Hellraisers Journal: Charles G. Bowers Writing “Life of Senator Kern” with Assistance of Mother Jones

Hellraisers Journal, Tuesday May 21, 1918
“Heroine of Paint Creek” Recalls the Miners’ Friend, Senator Kern

From The United Mine Workers Journal of May 16, 1918:

NOTICE TO LOCAL UNIONS

When Senator John W. Kern introduced his resolution in the United States Senate calling for an investigation into the conditions of the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek regions of West Virginia all the special interests in the country became active in an effort to defeat it.

A Wall street representative who had known Senator Kern in other days called him on the phone and begged him to drop the resolutions. “I’ll see you in hell first,” replied Kern, hanging up the receiver.

A more bitter battle has seldom been waged in the Senate, and for the first time in history in a straight fight between the powerful and the workers the workers won—through Kern’s gallant fight.

And that was in keeping with Kern’s battles for labor all his life.

The story of the ten-year battle for the unionization of miners in West Virginia is told fully and graphically in the

Life of Senator Kern,

which is being written by Claude G. Bowers, who was intimately associated with him.

Mother Jones, the “heroine of Paint Creek,” has furnished much data to the author for this chapter—the longest in the book.

This biography is the only monument, except that above his grave, that Senator Kern will ever have. Miners of America who knew him as a courageous champion should help to make it possible by subscribing now for the book.

The volume, printed on the best paper, illustrated, and bound in the best binding, will make a book of more than 450 pages. Clip the following, sign it, and send it at once to Claude G. Bowers, editor The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

________________________________________________

I, the undersigned, hereby subscribe for copies of the Life of Senator John W. Kern, and agree upon delivery to remit at the rate of $2.25 per copy.

Name______________________________________________________
Address___________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________

Every miners local in America could well afford as a local to subscribe for one copy of this story of the life of the man who was hated by every enemy of union labor in America.

———-

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

SOURCE
The United Mine Workers Journal, Volume 29
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-May 9 to Dec 15, 1918
Executive Board of the United Mine Workers of America, 1918
https://books.google.com/books?id=iwxOAAAAYAAJ
UMWJ – May 16, 1918
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=iwxOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT40
“Notice to Local Unions”
Re: The Life of Senator Kern
-by Claude G. Bowers
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=iwxOAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT53

IMAGE
John W Kern 1913, Life by Bowers, 1918
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=KBFCAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PP10

See also:

The Life of John Worth Kern
-by Claude G. Bowers
Hollenbeck Press, 1918
https://books.google.com/books?id=KBFCAAAAIAAJ
https://archive.org/stream/lifeofjohnworthk00bowe#page/n7/mode/2up
Chapter XV: “Kern’s Fight Against Feudalism in West Virginia”
-pages 296-327
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=KBFCAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA296
Quote: Mother Jones from “Military Bastile”
-to Sen Kern, May 4, [1913]
(as first written by MJ)
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=KBFCAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA318

Claude Gernade Bowers (1878-1958)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Bowers

Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette
(Fort Wayne, Indiana)
-Dec 22, 1918
https://www.newspapers.com/image/29138685/

“Life of John Worth Kern” Recently Published
by Claude G. Bowers, A Very Close Associate

[The full review of the book takes up the entire page.]

Conditions in the Paint Creek District, West Virginia:
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
(Note: search all parts 1-3: “mother jones”)
(Note: It appears that Mother did not testify before the Subcommittee during this investigation. I could not find her testimony, and Foner does not include any testimony by her for this investigation in “Mother Jones Speaks.”)
Published in WDC, 1913
Part 1: June 2 – June 18, 1913
https://books.google.com/books?id=HQM9AAAAYAAJ
Part 2: Sept 3-Sept 13, 1913
https://books.google.com/books?id=w-xKAQAAIAAJ
Part 3: Oct 29, 1913
https://books.google.com/books?id=MWUjAAAAMAAJ
From Part 3: Entered into evidence by coal op attorney:
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MWUjAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA2261

EXTRACTS FROM SPEECH OF “MOTHER” JONES
AT MONTGOMERY ON AUGUST 4, 1912.

* * * * * * * *

This, my friends, is indicative of what? No church in the country could get up a crowd like this, because we are doing God’s holy work: we are breaking the chains that bind you; we are putting the fear of God into the robbers. All the churches here and in heaven couldn’t put the fear of God into them, but our determination has made them tremble.

What happened on Paint Creek? Did the church make the operators run and go into the cellar? [Applause.]

I don’t know who started the racket, but I know that Mr. Operator began to shake, the marrow in his back melted, and he had to go into the cellar to hide himself.

* * * * * * * *

Let me say to you, my friends, let me say to the governor, let me say to the sheriffs and judges in the State of West Virginia, this fight will not stop until the last guard is disarmed. [Loud applause.]

Forty thousand men, forty thousand braves, said to me, “We are ready for battle, Mother, if they don’t do business.” So we are, my friends, and the day of human slavery has got to end. Talk about a few guards who got a bullet in their skulls; the whole of them ought to have got bullets in their skulls. How many miners do you murder within the walls of your wealth-producing institutions? How many miners get their death in the mines?

* * * * * * * *

Now, boys, we are facing the day when human liberty will be yours. I don’t care how much martial law the governor of West Virginia proclaims. I have had martial law proclaimed where I was more than once, but I didn’t stop fighting. When he pulled off his martial law I began it again, and he had to bring them back. Do you see how you can do the business? If they proclaim martial law, bury your guns. You can tell him that, if you see him. If the governor proclaims martial law, bury your guns. I have been up against it. They hauled me into court.

Stand by the militia; stand by the boys. Don’t allow no guards to attack them. [Cries of “That is right; that is right.”] Stand shoulder to shoulder with them.

* * * * * * * *

Full View Parts 1, 2, 3 from Hathi Trust
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008606894

From Archive.org
Report on “Investigation of Paint Creek Coal Fields of West Virginia
-by Mr. [Senator] Swanson of the subcommittee appointed by the Committee on Education and Labor
[the subcommittee appointed to conduct the investigation also included Senators Shields, Martine, Kenyon, and Borah]
https://archive.org/stream/investigationo00unit#page/n0/mode/2up

Mother Jones Speaks
Collected Writings and Speeches
-ed by Philip S Foner
Monad Press, Jun 1, 1983
-See page 152:
“Barbarous West Virginia
Five speeches to striking coal miners, Charleston and Montgomery, West Virginia, August 1, 4, 15, September 6, 21, 1912”
https://books.google.com/books?id=OE9hAAAAIAAJ

These speeches available online here:
The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward M Steel
U of Pittsburgh Press, 1988
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735035254105/viewer#page/1/mode/2up
-see pages 56-128
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735035254105/viewer#page/78/mode/2up

The Court-martial of Mother Jones
-by Edward M. Steel
University Press of Kentucky, Nov 16, 1995
https://books.google.com/books?id=AbwYuZlwN6UC

In March 1913, labor agitator Mary Harris “Mother” Jones and forty-seven other civilians were tried by a [West Virginia] military court on charges of murder and conspiracy to murder, charges stemming from violence that erupted during the long coal miners’ strike in the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek areas of Kanawha County, West Virginia. Immediately after the trial, some of the convicted defendants received conditional pardons, but Mother Jones and eleven others remained in custody until early May…

Coal Miner’s Grave – Idaho Silver Hammer Band
Lyrics by Hazel Dickens

In memory of Francis Estep
Martyr of the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike
WE NEVER FORGET