Hellraisers Journal: United Mine Workers of America Will Support Mountaineers on Trial at Williamson, West Virginia

Quote Mother Jones Princeton WV Speech Aug 15, 1920, Steel Speeches, p230 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 5, 1921
United Mine Workers of America to Support Matewan Defendants

From the United Mine Workers Journal of February 1, 1921:

Union Will Support the
Twenty-four Mountaineers

WASHINGTON, January 23.-The twenty four mountaineers who go on trial on a charge of first-degree murder Wednesday at Williamson, W. Va., will have the complete support, moral and material, of the United Mine Workers of America, according to an announcement here tonight by William Green, national secretary and treasurer of the organization.

The trial is the result of a sensational gun battle in the main street of Matewan on May 19th last, which resulted in ten deaths, including the mayor of the city and seven Baldwin-Felts guards. The fight is said to have had its origin in the attempts of the guards to arrest Sid Hatfield, chief of police of Matewan. Hatfield, a descendant of the feudists of Hatfield-McCoy fame, is the most prominent in the group of defendants, which includes special police deputies of Matewan and members of the miners’ union.

In his statement here tonight Mr. Green declared:

The United Mine Workers of America are prepared to afford full support, both moral and material, to the twenty-four defendants in the murder trial at Williamson, W. Va., this week. This trial is a direct result of the barbarous warfare waged on members of the United Mine Workers by the coal operators of Mingo county. And, so long as lives of members of our organization are at stake, we intend to put at their disposal every means for establishing their innocence of the charge. The court, of course, will determine their fate. But we will offer the defense every facility in our power.

The United Mine Workers are determined to see justice done the locked-out miners of Mingo county. These men and their families were evicted from their homes for the “crime” of joining the union. The operators employed professional gunmen to hasten the evictions. We are insistent that the use of gunmen in West Virginia mining areas shall cease. It is time that a republican form of government, as ordained by the constitution, should be restored in Mingo county and the arbitrary rule of the coal barons brought to an end.

Today, there are many of these evicted miners and their families living in tents on the bare ridges of Mingo. They are enduring hardships unparalleled in the history of American industrial warfare. But they will not return until the operators recognize the government-proclaimed principle of collective bargaining. The organization is supplying them with food and clothing, but is helpless to abate in any great degree the rigors of winter in the tent colonies.

Aggressive action against the rule of coal operators of Mingo county, West Virginia, and the Birmingham district of Alabama, is now contemplated. The time has come for a showdown, and we intend to force it. The situation in both areas has nothing in common with the average industrial dispute elsewhere in this country. In both districts it is a case of workers endeavoring to free themselves from a system of peonage that has no place under our form to government.

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“Things Are Normal and

No Trouble in Mingo”

Williamson, W. Va., Jan. 12, 1921.

The Williamson Daily News, in an editorial yesterday, is all worked up about something; and no one but the editor seems to know the cause of this latest outburst of subsidized, editorial guff. There must be a cause-and we have the Bloodhounds of Intelligence now on the trail. For weeks it has been claimed by the spokesmen of the Williamson Coal Operators’ Association, that things are nearly “normal” in Mingo, and different percentages of tonnage have been claimed up to 95 per cent; now, we learn, “that there is work for all who want to work, be he union or non-union;” this latter part is surely a change of front, because just recently, the condition of employment was (quoting from a Huntington paper) “that former employees must belong to the union.” I have always claimed this was a Lockout Strike, and I now reiterate-that the miners of Mingo laid down their tools to put an end to Capitalistic Bolshevism [?] in the coalfields of West Virginia.

If things are normal in Mingo, why all this periodical flabbergasting stuff in Operators’ newspapers, which includes the Williamson Daily News. Are they getting desperate? Are the strikebreakers sent in here not a success? It seems not! When the few misguided ones pass up into the ravines-where the hope of future betterment ceaseth-come back out and pray for help to get back to civilization. The new device of the Labor Agents in Cincinnati is: “No, there’s no trouble up there, but if you don’t like it the Union will send you back.” How pretty this would all sound if it were mentioned by some real Christian minister in some of the fashionable churches of New York, Cleveland, Columbus or Cincinnati, where the fashionable stockholders of the mines of Mingo attend worship.

Yes! There is a reason for these periodic fulminations. “Conscience make cowards of us all,” and the day will come to the coal operators of Mingo, when those who are fighting organized labor, now, will be in the same position as Prometheus, who tried to bribe Charon, the porter of Hades, but he refused to be bought. The bloodhounds have returned-the trail is clear-it is the big assessment by the International Union that has disturbed the editor of “the News.” He must have been asleep like old Rip Van Winkle; this resolution was passed a month ago by the Executive Board, and is now being carried into effect.

The editor of “The News” states that “Certain things may be the case in Alabama, but are not, nor never have been, here.” Ye Gods! what effrontery! Sodom trying to wash its hands clear of Gomorrah.

As to the “few score of men idle” claimed by “The News,” like all the other fabrications on tonnage, full crews around the mines, etc., etc., if the coal operators are satisfied with the present conditions, we are.

The emblem of West Virginia is “Mountaineers are ever free.” Yes! free to starve or steal around the coal mines of this section, where there is a price upon the head of every active union worker by the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, who keep up an eternal espionage on every public functionary outside of the business of coal.

Yes! the miners of Mingo will be free, and with the God of Justice on their side and the help of the United Mine Workers, the shot that was fired at Lexington will re-echo in these mountain fastnesses, where

Liberty lies bleeding at the feet of tyranny.
A craven coward is that man
Resigned to live in Slavery,
But glory comes to those who dare
For love of Home and Liberty.

DAVID ROBB,
International Financial Agent.

———-

From Sprigg, West Va.

Editor the Journal-Allow me space in our Journal for a few lines from Sprigg [Mingo County]. We are still on strike. We have been receiving clothing for our families, and have received five barrels of Christmas goods for our children. We want to thank all the American people for the donation of Christmas funds. I know our children will be happy. I have a wife and two boys, and have been locked out of work since March, 1920. We have 113 members in our local. They are standing like a stone wall. If it takes ten years to win this strike, we will be right here.

H. E. PHILLIPS, Pres.,
Local Union 3476 , Sprigg , W. Va .

[Emphasis and cartoon added.]