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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 17, 1922
Charles Town, West Virginia – William Blizzard Found Not Guilty of Treason

From the United Mine Workers Journal of June 15, 1922:

After a trial that lasted five weeks, a jury at Charles Town, West Virginia, returned a verdict of not guilty in the case against William Blizzard, who was charged by the Logan county coal operators with treason against the state of West Virginia. The jury reported its verdict at 9:30 Saturday night, May 27. The court room was crowded at the time, and when the verdict was read and it was learned that Blizzard was free the crowd broke out with cheers that shook the building. There was a wild demonstration. Friends lifted Blizzard from the floor and carried him on their shoulders, while hundreds of people shouted and cheered. The demonstration continued for fully an hour. Charles Town people joined with the miners who were present for the trial in marching up and down the streets of the town in celebration of the failure of the Logan county coal operators to carry out their purpose to send Blizzard and many other members of the United Mine Workers of America to the penitentiary.

Attorneys for the coal operators announced later that they would next try Rev. J. [E.] Wilburn on a charge of murder in connection with the march in August of last year, and his trial was set for Monday, June 12. They also said they would try President C. F. Keeney and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Mooney, also, on treason charge, but no date was fixed for their trials.

The coal operators failed miserably in their attempt to convict Blizzard, who is president of Sub-District 2, of District 17. They placed about 150 witnesses on the stand, but even with all of that array of help they were unable to convince the jury of level-headed and fair- minded citizens of Jefferson county that Blizzard was guilty of the high crime of treason. The fact is that as the trial progressed it was not so much Blizzard who was on trial as the coal operators themselves and their Logan county methods. The defense succeeded in bringing out before the jury a large amount of evidence showing how the coal operators run Logan county with the aid of their hired gunmen and thugs.

One of the bits of testimony that caused much resentment among those who heard it was given by an aviator. He was not connected with the army nor with any other military force, but was a private flyer. He testified that he flew his airplane over the miners’ camps in Logan county and that he dropped bombs on them. Some of these bombs were explosive and were filled with scraps of iron. Others were gas bombs. This aviator testified that he worked at this job four days and that the Logan county coal operators paid him $100 a day. Another witness testified that one of the gas bombs landed near his house, and that the gas sickened his wife and children, killed two pigs in his lot and withered the vegetation.

Attorneys for the coal operators decided to try Blizzard first because they believed they had a stronger case against him than any of the other defendants. If that was true, they have little chance to convict any one else.

It was evident that the coal operators failed to make much of a hit with the jury or with the people of Charles Town by permitting their witnesses to testify in regard to the activities of the armed guards and gunmen and the methods employed by Sheriff Don Chafin and his deputies in their handling of the mining situation in Logan county. Chafin was a witness for the prosecution, but even his evidence failed to convict Blizzard.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the United Mine Workers Journal: Coal Operators of Logan County Fail to Convict William Blizzard” →