—————
Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 26, 1902
“The Land of the Noonday Night, A Miner’s Song” by Ernest Crosby
From the International Socialist Review of September 1902:
Category: Hellraisers Journal
Hellraisers Journal: Search Continues for Body of William Fessell in Argonaut Mine; Forty-Six Fellow Miners Are Laid to Rest
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 25, 1922
Jackson, California – Search Continues for Miner Fessell; 46 Are Laid to Rest
From The Anaconda Standard of September 22, 1922:
From The Anaconda Standard of September 23 1922:
ARGONAUT VICTIMS ARE LAID TO REST
———-
Forty-six Miners Who Lost Lives
in Mine Disaster Are Buried.
———-JACKSON, Cal., Sept. 22.-Jackson buried 46 of the victims of the Argonaut gold mine disaster today. Preparations were made to continue the search for the 47th miner, William Fessel, whose body was not found by the federal mine rescue crew.
This little gold mining town suspended all activities for the funeral. Three processions, led by the town’s band, moved to three cemeteries, the Roman Catholic, the Protestant and the Greek Catholic, for services at different hours.
The state was represented at the funerals by Arthur Keetch, secretary to Governor Stephens. V. Filopi, consul general of Italy at San Francisco, who was among the mourners, congratulated the rescue workers after the funerals.
Searchers of the Argonaut mining crew will enter the Argonaut tomorrow to try to find Fessel, who left a farewell message in the mine. They will explore the levels previously covered by the government crews.
The Argonaut will resume mining as soon as the workers wish it. The fire which caused the tragedy is out, with a loss of $125,000 to the mining company.
Governor Stephens will appoint a party of mining experts to investigate the disaster, his secretary announced. The investigation was requested by the mining company.
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: 47 Miners, Entombed at Argonaut Mine, Found Dead; Ernest Miller Was Hero of Butte Mine Fire of 1917
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 24, 1922
Jackson, California – 47 Miners Found Dead at Argonaut Mine
From The Anaconda Standard of September 19, 1922:
By the Associated Press.
JACKSON, Cal., Sept. 18.-All 47 of the miners entombed in the Argonaut mine Aug. 27 are dead, it was announced officially shortly before 9 o’clock tonight. A note found on one of the bodies indicated that all the men had died within five hours of the beginning of the fire, Aug. 27, officials said.
All the miners were found behind the second of two bulkheads they had built in a crosscut 4,350 feet down in the Argonaut mine. Byron Pickard, chief of the federal bureau of mines for this district, was the first man to go behind the bulkhead and discovered the bodies.
Pickard, on an earlier exploration behind this bulkhead, had counted 42 bodies and expressed the belief that there were others there.
The same note bore a scrawled figure “4,” apparently indicating the same man had attempted to leave word for those who might come as to the condition of the mine at that hour.
Mine officials declared that the condition of the crosscut behind the bulkhead was such that life could not have been sustained there by the entombed men for more than five hours.
The bodies were found piled one on top of another and decomposition had progressed so far that identification would be impossible, Pickard reported.
Relatives Mourn in Silence.
Jackson as a whole took the tragic news calmly and courageously. The general topic of conversation except in the immediate family circles of the dead, was arrangements for the funeral, which it was said would be held as a joint affair.
Those of the bodies that were not piled atop of one another were huddled together in little groups. Since death came approximately 22 days ago and the temperature in the crosscut where the men took refuge averages about 100 degrees, it will be necessary to wrap each body in canvas prior to its removal to the surface.
Officials thought it, likely some, but not all, of the bodies could be removed before morning.
The sad scenes customarily associated with removal of the dead from mine disasters were lacking here tonight. There was no crowd of weeping widows and sorrowing relatives at the mine mouth. Among those gathered at the entrance to the great gold workings, newspaper men and miners and comrades of those entombed predominated. For days the relatives have remained at home under persuasions of mine officials and Red Cross workers and tonight it was the Red Cross or sympathetic friends acting under its guidance that broke the sad news to them.
The time elapsing since the men were entombed had given opportunity, to all to prepare for the worst and when that came it was accepted without demonstration.
Most of the miners were of Austrian or Italian birth. Eighteen of them were married and these leave 25 orphans. The second communication from the dead was discovered near the body of William Fezzel. Scratched on a timber were these words, “3 a. m. Gas very bad. Fezzel.”
The hour indicated was only three hours after fire broke out in the Argonaut.
———-
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting in Charleston, W. V., Children of Striking Miners Parade
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 23, 1912
Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting
From the Baltimore Sun of September 22, 1912:
LABOR CONFERENCE VAIN
———-
Refusal To Take Up Kanawha Coal Troubles
Keeps Union Men Away.
———-
Charleston, W. Va., Sept 21.-The representatives of the commercial and civic bodies of West Virginia called by Governor Glasscock to consider the labor situation adjourned this afternoon after an exciting session without having accomplished anything.
International President John P. White, of the United Mine Workers of America, with Vice-President Hayes, announced early in the day that they would have nothing to do with the conference because they had learned that it was not the purpose of those in charge of the meeting to permit a discussion of the strike situation in the Kanawha coal field, where 1,200 West Virginia militiamen are maintaining martial law……
Hayes Addresses Strikers.
Vice-President Hayes addressed a large audience of striking miners and their sympathizers, and Mother Jones talked to another audience almost within the shadow of the State Capitol…..
Children Parade Streets.
One of the striking features of the day was the appearance on the streets of 100 children of striking miners, brought down from the mountains by “Mother” Jones.
They paraded the streets to the music of a band and bearing banners with these legends,
We are the babes that sleep in the woods.
We want to go to school and not to the mines.
The children, miners’ leaders say, were among those compelled to live much in the open since martial law was declared.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
September 21, 1912, Charleston, West Virginia
-Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting Following Parade of Strikers’ Children:
I want to say to those children, they will be free; they will not be serfs. We have entered West Virginia-I have-and a hundred thousand miners have pledged their support to me, “If you need us, Mother, we will be there.” Five thousand men last Sunday night said, “We are ready, Mother, when you call on us.”
The revolution is here. We can tie up every wheel, every railroad in the State, when we want to do it. Tyranny, robbery and oppression of the people must go. The children must be educated. The childhood will rise to grander woman and grander man in happy homes and happy families-then we will need no saloons. We will need no saloons, nor any of your prohibition. As long as you rob us, of course we drink. The poison food you give us needs some other narcotic to knock the poison out of it. They charge you $2.40 for a bushel of potatoes at the “pluck-me” store. Ten pounds of slate in 9700 pounds of coal and you are docked-then they go and “give for Jesus.” “How charming Mr. Cabell is, he gives us $500.00.”
Let us, my friends, stand up like men. I have worked for the best interests of the working people for seventy-five years. I don’t need any one to protect me. I protect myself. I don’t break the law. Nobody molests me, except John Laing. John is the only dog in West Virginia that attacks a woman. He is the only fellow that would do that. I am not afraid of John Laing. I would give him a punch in the stomach and knock him over the railroad. I don’t know who punched him-he lost his pistol. I put my hand on him and told him to go home to his mother. I gave him a punch in the stomach, and he fell over the railroad track and lost his pistol. He didn’t know he lost it until he reached home.
He said, “You are disturbing my miners.” My slaves! Scabs! Dogs!
Boys, I want to say here, don’t go near the saloon today. You need the money to buy bread. When we win this fight then we will make pure liquor. We will go to Washington-we will go to see Taft, because Wilson and the Bull Moose will be out of business. We will make Congress take over the liquor question, and make them make pure liquor. It will be like the postage stamps. We will need it for our stomachs. These fellows that are howling to make it “dry”-we will make it devilish wet-we are going to hand it all over to Uncle Sam. We won’t put the brewers out of business, we will make Uncle Sam put them all to work, and reduce the hours of labor to six. The operators said, “God Almighty, what are you talking about? Six hours!” Then we will go home to the children, and nurse and feed them. We will take the children out in the sunshine-(Cries of: “We will own the land”)-and bring happiness into our homes. And then you will not want to drink. We will have a violin and music in every home, and the children will dance. Shame! Forever shame! on the men and women in the State of West Virginia that stand for such a picture as we have here today-[Referring to the children of the coal camps who marched in the parade]-Shame! When the history is written, what will it be, my friends, when the history of this crime, starvation and murder of the innocents, so they can fill the operators’ pockets, and build dog kennels for the workers. Is it right? Will it ever be right?
Hellraisers Journal: Post Cards and Posters by Ryan Walker On Sale in Bulk at the Coming Nation to Support Socialist Locals
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 22, 1912
For Support of Socialist Locals, Post Cards and Posters by Ryan Walker
From the Appeal to Reason of September 21, 1912:
—–
—–
—–
Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: Divine Rights Baer Offered Bible Scriptures for His Further Enlightenment
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 21, 1902
Scriptures for Mr. Baer, President of Reading Railroad by Divine Grace
From the Appeal to Reason of September 20, 1902:
—————
Scripture for Mr. Baer.
While Mr. Baer, president by divine grace of the Reading railroad, is diligently searching for a title to the life, liberty and happiness of his employes, he might get more light on the subject by reading the following selections from the bible.
Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed;
To turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless!
And what will ye do in the day of visitation and in the desolation which shall come from afar? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory?
Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
-Isaiah, chapter X., verses 1 to 4.
Go to, now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten.
Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts as in a day of slaughter.
-James chapter v, verses 1 to 6.
It might also be profitable for Mr. Baer, whose intimacy with the scriptures is unquestioned, to meditate upon the statement therein contained concerning the rich man, the camel and the needles’ eye.
[Emphasis added.]
The Appeal to Reason further opines regarding Divine Rights Baer:
At last we have one who speaks with authority. Mr. Baer announces that he holds the coal mines by Divine Authority. The preachers and other religionists will now have some definite intermediary with Deity. Send up your prayers to Baer. It is evident that the possession of money is not an evidence of intelligence.
—————
The Northwestern Christian Advocate does not support Mr. Baer in his claim to divine connection, but endorses the statement of a Chicago paper which says that he is a member of one of the most persistent and offensive law breaking organizations in the country.
—–
If Mr. Baer and God are in partnership in the railroad and mining business would it not be a good thing to place the better talent of the two in control of the business and let Mr. Baer get out among the hands and rustle with a pick and shovel?
—————
Standing Prosperity.
A wise man once said in response to the toast, “Prosperity;”
“Here’s to, your, prosperity, may you stand it like a man.”
“That’s a better sentiment than you think it is,” said he. “It takes a clever man to stand prosperity. Any fool can stand adversity; he has to.”
[…..]
Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad, and this latter day madness for money that makes a slave of the laborer, an insatiable brute of the capitalist and a blasphemer of such as Mr. Baer, can result only in the total discomfiture of those who can not stand prosperity that has come to them through the machine-making genius and patient toil of labor.
—————
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for August 1912, Part IV: Found On the Ground in W. V. Strike Zone, Shadowed by Mine Guards
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 20, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1912, Part IV
Found on the Ground in West Virginia Strike Zone, Shadowed by Mine Guards
From The Wheeling Majority of August 15, 1912:
Kanawha Miners Still on Strike
———-[Mother Jones on the Ground.]
(By G. H. Edmunds.)
Charleston. W. Va., Aug. 15.—(Special.)-The great strike of the miners of the Kanawha valley is still on, and is spreading daily. When this strike started it was confined to the mines along Paint Creek and Little Coal river and Briar creek, but it now embraces the entire Cabin Creek and Big Coal river district. The miners of this section voluntarily organized themselves into local unions and then applied to the district organization to admit them into the district of West Virginia, which is District No. 17, U. M. W. of A. In all, there are close to 4,000 miners and 40 mines affected. The miners are demanding the right to organize, and also are demanding the doing away with the mine guard system. The guard system has become unbearable, and it has been definitely decided among the miners that it must go…..
The Demands.
The demands in brief are:
1. The recognition by the operators of their right to organize.
2. The abolition of the guard system.
3. The recognition of the union as in affect on the Kanawha river between the operators and miners.
4. The short ton of 2,000 pounds in lieu of the long ton of 2,240 pounds.
5. Nine hours to constitute a work day in lieu of a 10-hour day.
6. Semi-monthly pay. [State law, but unenforced.]
7. The right to purchase goods at any place desired.Demands Reasonable.
Now, anyone can see that these demands are reasonable, and should not be refused to any body of workmen. There has been all kinds of trouble since the strike started. Miner after miner has been shot, killed and beaten up by the guards, until the governor was compelled to send the militia to Paint Creek. Cabin Creek is now the battle ground, and all eyes are looking in that direction.
“Mother” Jones is on the ground, and the miners are organizing daily. By next Monday not a mine on the Creek will be operating…..
[Photograph and paragraph break added.]
From the Baltimore Sun of August 20, 1912:
1. Sentry on guard at Mucklow, W. Va. More than a hundred bullets struck this house on the morning of July 26, when strikers shot up the town.
2. Striking miner’s family living at Holly Grove, on Paint Creek, W. Va., in tent furnished by United Mine Workers’ organization. At the time the picture was taken the husband and father had walked 12 miles to hear “Mother” Jones speak. Several hundred miners live in the Holly Grove Camp.
3. View of miners’ camp at Holly Grove, W. Va.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for August 1912, Part III: Found Speaking to Striking Miners from Steps of Capitol at Charleston, W. V.
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 19, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1912, Part III
Found Speaking to West Virginia Miners from Steps of Capitol at Charleston
August 15, 1912, Charleston, West Virginia
-Mother Jones Speaks to Striking Miners, Demands Removal of Mine Guards
This, my friends, marks, in my estimation, the most remarkable move ever made in the State of West Virginia. It is a day that will mark history in the long ages to come. What is it? It is an uprising of the oppressed against the master class.
From this day on, my friends, Virginia–West Virginia–shall march in the front of the nation’s states. To me, I think, the proper thing to do is to read the purpose of our meeting here today–why these men have laid down their tools, why these men have come to the State House.
To His Excellency, William E. Glasscock,
Governor of the State of West Virginia:It is respectfully represented unto your Excellency that the owners of the various coal mines doing business along the valley of Cabin Creek, Kanawha County, West Virginia, are maintaining and have at present in their employ a large force of armed guards, armed with Winchesters, a dangerous and deadly weapon; also having in their possession three Gatling guns, which they have stationed at commanding positions overlooking the Cabin Creek Valley, which said weapons said guards use for the purpose of brow-beating, intimidating and menacing the lives of all the citizens who live in said valley, and whose business calls them into said valley, who are not in accord with the management of the coal companies, which guards are cruel and their conduct toward the citizens is such that it would be impossible to give a detailed account of.
Therefore, suffice it to say, however, that they beat, abuse, maim and hold up citizens without process of law, deny freedom of speech, a provision guaranteed by the Constitution, deny the citizens to assemble in a peaceable manner for the purpose of discussing questions in which they are concerned. Said guards also hold up a vast body of laboring men who live at the mines, and so conduct themselves that a great number of men, women and children live in a state of constant fear, unrest and dread.
We hold that the stationing of said guards along the public highways, and public places is a menace to the general welfare of the state. That such action on the part of the companies in maintaining such guards is detrimental to the best interests of society and an outrage against the honor and dignity of the State of West Virginia. (Loud applause.)
As citizens interested in the public weal and general welfare, and believing that law and order, and peace, should ever abide, that the spirit of brotherly love and justice and freedom should everywhere exist, we must tender our petition that you would bring to bear all the powers of your office as Chief Executive of this State, for the purpose of disarming said guards and restoring to the citizens of said valley all the rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States and said State.
In duty bound, in behalf of the miners
of the State of West Virginia.I want to say with all due respect to the Governor–I want to say to you that the Governor will not, cannot do anything, for this reason: The Governor was placed in this building by Scott and Elkins and he don’t dare oppose them. (Loud applause.) Therefore, you are asking the Governor of the State to do something that he cannot do without betraying the class he belongs to……
I still unfurl the red flag of industrial freedom, no tyrant’s face shall you know, and I call you today into that freedom, long perched on the bosom (Interrupted by applause).
I am back again to find you, my friends, in a state of industrial peonage–after ten years absence I find you in a state of industrial peonage.
I am not afraid of jails. We build the jails, and when we get ready we will put them behind the bars. That may happen very soon–things happen overnight.
Now, brothers, not in all the history of the labor movement have I got such an inspiration as I have got from you here today. Your banners are history, they will go down to the future ages, to the children unborn, to tell them the slave has risen, children must be free……
I want to show you here that the average wages you fellows get in this country is $500.00 a year. Before you get a thing to eat there is $20.00 taken out a month, which leaves about $24.00 a month.
Then you go the the “Pluck-me” stores and want to get something to eat for your wife, and you are off that day, and the child comes back and says, “Papa, I can’t get anything.” “Why,” he says, “There is four dollars coming to me,” and the child goes back crying, without a mouthful of anything to eat. The father goes to the “Pluck-me” store and says to the manager, “There is four dollars coming to me,” and the manager says, “Oh, no, we have kept that for rent!” “You charge six dollars a month, and there are only three days gone.” “Well,” he says, “it is a rule that two-thirds of the rent is to be kept if there is only a day.”
That is honesty! Do you wonder these women starve? Do you wonder at this uprising? And you fellows have stood it entirely too long. It is time now to put a stop to it. We will give the Governor until tomorrow night to take them guards out of Cabin Creek. (Very loud applause, and cries of: “And no longer.”)
HERE ON THE STEPS OF THE CAPITOL OF WEST VIRGINIA, I SAY THAT IF THE GOVERNOR WON’T MAKE THEM GO THEN WE WILL MAKE THEM GO……
I want to tell you that the Governor will get until tomorrow night, Friday night, to get rid of his blood-hounds, and if they are not gone we will get rid of them. (Loud applause.)
Aye, men! Aye, men, inside of this building, Aye, women! Come with me and see the horrible pictures, see the horrible condition the ruling class has put these women in. Aye, they destroy women. Look at those little children, the rising generation; yes, look at the little ones; yes, look at the women assaulted…..
It is freedom or death, and your children will be free. We are not going to leave a slave class to the coming generation, and I want to say to you that the next generation will not charge us for what we have done, they will charge and condemn us for what we have left undone…..
Now, my boys, guard rule and tyranny will have to go, there must be an end. I am going up Cabin Creek. I am going to hold meetings there. I am going to claim the right of an American citizen……
This fight that you are in is the great industrial revolution that is permeating the heart of men over the world. They see behind the clouds the Star that rose in Bethlehem nineteen hundred years ago, that is bringing the message of a better and nobler civilization. We are facing the hour. We are in it, men, the new day, we are here facing that Star that will free men, and give to the nation a nobler, grander, higher, truer, purer, better manhood. We are standing on the eve of that mighty hour when the motherhood of the nation will rise, and instead of clubs or picture shows or excursions she will devote her life to the training of the human mind, giving to the nation great men and women.
I see that hour. I see the Star breaking your chains; your chains will be broken, men. You will have to suffer more and more, but it won’t be long. There is an awakening among all the nations of the earth……
I know of the wrongs of humanity; I know your aching backs; I know your swimming heads; I know your little children suffer; I know your wives, when I have gone in and found her dead and found a babe nursing at the dead breast, and found the little girl eleven years old taking care of three children. She said, “Mother, will you wake up, baby is hungry and crying?” When I laid my hand on mamma she breathed her last. And the child of eleven had to become a mother to the children.
Oh, men, have you any hearts? Oh, men, do you feel? Oh, men, do you see the judgement day on the throne above, when you will be asked, “Where did you get your gold?” You stole it from these wretches. You murdered, you assassinated, you starved, you burned them to death, that you and your wives might have palaces, and that your wives might go to the sea-shore……
Some women get up with five dollars worth of paint on their cheeks, and have tooth brushes for their dogs, and say, “Oh, them horrible miners. Oh, that horrible old Mother Jones, that horrible old woman.”
I am horrible, I admit, and I want to be to you blood-sucking pirates. I want you, my boys, to buckle on your armor. This is the fighting age. This is not the age for cowards, put them out of the way……
This day marks the forward march of the workers in the state of West Virginia. Slavery and oppression will gradually die. The national government will get a record of this meeting. They will see men of intelligence, that they are not out to destroy but to build. And instead of the horrible homes you have got, we will build on their ruins homes for you and your children to live in, and we will build them on the ruins of the dog kennels which they wouldn’t keep their mules in. That will bring forth better ideas than the world has had. The day of oppression will be gone. I will be with you whether true or false. I will be with you at midnight or when the battle rages, when the last bullet ceases, but I will be in my joy…..
[Photograph added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for August 1912, Part II: Found Speaking at Eskdale, W. V., Unafraid of Brutal Cabin Creek Gunthugs
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 18, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1912, Part II
Found Speaking to West Virginia Miners at Eskdale on Cabin Creek
Circular distributed in Eskdale August 4th through the 6th:
From the Clarksburg Daily Telegram of August 6, 1912:
SPREAD OF MINERS’ STRIKE TO
CABIN CREEK IS FEARED
———-“MOTHER” JONES BUSY
———-
Big Meeting is Being Held Today for
Purpose of Sympathetic Strike.
———-CHARLESTON. Aug. 6.-With no threat of an immediate outbreak and with Governor Glasscock conferring with the miners, all is quiet today in the strike zone on Paint creek. The miners insist that until the special guards employed by the coal companies are disarmed there can be no reconciliation. The operators claim that the guards are already disarmed.
Some fear is expressed today that some of the miners on Cabin creek will join the strikers. From the beginning the strikers have attempted to get the Cabin creek miners to join them but have failed. Today a meeting of miners is scheduled to be held at Eskdale and it will be addressed by “Mother” Jones. Many of the strikers have planned to attend in the hope of getting a sympathetic strike.
Several thousand miners are employed on Cabin creek and in case the strike spreads over that section the situation will become more serious, and the proclamation prepared for martial law by the governor will likely be issued. In that event the militia will be recruited to full strength. Already some new enlistments have been accepted.
Representatives of the miners called upon Governor Glasscock here this morning, but the result of the conference was not made public.
From The Fairmont West Virginian of August 7, 1912:
CONFERENCE
———-CHARLESTON, W. Va., Aug. 7.-The conference with the miners and operators were continued yesterday by Governor Glasscock, but no one had any statement to make for publication, all agreeing that while various phases of the strike situation on Paint Creek were discussed with a view to placing before the governor the issue contended by each side, no definite conclusion was reached, nor did the operators and miners join in any statement or facts. Each held separate conferences with the state’s executive…..
A meeting of eight hundred miners was addressed yesterday [August 6th] by “Mother” Jones at Eskdale, on Cabin Creek, and the miners organized. The aged leader’s advice was far different to that given in her speech in this last week. The miners were unarmed and have promised to return to work tomorrow. They offered to help protect rather than destroy property.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for August 1912, Part I: Found Speaking to West Virginia Miners in Charleston and Montgomery
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday September 17, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1912, Part I
Found Speaking to West Virginia Miners in Charleston and Montgomery
Thursday, August 1, 1912, Charleston Levee
-Mother Jones speaks to striking miners from the back of a dray wagon.
Now, you have gathered here today for a purpose. Every movement made in civilization has had an underlying purpose. You have reached the century in human civilization when the charge of human slavery must forever disappear. (Applause.)
You, my friends, in my estimation, have stood this insult too long. You have borne the master’s venom, his oppression, you have allowed him to oppress you. When we said, “a little more bread” he set out to get the human blood-hounds to murder you. Your Governor [Glasscock] has stood for it. He went off to Chicago [Republican convention] and left two Gatling guns with the blood-hounds to blow your brains out…..
This industrial warfare is on. It can’t be stopped, it can’t be put back, it is breaking out over all the nation from the city of Mexico clean through to the border of Canada, from the Atlantic Ocean clean across the oceans of the world; it is the throbbing of the human heart in the industrial field for relief. They are preaching appeal to the Legislature, they appeal to Congress—and I must give this Congress credit—I always want to give credit where credit is due—you have had more labor bills passed in the last session than in all the days of your Congress.
I was in Washington not many weeks ago. I sat up in the gallery watching the voters. I was watching the fellows who would vote against your bill. One fellow, when they asked for roll call, he got up among those who didn’t want it, but when the vote came he had to be registered on the Congressional Record, he took mighty good care that his vote was in your favor Why? Because the whole machine of capitalism realize for the first time in history that there is an intellectual awakening of the dog below, and he is barking. Have you been barking on Paint Creek?…..
You have inscribed on the steps of your Capitol, “MOUNTAINEERS ARE FREE.” God Almighty, men, go down through this nation and see the damnable, infamous condition that is there. In no nation of the world will you find such a condition. I look with horror when I see these conditions…..
I know the Baldwin guards are here, maybe Baldwin is here, but I want to say, you take back water, or by the Eternal God we will make you do it. (Loud applause.) We won’t down further. There will be no guards to shoot us down. We will watch the property, it is ours, and in a few years we will take it over. And we will say to Taft and Teddy, “You have had a devil of a good time, go in and dig coal.”…..
I see the babies, the children with their hands taken off for profit; I see the profit mongers with their flashing diamonds bought by the blood of children they have wrecked. Then you ask us to be quiet! Men, if you have a bit of human blood, revolutionary blood in your veins and a heart in your breasts, you will rise and protest against it……
Today we are four hundred thousand strong, marching on to liberty, marching on to freedom. We are the United Mine Workers of America today numbering four hundred thousand……
Now wait until I read this:
The miners and workmen in mass-meeting assembled, believing in law and order and peace should reign in every civilized community, call the attention of honest citizens of the State of West Virginia to the fact that a force of armed guards of men belonging to the reckless class, the criminal and lawless class, have no respect for the rights of their fellow man, who have been employed in the coal fields of Kanawha and the New River valley. These lawless men and criminals beat up her citizens on the public highways, a menace to the traveling public.
If you are molested you have a right to sue the railroad.
They insult our wives, our daughters, arrest honest citizens in lawful discharge of their duties, without process of law; they carry on a course of conduct which is calculated to bring about warfare and disturb the peace. We earnestly insist that the recent trouble on Paint Creek Valley was brought about by the armed criminals against whose depredations we could get no relief from the courts.
I will explain the courts to you directly, and I hope the judge is here. He belongs to the corporations if he is here.
(From the audience: “You bet your life he does.”)
We earnestly and sincerely call upon the State administration, men in public life throughout the State, all good citizens, to cooperate with us, to use their influence by enforcing the law, by forcing such guards to disarm themselves and leave the territory where they are now stationed. We believe their presence there will lead to further riot and bloodshed and murder and general disturbing of the peace, a condition to be deplored by all law-abiding citizens.
We hereby promise and pledge our support and cooperation with Major C. D. Elliott, who is in charge of the State militia, in the interest of law and order, at the same time insist that law and order cannot be restored until the armed guards are discharged.
We pledge ourselves to abide by the law, doing everything within our power to cause our sympathizers to do likewise, upon the condition that said guards and bloodhounds are disarmed and removed from the State.
We condemn the action of the Circuit Judge of this county for leaving the bench at the time of the threatened impending danger, at a time when there existed a condition that brought fear and unrest to the members of our families, to our neighbors and friends. We submitted our cause to said court in which the action of said armed guards was clearly set forth, through and by our attorneys, and an injunction and restraining order was asked for, and said restraining order was denied by the judge. We hold that the recent outbreak and riot was due to the fact that said judge refused to grant a proper restraining order against said guards under the condition set forth in the bill and proof filed in support thereof.
Resolved that a copy of this resolution be forwarded and transmitted to the Honorable William E. Glasscock.
[…..]
[Photograph added.]