Hellraisers Journal – Sunday March 15, 1903
Colorado City, Colorado – Managers Refuse Arbitration with Smeltermen
From The Butte Miner of March 13, 1903:
GOV. ASKS FOR ARBITRATION
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PEABODY CONFERRED WITH MILL MANAGERS AND STRIKERS AT COLORADO ON SETTLEMENT OF DIFFERENCES ———- MANAGERS DECLARE THERE IS NOTHING TO ARBITRATE AND 8,000 CRIPPLE CREEK MINERS MAY GO CUT. ———-
Denver, Colo., March 12.-Governor Peabody returned at noon today from his visit to Colorado City, where he went to make a personal investigation of the strike situation to enable him better to take action looking to a settlement of the trouble.
This evening the governor issued a statement in which he related the incidents of his trip and announced the belief that the militia should be for the present maintained at Colorado City on account of alleged threats which have been made against the nonunion men in their boycotted mills, though he says he could not find, upon the most rigid inquiry, that the threats came from members of the Smeltermen’s union. He testified that he had asked the representatives of both sides of the controversy with their counsel to meet him in conference at the state house Saturday afternoon at two o clock.
The strike leaders have renewed their declaration of willingness to submit all questions in controversy to a proper tribunal. If they are not met half way, they will call out 8,000 Cripple Creek miners on next Monday.
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The officers of the Western Federation of Miners decided today to invoke the law to punish officers of the national guard who, it is alleged, have perpetuated outrages upon the Colorado City strikers and an injunction will be applied for to prevent any repetition of such acts.
[Said W. D. Haywood, of the federation:]
Action will be begun against officers of the militia and others for confiscation of property, invading private houses, arresting men without warrant and holding them without a charge and other illegal acts. In some cases the proceedings may be in the nature of civil suits, while in others criminal action may be instituted.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 14, 1913
Pratt, West Virginia – Mother Jones Seriously Ill, Awaits Verdict of Militia Jury
From The Hinton Daily News and Leader of March 13, 1913:
MOTHER JONES IS NOW SERIOUSLY ILL
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The Fate of the 49 Strikers Are Now
In the Hands of the Militia Jury
of Six Soldiers-Verdict Soon
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Mother Jones in West Virginia with Children of Striking Miners
Charleston, March 13.-Mother Jones is reported to be seriously ill at the Military Camp at Pratt. She broke down completely and had to be carried out of the court this morning. She is getting the best of attention. Repeated adverse decisions seems to have the best of the labor worker and the condition may be serious.
The fate of the forty-mine miners and others, who are charged with violating the rules of the militia in the strike zone, are now in the hands of the military jurors, six in number. The last of the evidence for the prosecution was given yesterday and later there appeared two witnesses for the defense. With the close of their testimony, the cases then went to the soldier jurors.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 10, 1903 Indianapolis, Indiana – United Mine Workers Receives Report from Chris Evans
From the Baltimore Sun of March 9, 1903:
WERE MINERS KILLED IN BED?
Evans Describes Atkinsville Affair As A Massacre By Officers.
Chris Evans, 1890
INDIANAPOLIS, March 8.-The official report of Chris. E. Evans, who was sent to the West Virginia coalfields to investigate the killing of the colored miners at Atkinsville [near Stanaford City, Raleigh County] has been received at the headquarters of the United Mine Workers.
The report states that General St. Clair, attorney for the coal companies, created an agitation to have the men arrested and taken to Charleston, and that immediately afterward arrangements were made with the United States Marshal by the Mine Workers’ officials to give bond for all who were arrested. Later, on account of the agitation created by Deputy Marshal Cunningham, he says, the agreement with the Marshal was broken and Cunningham was sent to arrest the men.
According to the report, there was a great feeling against Cunningham, and the men decided not to allow him to arrest them and he was driven away. Mr. Evans says that he, as a miners’ official, sent a telegram to the men to submit quietly, but the local coal companies, who own all the telegraph and telephone lines into the town, refused to deliver it. Before he could get any message to the men Cunningham and his deputies. Evans alleges, went to the town a second time and killed the miners in their beds at night.
Mr. Evans says that he went to the scene of the trouble the next morning and that 48 men had been arrested for conspiracy to kill Cunningham. He found in a house occupied by a colored man named “Stonewall” Jackson the dead bodies of William Dodson, William Clark and Richard Clayton, all negroes.
The report continues:
We found that the wife of Jackson and her four children, with eight negroes, were in the house, and that about daybreak all were awakened by shots, fired into the house from the outside. This shooting took place without warning, and the three colored men were found dead on the floor. Two were in their night clothes and the other one was partly dressed.
We visited another house, where Joseph Hizer lay in bed mortally wounded, having been shot as he was dressing. Hizer lived with his sister, and she made the statement at the inquest that she pleaded with those shooting not to kill her children, and in reply Cunningham said: “Women and children must take care of themselves.” In no instance could we find where these people had been asked to surrender until after the deputies had commenced shooting at the occupants of the house.
We next went to the house of Lucian Lawson, who was considered mortally wounded. I understand that after the shooting referred to this man, with others, returned the fire of the posse, and this is the only instance where any attempt of resistance was made by the miners.
During the shooting in many instances the men and women pleaded with the men outside to have mercy on them, but their cries were met with derision and curses. Our investigation proves conclusively that no effort was made to shoot or resist except in the one case mentioned, but that all would have been glad to surrender if they had been allowed the opportunity.
Mr. Evans says that the coroner’s jury has returned a verdict of felonious killing against Cunningham for the killing of William Dodson.
[Photograph, emphasis and paragraph breaks added.]
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 8, 1913 Charleston, West Virginia – Coal Barons Own State Government, Rule Over Miners
From the Chicago DayBook of March 7, 1913:
HER NATURAL DESERTS
Little West Virginia is having big troubles. She deserves most of them.
For years, her politics have been, a cesspool of corruption, her contributions to the U. S. senate, for instance, being silly, caricatures upon the word “statesmen” and their selections being brazen travesties upon the term “self-government.”
The other day, a legislator, a minister, got up in the assembly and announced that his pockets had been stuffed with money to induce him to vote for a certain man for U. S. senator. The arrests of four representatives and one state senator followed. Last Thursday it took an entire police department to put down a riot in the capitol at Charleston. Rotten politics begets rotten conditions, and West Virginia has earned what she has got.
West Virginia has permitted her “coal barons” to treat their workmen like dogs. There has been bloody, warfare in the Holly Grove district. Six companies of militia are there, the third invasion of troops in less than a year. The governor is averaging three proclamations of martial law per week. “Mother Jones,” the well known friend of the miners, an editor and two labor union officials have been jailed as “accessories before the fact” in the death of a man killed in one of the riots. The Ettor case over again, you see.
The military court has 150 cases against strikers to pass upon. And the governor is compelled to borrow the money to promulgate his declarations of martial law. Such are West Virginia’s industrial, or economic troubles. She has earned them by foul liason with the vilest gang of monopolists that ever debased a community and looted her resources.
But maybe there’s hope for even West Virginia. Some of her citizens are being shot or arrested, and some of her editors are going to jail in behalf of the right of free speech, Such things seem to be the beginnings of reforms now-a-days.
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