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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 7, 1911
Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania – Sheriff Paid to Recruit Private Army
From the Appeal to Reason of February 4, 1911:
A PRIVATE ARMY.
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Investigations at Greensburg, Pa., showed that the coal companies paid Sheriff Shields $143,147.42 for deputy service during the coal strike. Deputies were paid from $3 to $15 a day each. While the constitution says that no private army shall be maintained, these coal companies hired a private army and gave it official sanction by hiring it through the sheriff. The deputies were all thugs from the outside, hired like Hessians, used as Hessians, and they acted like Hessians.
Had the coal miners wisdom enough to elect a Socialist sheriff, that sheriff would have protected the property of the mines, yes-but he would have hired every striking miner, paying them three dollars a day each, armed them, and kept them so long as the strike lasted. The miners, getting three dollars a day could have waited a long time for the strike to end-as long as the operators. But the working people votes for the capitalist sheriff and judges, and they get just what they vote for.
How long, O Lord, how long will you workers vote to be the beasts of burden for corporation. Socialism will give you freedom, will give you a living that free men deserve, will make you masters instead of wage slaves. Wake up.
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[Photographs, paragraph breaks and emphasis added.]
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SOURCES
Quote fr Westmoreland Strike by James Cole, ab Aug1910
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-westmoreland-miners-strike-a-poem-by-james-coles-of-greensburg-pennsylvania/
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-February 4, 1911, page 4
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/110204-appealtoreason-w792.pdf
IMAGES
PA Miners Strike, Family of J Potlar, ISR p142, Sept 1910
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=8-05AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA142
PA Miners Strike, Camp at Alexander, ISR p144, Sept 1910
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=8-05AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA144
Seattle Star of of November 24, 1910
-“Starving and Freezing on Thanksgiving Day…Snow-Blown Hills of Greensburg” by Raymond Evans
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87093407/1910-11-24/ed-1/seq-1/
See also:
Tag: Westmoreland County Coal Strike of 1910–11
https://weneverforget.org/tag/westmoreland-county-coal-strike-of-1910-11/
-for more re John Potlar
see ISR of Sept 1910, page 145:
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=8-05AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA144
At Claridge and Export there are large numbers of Poles. John Potlar of Claridge who was brutally murdered by one of the “Black 100’s” was a Polish Catholic.
Note: “Black 100’s” or “Black Hundreds” were thugs recruited from city slums and sworn in as “deputies” by the coal companies. -see page 144-5
Note: Pennsylvania newspapers from July 30 to Aug 5, 1910, state that an “unidentified” striker was killed in the early morning of Saturday, July 30, 1910, near Export, sadly the martyred striker was not named, but most likely John Potlar.
https://www.newspapers.com/search/#query=%22striker+killed%22+export&p_province=us-pa&ym=1910-07&sort=facet_year_month_day+asc%2C+score+desc
https://www.newspapers.com/search/#query=%22striker+killed%22+export&p_province=us-pa&ym=1910-08&sort=facet_year_month_day+asc%2C+score+desc
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Westmoreland Miner’s Strike
Lyrics by James Coles
Note: tune was not given for Coles’ Song/Poem
–Auld Lang Syne seems to work: