Hellraisers Journal: Company Gunthugs Beat Up and Shoot Down Union Coal Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky

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Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, ed, Ab Chp 6, 1925———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday May 14, 1920
Harlan County, Kentucky – Company Gunthugs Shoot Down Miners

From the United Mine Workers Journal of May 1, 1920:

HdLn Harlan Co KY Gunthugs, UMWJ p4, May 1, 1920

Reports which have reached the Journal indicate a terrible condition of affairs in the Harlan coal field of Kentucky. Gunmen and thugs in the employ of the coal companies run wild in that section, without fear or hindrance. They are shooting down innocent and helpless miners and members of miners’ families. Three members of the United Mine Workers were shot down in cold blood by these ruffians and murderers on March 20 at the Banner Fork Coal Corporation Mine No. 2. The following are the names of the victims:

K. S. TAYLOR, instantly killed. Leaves a widow and seven children without any means of support.

JAMES BURK [John Burkes], deputy sheriff, fatally wounded. Died the next day in a hospital at Harlan, leaving a widow and family without support.

GENERAL GIBSON, fatally wounded. Died on an operating table in a hospital at Harlan, leaving a family without support.

One of the gunmen, Jim Hall, was severely wounded and was sent to a hospital at Harlan [has since died]. Banner Fork Local Union No. 3319 has adopted resolutions of condolence to the families of the deceased brothers, all of whom were good men and highly respected. They gave their lives to uphold the principles of the United Mine Workers of America.

Since the shooting the membership of Banner Fork local union has reached 100 per cent, and the coal company has locked out its employes.

According to reports from Harlan county, Jim Hall, the thug, beat up and disfigured a young son of K. S. Taylor, afterward locking him up in a boarding house. When attempting to give bond for the release of his son the father was shot down. The thugs suddenly appeared from the office of the coal company and ordered the miners to throw up their hands. There was a hailstorm of bullets for ten minutes. Hall is said to boast that he kills a miner a month. He and five other thugs are said to receive $10 a day for their bloody work. Hall wore a steel breast plate as a protection against bullets, but it did not save him.

Following the shooting, the sheriff searched the company boarding house and another house and found three machine guns and two cases of high-power rifles with an ample supply of ammunition ready for instant use.

[One of the reports said:]

This is what they use on American citizens whose only offense is their effort to protect themselves and their families. Everything is peaceful at present, but the miners are greatly stirred up over the outrage.


The Journal has received the following communication in regard to the Harlan county situation:

Editor the Journal—Just a word from the Harlan county (Kentucky) field of District 19. We are getting along fairly well considering the circumstances. The coal operators have not yet complied with President Wilson’s settlement of the strike to establish the status quo of October 31, 1919. We understand they are the only coal operators in a group in this country that have defied the government in this respect. They prefer hiring thugs and gunmen to terrorize and, if necessary, murder innocent people, the main object being to destroy the United Mine Workers of America so they will not have to pay their employes living wages.

In a. case last week at Wilsonberger, the company tried to evict J. B. Bryant from one of the company houses. Seeing the injustice being imposed on this man, the organization furnished a bond, and before arrangements could be made to move some of the company hirelings dynamited the house while the family, composed of father, mother and six children, were asleep. It is a miracle that any of them are living today.

Just to show the methods they use to get public sympathy, I may mention that one coal operator a short time ago donated $25,000 to a church at Jellico, Tenn., and he now has a number of gunmen employed. Among them is one Rockingham Smith, who was charged jointly with Boyd Kelly, who was tried, convicted and sentenced to twenty years in the penitentiary for killing the two Shipman boys at the dead of night in their home, but through the power and influence of the coal operators he has not served one minute of his sentence, and who is at present chief constable of the county court of Harlan county.

There are about seventy-five of these gunmen in Harlan county. Recently International Board Member Bramlett, of District 8, and Donaldson of District 2 were in Harlan investigating conditions in this field and to make an audit of the national funds for the International Executive Board. While going about their business these “law and order” thugs, led by a man who shot and killed in cold blood Lee Clark, a local union secretary, and also shot and killed a police officer in Harlan, pushed these board members off the sidewalks; these desperadoes trying to pick a quarrel or start something. Of course, the board members ignored them and went on about their business, and no doubt will render their report to President [John L. Lewis], which will show a 95 per cent organization in this field.

Ye gods! Were the savages of Germany or Turkey as bad as we have here in Kentucky—kaisers and sultans and murderers in the good old state of Kentucky of the U. S. A.

A Union Miner.

[Emphasis added.]

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SOURCES & IMAGES

Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, ed, Ab Chp 6, 1925
https://www.iww.org/history/library/MotherJones/autobiography/6

United Mine Workers Journal, Volume 31
(Indianapolis, Indiana)
-Jan 1 – Dec 15, 1920
“Official Publication of the United Mine Workers of America”
https://books.google.com/books?id=2hg5AQAAMAAJ
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012261589
UMWJ – May 1, 1920
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=2hg5AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT198

See also:

Miner K. S. “Bud” Taylor Killed by Gunthug Jim Hall
in Harlan County

Gunthug Jim Hall, Who Shot Down Miner Bud Taylor
in Harlan County, Dies of His Wounds

WE NEVER FORGET: Luther and Frank Shipman
Oct 1, 1917, Pineville, Kentucky, Gunthugs Shoot Down Unarmed Local Leader of Coal Miners

re President Wilson’s settlement of the Great Coal Strike, see:
United Mine Workers Journal, Volume 31
(search: “president wilson” settlement)
https://books.google.com/books?id=2hg5AQAAMAAJ

Tag: Great Coal Strike of 1919
https://weneverforget.org/tag/great-coal-strike-of-1919/

Note: Sadly I could find no further information on “General” Gibson or on Lee Clark, “local union secretary”-more research needed.

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Which Side Are You On – Florence Reece

Which Side Are You On? – Natalie Merchant
Lyrics by Florence Reese

You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive – Patty Loveless
Lyrics by Darrell Scott

Death of Lawrence Jones -Kathy Mattea
Lyrics by Si Kahn
The dead go forward with us, not one is left behind
There’s one man dead on that Harlan County line.