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Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 12, 1912
Cabin Creek, West Virginia – 3,000 Miners Walk Out on Strike, Join Paint Creek Strike
From The Cincinnati Enquirer of August 11, 1912:
SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE ENQUIRER.
Charleston. W. Va., August 10.-Still more serious became the strike situation in the Kanawha Valley to-day when 3,000 coal miners employed in the nonunion mines on Cabin Creek laid down their picks, bringing the total number of striking miners in the Kanawha coal fields above the 5,000 mark.
In the Cabin Creek field the miners walked out without making any demands upon the coal operators, asserting that they would refuse to longer work under the conditions existing on that creek, but they are expected to insist upon the employers recognizing the United Mine Workers’ organisation, the same demand made by the striking miners on Paint Creek, and the removal of the Baldwin Guards.
In addition to the general strike on Paint Creek, which has been in progress since last April, and the present extension of the strike to the mines on Cabin Creek, 1,400 miners are idle at Boomer, Fayette County, in close proximity to the strike zone. The miners at Boomer walked out Friday because of the refusal of the mine owners to meet their demand in connection with the semi-monthly pay day…..
Says Miners Are Assaulted.
“Mother” Jones, one of the strike leaders, who initiated the strike movement on Cabin Creek when she spoke to 800 miners at Eskdale on Thursday [Tuesday, August 6th], stated to-day that the guards on the Cabin Creek had assaulted a score of the miners since yesterday morning. She said further that the national organization of mine workers would be compelled to care for the 3,000 or 4,000 striking miners and their families from the Cabin Creek section.
The mines on Cabin Creek have been operated on the open shop plan since 1904, when the Miners Union in that field was destroyed. Since that year no efforts have been made to organize the miners on that creek, but the coal operators in the adjoining organized field have complained bitterly against being forced by the miners to compete in the markets with the coal produced by the nonunion labor on Cabin Creak.
The strike on Cabin Creek was a severe disappointment to Governor Glasscock, who has been making an effort to bring together the contending forces on Paint Creek. The action of the Cabin Creek miners further complicates a situation that appeared almost ready for solution…..
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[Emphasis added.]
Circular distributed in Eskdale August 4th through the 6th:
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Fred Mooney re Mother Jones at Cabin Creek Aug 6, 1912, Ab p27
https://books.google.com/books?id=nE3tAAAAMAAJ
The Cincinnati Enquirer
(Cincinnati, Ohio)
-Aug 11, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/33353219/
Conditions in the Paint Creek district, West Virginia. (Volumes 2 & 3)
Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor, United States Senate, Sixty-third Congress, first session, pursuant to S. res. 37, a resolution authorizing the appointment of a committee to make an investigation of conditions in the Paint Creek district, West Virginia [June 2-Oct. 29, 1913]
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433004194787&view=1up&seq=246&skin=2021
See also:
Aug 6, 1912, Clarksburg WV Telegram
-Mother Jones to Speak at Eksdale on Cabin Creek Today
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/107459383/aug-6-1912-clarksburg-wv/
Tag: Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike of 1912-1913
https://weneverforget.org/tag/paint-creek-cabin-creek-strike-of-1912-1913/
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MOTHER JONES BRINGS OUT CABIN CREEK
Cabin Creek was known as “forbidden territory.” Miner Frank Keeney was not afraid to enter, but could find no one to go with him until early August when he found Mother Jones. Miner Fred Mooney later told the story:
He [Frank Keeney] proceeded to locate Mother Jones and after a thorough understanding was reached, a date was set for Mother Jones to go into the forbidden territory.
I was standing on the bridge at Cabin Creek Junction the day Mother Jones entered Cabin Creek.
Her hair was snow white, but she could walk mile after mile and never show fatigue. When we saw her drive by in a horse drawn vehicle we knew the meaning of that visit and we fully expected to hear of her being killed by the gunmen. She arrived at Eskdale without mishap, but after she passed through the business center of town and as she approached the southern residence section a body of gunmen could be seen just ahead
The morning sun cast its rays on the steel of machine guns, behind which stood creatures that could have been men, and as Mother Jones came near the frowning muzzles of these death dealing implements of war, some of these gunmen fingered the triggers of the guns and licked their lisps as though thirsty to shed human blood.
But she drove her rig near [to the gunmen] and one of the miners assisted her to alight. She surveyed the scene with a critical eye and walked straight up to the muzzle of one of the machine guns and patting the muzzle of the gun, said to the gunman behind it, “Listen here, you, you fire one shot here today and there are 800 men in those hills (pointing to the almost inaccessible hills to the east) who will not leave one of your gang alive.”
It was a bluff, there were no miners in those hills. But the bluff worked. Mother Jones held her mass meeting in Eskdale, and the miners of Cabin Creek joined the strike with Eskdale as a militant center of strike activity.
SOURCE
Struggle in the Coal Fields:
-Autobiography of Fred Mooney
-ed by JW Hess
WV University Library, 1967
-pages 27-8
https://books.google.com/books?id=nE3tAAAAMAAJ
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The Death of Mother Jones – Bobbie McGee