let them go without that final insult about being good in future.

—————

Solidarity w MTW of Philly, Messenger p396, Apr 1922

[Photographs and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Editorial from the Baltimore Sun: “Belated Justice”-at Long Last for IWW Philadelphia Longshoreman” →

Hellraisers Journal: Six IWW Class-War Prisoners Offered Liberty: Fletcher, Nef, Walsh, Johannsen, Stenberg and Ahlteen

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Matilda Robbins ed, Ben Fletcher, p132 PC—————

Hellraisers Journal –Thursday October 19, 1922
Six Fellow Workers, Chicago-Group Class-War Prisoners, Offered Liberty

From the Baltimore Sun of October 17 1922:

PRISONERS OFFERED LIBERTY
———-
Six Convicted Of Espionage May Go
Free If They Accept Condition.

IWW, Ben Fletcher ed, 13126 Leavenworth, Sept 7 or 8, 1918
Fellow Worker Ben Fletcher

Washington, Oct. 16.-Six men serving sentences imposed after conviction of the espionage act have been offered conditional executive pardons, the Department of Justice announced today, the condition in the case of three, who are aliens, being deportation, and in the others that “they will be law-abiding in the future.”

The men to whom the offer of clemency has been made are Walter T. Nef, former secretary-treasurer of the Marine Transport Workers [I. W. W.], Philadelphia; John J. Walsh and Benjamin H. Fletcher, members of the same union, and Ragner Johannsen, Siegfried Sternberg [Sigfried Stenberg] and Carl Ahlteen, formerly of Minneapolis, but natives of Sweden. The last three are alleged to have been members of the I. W. W.

No, hint as to whether any or all of the prisoners will accept the conditions has been received by the Government agencies in charge of their cases, it was said tonight. Both Nef and Fletcher made individual applications for pardons, but Walsh was one of 52 prisoners in Leavenworth who refused to sign such petitions.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Six IWW Class-War Prisoners Offered Liberty: Fletcher, Nef, Walsh, Johannsen, Stenberg and Ahlteen” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Wheeling Majority: “Soldiers Evict Miners’ Families” by G. H. Edmunds-Militia Aids Operators

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Better to Die Fighting, Sac Str p1, June 3, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal –Friday October 18, 1912
West Virginia Militia Aids Coal Operators in Evicting Miners’ Families

From The Wheeling Majority of October 17, 1912:

SOLDIERS EVICT MINERS’ FAMILIES
———-
(By G. H. Edmunds.)
—–

WV Militia Escort Miners to Court Martial, Cmg Ntn p2, Oct 12, 1912

In commenting on the troubles in the strike fields of Kanawha county, Gov. Glasscock mentioned the “invisible government” as being largely responsible for the troubles existing, and many of the citizens of this state have wondered what the “invisible government” was, but on Monday last, every one was brought face to face with this “Gila monster.” We beheld a monster with one head but two faces, a second Janus, too subtle for description.

Remember, Baldwin guards were driven out under the martial law proclamation, and everything went fine in the strike zone so far as peace and quiet was concerned, but, on Monday what do we find.

We find the militia of the state of West Virginia being used by the coal operators to evict miners from their homes, without any process of law whatsoever.

Never before has anything of the kind happened in any of the strikes of the country. Result: More than 100 families, aggregating 500 men, women and children are sitting by the roadside in the mountains of West Virginia with no place to lay their heads but on the hard rocks of the mountains, and absolutely no redress whatsoever. The governor has been appealed to, and his reply to the appeal was that the miners had redress in the civil courts, yet this same governor has suspended the civil courts and instituted martial law in their stead, and yet he tells the miners to go to the civil courts.

Yes, the government of West Virginia is “invisible.”

There seems to be a “power behind the throne” in this fight. Soldiers being used as strike breakers, and putting hundreds of women and children out in the cold to live in the open air in October, without any semblance of law. These people had a right to remain in the houses occupied by them until legally dispossessed, because, in law the fact that they were in the houses, and entered legally, gave them the right of remaining in said houses until legally dispossessed. The miners of West Virginia are being wrongfully treated by the governor, who is the commander in-chief of the state militia.

Strike breaking militia! Oh, shame on the fair name of West Virginia! The way that the militia is being used to evict the miners is done in this wise: The coal company sends several men to a miner’s house to put his household goods into the road. If the miner objects to having his goods put out without due process of law, the militia will arrest him and put him in the guard house. A squad of soldiers follows the evicting army and sees that no miner resists the process.

Yet in the face of all of this, and the hardships that the miners are being put into by the attitude of the governor of the state with their children half clad, hungry and barefooted, sickness in almost every home, no doctor, no money, only the charity of the Miners’ union to look to, and with a cold winter almost upon them, yet these hardships are more to be desired than peonage under the guard system. We are hoping that the governor will soon see the error of his way and do something to redeem the fair name of the great state of West Virginia.

[Photograph, emphasis and paragraph break added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Wheeling Majority: “Soldiers Evict Miners’ Families” by G. H. Edmunds-Militia Aids Operators” →

Hellraisers Journal: John W. Brown on Coal Miners’ Strike in West Virginia: “This Is War and War Is Hell”-Part III

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones re Get Rid of Mine Guards, Charleston WV, Aug 15, 1912, Steel Speeches p95—————

Hellraisers Journal –Thursday October 17, 1912
“This Is War and War Is Hell” by John W. Brown, Part III

From The Coming Nation of October 12, 1912:

WV Mine War by JW Brown, Cmg Ntn p5, Oct 12, 1912

[Part III of III]

Killing Unborn Babes

The most heart rending testimony was that given by Mrs. Taney Sevillis [Gianiana Seville, Mrs. Tony Seville] who told how her baby was born dead after the brutal mine guards fired bullets through her house. This poor mother terrified, fled for safety to the home of Mrs. Waters, the wife of the mine foreman. Mrs. Waters, in testifying before the commission, said: “She was as white as a ghost when she ran into my house. She fell on her knees before me and made the sign of the cross. ‘Oh save me, save me, my baby, my baby, my poor baby,’ she cried, and I took her in and a month later the baby was born dead. The doctor said it had been dead several weeks.”

Mrs. Charles Fish, the wife of a miner, testified to how she and sixty-three others, men and women and children, had hid from the guards in a cellar for twenty-four hours after they had been driven from their homes by the fiendish guards, and how at length they fled over the hills, hungry, dirty, unkempt and sick from their long fast in the dark cellar. She told how she was beaten and choked by the guards when she informed the strike-breakers at the railway station that there was a strike on at that place to which they were being shipped.

WV Mine War, Boy in Tent Colony, Cmg Ntn p7, Oct 12, 1912

The prices charged the miners at the “Pluck-me-stores” which are owned by the coal barons and the difference between these prices and the price of the same article in Charleston furnish another chapter in the evidence being taken. Potatoes which sell in Charleston for 85 cents per bushel are sold to the miners for $2.60. Arbuckle Coffee which can be bought anywhere for 25 cents per pound costs the miner 40 cents. Flour, sugar, bacon, beans and everything else which goes to make up a miner’s diet is sold on the same basis.

When one stops to consider that the miners on Paint Creek and Cabin Creek are mining coal for 19 cents per ton less than the miners get in union fields; that in union fields 2,000 pounds constitutes a ton while in the non-union fields the coal barons exact 2,240 pounds for a ton, and not only that, but in the non-union fields they do not even weigh the coal; on the contrary, the miner has to load a car which is supposed to hold 2,240 pounds, but which in fact holds anywhere from 2,500 to 3,000 pounds, the wonder is not that the miners have revolted against such inhuman conditions; the wonder is that they have stood it as long as they have. However, the revolt is on and not only the miners but the people as a whole are aroused.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: John W. Brown on Coal Miners’ Strike in West Virginia: “This Is War and War Is Hell”-Part III” →

Hellraisers Journal: John W. Brown on Coal Miners’ Strike in West Virginia: “This Is War and War Is Hell”-Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones re Get Rid of Mine Guards, Charleston WV, Aug 15, 1912, Steel Speeches p95—————

Hellraisers Journal –Wednesday October 16, 1912
“This Is War and War Is Hell” by John W. Brown, Part II

From The Coming Nation of October 12, 1912:

WV Mine War by JW Brown, Cmg Ntn p5, Oct 12, 1912

[Part II of III]

Making and Breaking Contracts

On May 1st [1912], a compromise was reached in which the miners agreed to accept one-half of the Cleveland scale and the recognition of their union. This was accepted by a joint commission composed of representatives of the operators and the miners’ union.

On May 2d, the Paint Creek Collier Co., one of the parties to the contract, repudiated the agreement, thereby forcing their men either to scab or go on strike. The men chose the latter and on the 8th of May the first detatchment of “Baldwin guards” was sent to Paint Creek and following their arrival there, a reign of terror was established which has no parallel outside of barbarous Mexico or darkest Russia.

A chronicle of the crimes committed by these licensed and merciless cutthroats would fill a volume in itself. On June the 5th, eight of them were indicted before a grand jury and held for murder in the first degree, and were released on a bond of $3,000 each. A wholesale merchant and beneficiary of the coal barons acted as their bondsman.

The miners at Mucklow, Burnwell and several other camps were dispossessed under the “master and servant” decision of Judge Burdett. The miners made application for an injunction to restrain the operators from evicting them but Judge Burdett after a week or more of judicial jugglery refused to issue the order, notwithstanding such an order had been granted in Fayette county which is in the same mining district.

Battle for Tented “Homes”

WV Mine War, Miners Homes National, Cmg Ntn p6, Oct 12, 1912

The dispossessed miners secured tents and settled at Holly Grove at the mouth of Paint Creek. The coal barons and their hired assassins determined to break the union spirit and to drive the union men out of the district and opened fire on the tents at Holly Grove, July 25th. This was more than human endurance could stand and to this last outrage the miners retaliated and fought back with such weapons as they had and for two days the battle raged in and around Mucklow and just how many lives were lost will never be known.

About this time “Mother Jones,” the avenging Nemesis of the miners, appeared on the scene and with her came a new hope, a new courage and a new consciousness to the coal miners. There is something powerful about this old gray haired woman. When the coal barons hear her name they tremble. Barehanded and alone, Mother Jones walked up to the mouth of the gattling guns on Cabin Creek and demanded of the hireling that turned the crank that she be allowed to see her boys. Mother saw her boys and held a mass meeting in the Cabin Creek district and organized the miners and on August 7th the miners of Cabin Creek walked out on strike with their brothers of Paint Creek.

On August 29th a Baldwin guard drunk and disorderly shot a man by the name of Hodge at Dry Branch. This precipitated a general fight in which Hines, the instigator, was killed and several others wounded. On September 1st, Governor Glasscock ordered out the militia and declared martial law and just what the end will be it is hard to say at this time.

Governor Glasscock, in an interview with the newspaper reporters a few days ago admitted that he is not the governor of West Virginia, that the government of the state is controlled by an “infernal legislative lobby” and an “invisible power.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: John W. Brown on Coal Miners’ Strike in West Virginia: “This Is War and War Is Hell”-Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: John W. Brown on Miners’ Strike in Paint Creek/Cabin Creek, West Virginia: “This Is War and War Is Hell”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones re Get Rid of Mine Guards, Charleston WV, Aug 15, 1912, Steel Speeches p95—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 15, 1912
“This Is War and War Is Hell” by John W. Brown, Socialist and U. M. W. Organizer

From The Coming Nation of October 12, 1912:

WV Mine War by JW Brown, Cmg Ntn p5, Oct 12, 1912

[Part I of III]

WV Mine War, Text Coal Miners Story, Cmg Ntn p5, Oct 12, 1912—–

“COD walks on sea and land, but the devil reigns in the coal fields of West Virginia.” This was uttered by Gen. C. D. Elliott and the reference was to the civil war now going on in the Kanawha valley where the coal miners and the coal barons have grappled in a life and death struggle which can only end in the surrender of either one of the contending forces. “And the devil is greed,” says General Elliott. Greed personified in a handful of mercenary plutocrats who know no more, care no more for the rights of humanity than do the lean dogs who lick their grimy hands.

The details of this terrible struggle do not differ from that which could be written of all the other coal fields, and forms but another page in the development of American capitalism.

A Long Story of Stealing

First comes the usual questionable and fraudulent land titles, then corrupt legislation, then the usurpation of the courts and finally the general debauchery and degradation of the whole body politic. The Moloch of capitalism is never satisfied. It has no heart, no soul, no conscience. It has but one object, one purpose, and that is to make profit. It stands with open mouth crying, “give, give,” and the people of West Virginia have given, given and given again, first their lands, then their labor, and now the insatiable beast demands the half starved babes. The present strike in the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek districts has a shadowy background reaching back some ten years or more.

In 1902 the coal miners of West Virginia organized under the auspices of the United Mine Workers of America. Immediately following, the coal barons began their present fight against the union and a general strike followed. During this strike of 1902, Judge Jackson and Judge Keller issued their nefarious injunctions which if obeyed by the miners would have been nothing short of wholesale suicide. Naturally, the miners refused to bow to these injunctions and there followed a reign of rapine and legalized murder such as is seldom found in the pages of human history. Among which is recorded what is now known as the Stanford city massacre [Stanaford Massacre.].

An American Pogrom

WV Mine War, Mother Jones Speaks at Mass Meeting, Cmg Ntn p5, Oct 12, 1912

Dan Cunningham, at that time a United States deputy marshall armed with injunction and eviction papers and preceded by an army of professional murderers went to Stanford city in the night and at daylight made a murderous attack upon the helpless and defenseless miners, murdering them as they slept. Unarmed, old age, fathers and mothers, youths and even suckling babes were shot down like wild beasts and not even the prayers of pregnant mothers could prevail against this thirst for human blood.

There is always a point beyond which lies desperation and revolt. This point was reached during the strike of 1902 and for the time being both the federal authorities and the coal barons were baffled. But not for long. The Baldwin-Felts detective agency, an organization composed of ex-convicts and professional strike-breakers entered the field and agreed by contract to break the strike and from that day until this there has existed in West Virginia, a state of guerrilla warfare that beggars either pen or tongue to portray.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: John W. Brown on Miners’ Strike in Paint Creek/Cabin Creek, West Virginia: “This Is War and War Is Hell”” →

Hellraisers Journal: “The Men I Left at Leavenworth” by Pierce C. Wetter (Formerly Class War Prisoner, Inmate 13179), Part II

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Quote BBH IWW w Drops of Blood, BDB, Sept 27, 1919—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 14, 1922
“The Men I Left at Leavenworth” by Pierce C. Wetter, Part II

From The Survey Graphic Number of October 1922:

IWW Class War Prisoners, Men Left at Leavenworth by Wetter, Survey p29, Oct 1922

[Part II of II.]

IWW Class War Prisoners, Men Left at Leavenworth by Wetter, T, Survey p29, Oct 1922wo of our men-Caesar Tabib and Edward Quigley—are suffering from tuberculosis aggravated if not contracted in the Sacramento jail where they spent a year before they were brought to trial. Because of their physical condition, these two men were prevailed on by the rest of us to make application for release, for “clemency,” but their application was coldly refused by the Department of Justice. Apparently they are not yet near enough to death to make it “safe” to release them.

Another of our number, William Weyh, was kept on the “rock-pile” last December until the exposure resulted in severe illness, hemorrhages—twelve in a single day. He was so emaciated as to be scarcely recognizable. It was at this point that a prison official said to him: “I don’t believe you have another ten hours to live if you stay in this place. Drop your I. W. W. affiliations, and you can go out of here as soon as you please.” Weyh’s answer was: “No. I’ll die first.” We had been urging him to make application for release and he at last consented, and the authorities agreed, apparently preferring that he should die outside the walls. He stipulated, however, in writing, that “I have not wavered in my adherence to the I. W. W. and its principles.”

There is not space here to go further down the list of these fifty-two men; they all have the same splendid spirit, the same high courage, the same sense of the crucial human value of solidarity.

AGAIN and again I am asked by those who depend only upon newspapers for their information, why we refuse to ask for “clemency”; and last July,  when a petition for general amnesty (that is, for unconditional release for all charged with the same “offence”) signed by some three hundred thousand names from all over the country, was presented to President Harding by a delegation of representative men and women, the President expressed “surprise” about this refusal on our part, and of course at the same time went through with that same ancient formula—”No one advocating the overthrow of the government by violence will be pardoned.” This phrase is continually used by officials, apparently in lieu of any reason they can give for our continued imprisonment.

The truth of the matter is, not one of these fifty-two men was ever even indicted on the preposterous charges brought against them in the press during war-time hysteria, such as the receipt of German gold, and being spies. They are in prison now solely for expression of opinion, and none of those opinions have anything to do with the overthrow of any government in any way—they are merely opinions against war. Note also that these men are confined under the Espionage Act only, though it is now no longer in force. In lieu of any legal reason for their continued incarceration, Attorney General Daugherty even felt obliged to resort to giving out false information in reply to inquiries made on this subject by the Federal Council of Churches (see March 11, 1922 issue Information Service Research Department, Commission on Church and Social Service, F. C. C. C. A., room 604, 105 East 22 Street, New York).

Now, to revert to the President’s “surprise” that we are unwilling to crawl out, I don’t for a moment doubt his genuineness. It is entirely likely that it really is very difficult for him to understand such a thing. Let me quote from the Open Letter since prepared by these fifty-two men and sent a month ago not only to the President, but also to all Cabinet officials, Congressmen, the Governors of the forty-eight states, and to editors and others throughout the country. (I shall be very glad to send a copy to any one who will write me in care of the SURVEY.)

We are not criminals and are not in prison because we committed any crimes or conspired to commit them. From the beginning, justice has been denied us and the truth of our case withheld from the consideration of the public….In the press, the I. W. W. is like the Mexican in the movie show; he is always the villain….We are in prison now solely for exercising our constitutional right of free speech…. If it is a crime to exercise the right for which our fathers laid down their lives, we have no apology to make.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “The Men I Left at Leavenworth” by Pierce C. Wetter (Formerly Class War Prisoner, Inmate 13179), Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: “The Men I Left at Leavenworth” by Pierce C. Wetter (Formerly Class War Prisoner, Inmate 13179), Part I

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Quote BBH IWW w Drops of Blood, BDB, Sept 27, 1919—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 13, 1922
“The Men I Left at Leavenworth” by Pierce C. Wetter, Part I

From The Survey Graphic Number of October 1922:

IWW Class War Prisoners, Men Left at Leavenworth by Wetter, Survey p29, Oct 1922

[Part I of II.]

IWW Class War Prisoners, Men Left at Leavenworth by Wetter, T, Survey p29, Oct 1922

HE other day I was riding in a street car in New York behind two well dressed men deep in their daily papers. Their comments on some of the dispatches about the railroad strike reminded me more of James Whitcomb Riley’s refrain: “The goblins’ll get yer if yer don’t look out” than anything I had heard for a long time.

“I tell you, those I. W. W. fellows…one of them rumbled.

“It doesn’t say it’s proved yet they were around …” the other suggested timidly.

“Huh! Doesn’t need to!” the first shook his head ominously. “Nowadays a man takes his life in his hand wherever he goes. I believe in giving that kind of vermin a wide berth. I never saw one of them and I never want to!”

The next instant there was some sort of mix-up with a truck on the track and we all got a violent jolt. The speaker, who had risen in his seat to get off at the next corner, became rather badly tangled with some passengers across the aisle. I helped to disentangle them and he was at once all smiles and amiability—“Almost like one of our college football rushes,” he grinned, in the easy fellowship an earlier generation is apt to accord its successors on the same campus.

I should have liked to watch his face when I told him that I am a sincerely convinced, indelible I. W. W.; that I had just been released from Leavenworth prison on expiration of a five-year sentence under the 1918 Chicago indictment; and that I am now working with all the strength and ability I possess in the interest of my fifty-two fellow-workers, fellow-prisoners, still in Leavenworth, some with twenty-year sentences.

But “We’re late for that appointment,” his companion reminded him, and I missed my chance.

He will doubtless go on indefinitely repeating his “bogey-man” stuff about people whom he admits he has never seen and knows nothing of except by hearsay. I wonder how many people who read this have done exactly the same thing? And how long they are going to keep on doing it?

This is why, when I. W. W.’s are on trial, whether in courts or in newspapers, practically “everything goes.” But in all such movements, persecution only serves as propaganda, and weeds out the worthless material—those who “can’t stand the gaff” and go back on their principles—and shows the grain of the men who cannot be bribed or bought, who have the courage to stand by their convictions at whatever the cost.

There are fifty-two such men in Leavenworth today. Over two-thirds of them are American-born. They have been there since 1918, and most of them have ten- or twenty-year sentences. I know these men; and I want everyone else to know them. They are of the stuff that makes history, the sort of stuff that went to the making of our country in the beginning, and that is needed just as much right now, perhaps more, to keep our country true to its big ideals.

I am not going to try to give fifty-two full biographies (though I wish I could, for everyone of them is a story in itself—an almost unbelievable story!) but just a suggestion or a characteristic here and there of a few of the men. They are all very human, the same hopes and desires, the same flesh and blood we are all made of-fathers, husbands, brothers-it means as much to every one of them to stay there in prison year on year under those hideously monotonous, unsanitary, galling conditions, as it would to any of you who read these words. Try for one moment to realize what these things mean. Try honestly. And then try to understand what it means in terms of character for these men to stay there rather than to compromise.

NOT long ago the Rev. Richard W. Hogue, known doubtless to many [Survey] GRAPHIC readers as the international secretary of the Church League for Industrial Democracy, made a visit to Leavenworth, and James P. Thompson was one of the men with whom he talked.

“How can we, how can any decent, self-respecting man,” Thompson said to him, “buy his release at the cost of his manhood, by promising to refrain ever after from expressing his convictions and standing by his principles? It would be degrading and dishonest for us to accept ‘parole’ on the terms on which it has been offered us. We will go out of here as men, when we do go, not as ‘criminals’ purchasing ‘liberty’ with the barter of our convictions and our consciences. When we leave this place it will be with our heads up…”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “The Men I Left at Leavenworth” by Pierce C. Wetter (Formerly Class War Prisoner, Inmate 13179), Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for September 1902, Part III: Found Supporting UMW Official, John P. Reese, Running for Congress

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Told the Court in WV to Stay, Ipl July 19, 1902, UMWC p86—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 12, 1902
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1902, Part III
Found in Hiteman, Iowa, Supporting John P. Reese for Congress

From the Ottumwa Semi-Weekly Courier of September 30, 1902:

SHE ASKS FOR REESE VOTES
———-
”Mother” Jones Tells Miners to Elect
One of Their Number to Congress.
———-

HER IMPASSIONED SPEECH AT HITEMAN
———-

SHE APPEALS TO THE TOILERS TO AWAKEN
AND SHOW THE WORLD THAT THEY ARE ABOUT TO
“ASSERT THEIR RIGHTS TO A FAIR SHARE OF EARTH’S RICHES.”
———-

Mother Jones, Socialist Spirit p19, Aug 1902

In an impassioned address in which she sought to show the evils of the injunction, Mother Jones, the woman trades unionist and socialist, appealed to the miners and citizens of Hiteman Saturday afternoon to elect John P. Reese to congress, in order that he might introduce a bill taking from the federal courts the right to issue the injunction. She cited the effect the “one-man instrument,” as she called it, has had upon the strikers in the West Virginia coal fields, and stated that the strike would not have lasted more than two weeks if it had not been for the injunction. A short address was made by John P. Reese, who was chairman of the meeting, prior to Mother Jones’ speech.

In introducing Mother Jones to the audience Mr. Reese took occasion to thank the people of Hiteman and the members of the local miners’ union especially for the support they have given him during his term as president of the district miners’ organization, from which he is about to retire in order to commence his fight against Hon. John F. Lacey for the election to congress to represent the sixth district of Iowa.

Mother Jones is an avowed socialist. She points to the great day which she says is surely approaching, when the laboring millions shall rise in their might and claim a just share of the riches which they have produced and turned over to their employers. She says that conditions are leading up to a great climax. Her speech, which had much to do with the evils which she claimed were caused by the injunction, ended with a long appeal for support for Mr. Reese in his candidacy.

Mr. Reese Talks.

The meeting was to have been a part of the picnic planned by the people of Hiteman, to take the place of a Labor Day celebration, but owing to the inclement weather the big event was declared off. However, the people were not to be cheated out of an address by Mother Jones, and consequently they held a meeting at the opera house in Hiteman in the afternoon. The first address was by John P. White, of Oskaloosa, secretary-treasurer of the district organization of the United Mine Workers. During his speech Mr. Reese and Mother Jones arrived.

James Baxter, of Hiteman, was temporary chairman of the meeting, and at the completion of Mr. White’s speech he introduced John P. Reese as the permanent chairman. Mr. Reese took charge of the meeting, [and addressed] his former associates, the residents of the town where he resided as a coal miner a few years ago; and from which he went to take his position as president of the district miners’ union…..

[Mr. Reese said, in part:]

I will say that whatever the future may hold in store for me, I assure the miners of Hiteman and the citizens of this town that you will find that I will continue to be one of you in reality, and that I will continue to hold my membership in your union as long as I am eligible.

Now I want to introduce to you the only miner who wears skirts; the only miner who is allowed to belong to every local in the country at one time; the only miner who does not wear a pit cap; a woman who has the respect and love of every miner in America; a woman who, before she has finished her speech, will convince you that the mission of labor is a holy one; that the labor organizations have accomplished more progress during their existence than has any other similar organization during the same length of time during the history of the world. Ladies and gentlemen, I take great pleasure in introducing to you “Our” Mother Jones.

Mother Jones’ Address.

A round of enthusiastic applause greeted Mother Jones as Mr. Reese closed his speech, and she bowed in acknowledgement. After a selection by the band, she advanced to the front of the stage. Her hearers were interested because of her statements, although the speech in itself is not connected throughout. She said:

Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Toilers: —This is my first visit among you. It is not my first nor my last visit among workers. Away back among the ages we find that from the time the human race left the cradle and began to learn to talk there was planted in the bosom of mankind a desire to advance, to march forward; a desire for greater, nobler things. That desire has followed us down the stairway of time and has each day pressed on until the toilers are awaking now in such a way as the world never knew. Today we are confronted with conditions never known before.

Class Separation.

The people are being separated. Events are bringing to the mind the deep thinker of today the realization that there is a great evolution, a great revolution, going on in the world. Society is divided. The lines are closely drawn. On one side is a handful of human beings with all the wealth the human race has created in ages in their hands. On the other side is a multitude of people, robbed, oppressed, downcast, but pleading for the time when the human race shall possess its own. We look back into history and as we realize what the conditions were, and we thank Providence for the light that is beginning to dawn upon civilization…..

[Mother Jones on Trial in West Virginia]

As soon as I entered the court room I told my comrades [fellow U. M. W. organizers] that we were all convicted and that we might as well stand up and be sentenced…

The judge [John J. Jackson] asked me what right I had to come among the miners of West Virginia and disturb them. I answered him that I was a citizen of the United States and as such that I had a right to go anywhere in the country that I pleased. That judge was cornered and he asked me nothing more. But in the closing argument of the prosecuting attorney the most dangerous statement was made. It meant more than he, or anyone else but myself, probably, realized.

Points Out Danger.

He said in his argument to the court: “Owing to the fact that this is the most dangerous woman in the United States today, and owing to the fact that she can go among the miners and commence a disturbance at any time, if she will consent to leave the state of West Virginia and stay away, I would suggest that the court should have mercy on her.” Leave the state never to return! Mind you what that meant. Think of a public official making a statement of that kind…..

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for September 1902, Part III: Found Supporting UMW Official, John P. Reese, Running for Congress” →