———-
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 6, 1921
Washington, District of Columbia – President Keeney Seeks Senate Investigation
From The Washington Times of February 5, 1921:
URGES SENATE QUIZ IN MINGO
———-Mine Workers’ Chief Says Constitution
is in Discard-Gunmen in Power.
—–
By DAVID M. CHURCH.
International News Service.
Declaring that “the Constitution has been kicked into the discard in West Virginia,” Frank Keeney, president of District No. 17 of the United Mine Workers of America, is here today seeking a Senatorial investigation of labor troubles in the West Virginia coal fields.
“GOVERNED BY GUNMEN.”
[Said Keeney:]
The time has come for civil government to be restored in Mingo county and other West Virginia fields. We want a Senate committee to investigate this situation. The miners want them to come into the fields, see conditions as they are, investigate present and past troubles, and let the chips fall where they may.
Keeney today conferred with a number of Senators and laid before them evidence of what he termed “the brutal government of gunmen.” He stated that he had assurances that a resolution would be introduced in the Senate shortly authorizing a complete investigation of the West Virginia troubles.
[Said Keeney:]
The fact that the troops are in West Virginia is prima facia evidence that civil government has been destroyed there. We are tired of these shooting affrays and lawlessness, and we can prove that the blame for these shooting affrays can be laid at the door of the operators’ gunmen. We have evidence to back up all of our statements, and we are confident that this evidence will stand the scrutiny of any fair committee.
MINERS ARE DISARMED.
Why, all the miners have been disarmed by the troops, yet it is claimed that the miners are doing some of the shooting. They say that some of the troopers have been shot at as many as forty times. Let me tell you that those miners are crack shots, and it they ever shot at a trooper more than twice he wouldn’t be alive. We are willing for a committee of Senators to decide who is doing the shooting.
The Winchester rifle and the gun is the law in West Virginia coal fields now, and the gunmen aren’t at all backward in telling you so, either.
Keeney informed Senators today that the United Mine Workers are paying monthly benefits to 2,906 men, 2,338 women, and 6,718 children in the West Virginia coal fields, besides expending $150,000 monthly for clothing, fuel, and medical attendance. The cost of the present labor trouble to the United Mine Workers has been more than $1,000,000, Keeney said, and he estimated that the coal operators have expended many times that amount.
FIFTY-NINE KILLINGS SINCE JULY.
Forty-seven mine workers have been killed and at least twelve detectives are known to have been killed, Keeney said, as the result of battles between miners and the operators agents since last July.
[Said Keeney:]
Believe me, you can talk about the atrocities in Flanders fields and the atrocities in Belgium, but all the Huns weren’t in the German armies when they surrendered. We want civil Government and we hope to get it by a Senatorial investigation.
The Senate Manufactures Committee, which is holding hearings on the Calder coal control bill, today took recognition of the West Virginia troubles, when labor leaders were called to testify concerning conditions there. The difficulties which have confronted labor organizations in the West Virginia fields were thus subject of cross-examination by members of the committee.
———-
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones Princeton WV Speech Aug 15, 1920, Steel Speeches, p230
https://books.google.com/books?id=vI-xAAAAIAAJ
The Washington Times
(Washington, District of Columbia)
-Feb 5, 1921
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1921-02-05/ed-1/seq-2/
IMAGE
Keeney, Prz UMW D17, Lbtr p9, Aug 1920
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/culture/pubs/liberator/1920/08/v3n08-w29-aug-1920-liberator.pdf
See also:
Tag: Mingo County Coal Miners Strike of 1920-1922
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mingo-county-coal-miners-strike-of-1920-1922/
Tag: Frank Keeney
https://weneverforget.org/tag/frank-keeney/
Tag: Senate Investigation of West Virginia Coal Fields of 1921
https://weneverforget.org/tag/senate-investigation-of-west-virginia-coal-fields-of-1921/
West Virginia Coal Fields: Hearings before the Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. Senate, 67th. Congress, first session pursuant to S. Res. 80
Senator William S Kenyon of Iowa, Chair
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008610716
https://books.google.com/books?id=EQQ9AAAAYAAJ
Volume 1: July 14-22, 1921 at WDC + Sept 19-22, 1921 in West Virginia
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=EQQ9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PP5
Volume 2: Oct 24-29, 1921 at WDC
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=EQQ9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA602-IA1
Index to Volumes I & II
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=EQQ9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA1053
Volume III: Testimony of Don Chafin, Oct 27, 1921
-sadly not found online thus far.
See description of same here:
CIS US Congressional Committee Hearings Index: 65th Congress-68th Congress, Apr. 1917-Mar. 1925 (5 v.)
Congressional Information Service, 1981
https://books.google.com/books?id=QHAW4S-kUCQC
https://books.google.com/books?id=QHAW4S-kUCQC&pg=PA525
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They’ll Never Keep Us Down – Hazel Dickens