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Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 16, 1920
Southern West Virginia – Union Organizing Campaign Continues Despite Gunthugs
From United Mine Workers Journal of July 15, 1920:
Organization Campaign in West Virginia Continues
to Spread in Spite of Gunmen and Other Obstacles(Special to the Journal)
Charleston, W. Va., July 8—The situation in Mingo county is firm. The county is tied up tight. Before Fred L. Feick, of Indiana, and L. R. Thomas, of Pittsburgh, mediators for the Department of Labor, came to Williamson a letter arrived from Joseph P. Tumulty, secretary to President Wilson, conveying news of a conference between the President and Secretary Wilson and conveying the hope of the President for a peaceful and harmonious settlement of the differences.
The operators of the Williamson coalfields refused to recognize the union or have anything to do with the United Mine Workers of America. The strike is continuing peacefully.
Fred Mooney, secretary-treasurer, and William Blizzard, sub-district president, met the mediators in Williamson.
Three coal companies, realizing the strength of the union, signed contracts and their men returned to work. Since then three more companies have signed. The spirit of the strikers is superb.
Up to the present time 185 Mingo miners have been evicted and are living in tents. One hundred and twenty-five families have been evicted from Borderland No. 1 and No. 2, Borderland, W. Va. This company operated on the Kentucky side of Tug river; twenty-six families evicted from Burnwell Coal Company, of Sprigg, W. Va., and Crystal Block Company, of Rawl, W. Va., and Sprigg, W. Va.; twenty-two families evicted from Black Jim Mine, Goody, Ky.; three evicted from the Hatfield Mine Company, Hatfield, W. Va.; four from Naugatuck, W. Va.; two from the West Virginia By-Products Company,which operates mines on the Kentucky side; three from Kermit, W. Va.
Unknown persons, on three occasions, attempted to shoot up the miners’ tent colony at Borderland, W. Va. On July 4, Baldwin Felts detectives at Roderfield, McDowell county, attacked a miners’ meeting, but the miners defended themselves. Two gunmen and two miners were shot, one miner fatally.
On July 6, one hundred miners of McDowell county, suspected of being members of the United Mine Workers of America, had their homes broken into. The miners were placed under arrest without warrants or bonds and their families were evicted.
A patrol of two hundred gunmen, armed with rifles, pistols and machine guns, were on the entire county line between McDowell and Mingo counties several days before 350 miners were discharged when the operators suspected they were members of the United Mine Workers of America.
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Splendid progress is being made in the organization campaign in District 17. In the last issue of the Journal there was published an article showing that the miners of Mingo county were 100 per cent. organized in spite of the gunmen, thugs and black jack artists employed by the operators of that county. All of this has been accomplished in the face of the most desperate kind of opposition. As a sample of the difficulties under which the work of organizing the miners of that field was carried on, the following copy of a letter written by International Organizers James Doyle of Arkansas. and Andrew Wilson of Illinois, to President John L. Lewis will prove illuminating:
Matewan, W. Va., June 12, 1920
Mr. John L. Lewis,
1106 Merchants Bank Building,
Indianapolis. Indiana.Dear Sir:
In complying with the request to report from this field as often as it is convenient to do so, we herein set forth some of the progress and happenings of the past few weeks.
We have crossed that point known to the miners here and also former organizers as the “Dead Line” in Mingo county. We have organized all the camps going east to the McDowell county line with the exception of two camps. We are going to War Eagle tomorrow, this being the last camp on the Mingo county side. We sent a man up there a few days ago and he was put on a train and sent back to Matewan.
We sent this same man back yesterday and sent a deputy sheriff and three soldiers with him. He was again held up and it resulted in the arrest of a mine guard and the superintendent of the coal company. We are going to War Eagle tomorrow and the sheriff, soldiers and miners are going along. We, no doubt, will organize that camp.
We organized a camp on last Tuesday night and we were held up on our way back by about fifteen men with high-powered rifles. They had figured on about five or six of us returning, but instead there were about twenty-five miners came along to see us safe and the premeditated murder was not carried out. It was the plan for a doctor, who is also an operator, to walk down the track with us and he was to get into an argument with us as we approached a bridge leading from the Kentucky side. It was the plan for these thugs to come out from the bridge to defend the doctor and to knock us in the head and no doubt throw us in Tug River. However, luck was with us.
There was a negro shot, on the Kentucky side, on the 5th of the month. A number of guards passing his house while he was standing on his porch ordered him to take his hands out of his pockets and when he refused they went into his house and shot him through the hand and also knocked his child down with a gun. They have been shooting into one of the camps from the Kentucky side of late but we have heard of none in the past two days. We have notified the governor of Kentucky of this shooting and also of the threats of the guards against the union miners on the Kentucky side.
Mingo county is almost completed and there will be a convention called soon to consider demands of the operators of Mingo county. It looks to us as though the miners will win this fight without fail.
The operators are consoling themselves by attacking the National Organization and the officials thereof.
We enclose a number of clippings which will, no doubt, be interesting to you. You can expect a report from us from time to time while we are in this field.
With best wishes and kindest regards, we are,
Fraternally yours,
JAMES DOYLE,
ANDREW WILSON,
Organizers.Miners employed in Mingo county were required, before the United Mine Workers effected a complete organization, to sign what is commonly known as a “yellow dog,” in which they signed away every right they possessed as American citizens. The “yellow dog” has been notorious in West Virginia for many years, but never before were the miners in position to rid themselves of it. The following is a copy of the “yellow dog” that the Mingo county miners were compelled to sign if they wished to be employed in that field:
Matewan, W. Va.
To Stone Mountain Coal Corporation:
In consideration of my employment, the undersigned, one of your employes, declares and agrees as follows:
First: That I am not a member of any labor organization or union, or if a member, will not affiliate with, or assist, or give aid to any labor organization while in your employment without first giving you notice of my intention to do so;
Second: Should I fail to give such notice, or if I shall violate my above declared intention, then our relations as employer and employe shall at once terminate;
Third: When our relation as employer and employe shall cease, for any cause, whether herein stated or not, I will leave your premises and will surrender, without other notice, any house or other property then occupied by me, or in my possession, it being understood that such occupancy and possession is and will be incident to and part of my employment, and not otherwise.
Given under my hand this_____day of__________1920.
Employe____________________
Witness____________________The convention held by the United Mine Workers of America in Williamson, Mingo county, in June, adopted the following policy:
Williamson, W. Va, June 24, 1920.
To the Officers and Delegates of Sub-District No. 2 of District No. 17, U. M. W. of A., in convention assembled:
We, your policy committee, to whom was referred the subject matter on Policy, beg leave to submit the following for your consideration:
First: We, recommend that inasmuch as the officers of District No. 17, U. M. W. of A., have used every honorable means to bring about a peaceable settlement between miners and operators of Mingo county, W. Va., and Pike county, Ky., bordering Tug River, and since the operators have not even answered their letter of June 1, 1920, which reads in part as follows:
Charleston, W. Va., June 1, 1920.
Dear Sir: In answer to practically a unanimous demand from your employes, the United Mine Workers of America has consented to admit them into our organization.
I assume that you are sufficiently acquainted with the principles of this union to know that we at all times seek to promote a feeling of amity and good will between employer and employee. Industrial strife is destructive, not alone in the pecuniary interests of the parties, but to the spirit of harmony that should at all times prevail in such an important industry as that of coal mining.
Believing that you share our views, and earnestly feeling that there is no real obstacle to a peaceful settlement of such differences as may exist, I wish to request that you meet the representative of our organization in conference.
Assuring you of our good will and friendliest feeling, I am, most sincerely,
C. F. KEENEY,
President District No. 17.Therefore, We recommend that the officers be instructed to again invite the operators to meet them in joint conference, and endeavor to settle the differences between employer and employe to the end that industrial peace may prevail throughout the mining industry in the above-mentioned sections of our country. Failure on the part of the operators to meet the district officers and the scale committee, we recommend in that event, that the district officers be authorized and are hereby instructed to call a strike of all miners bordering Tug River in Mingo county, W. Va., and Pike county, Ky., on July 1, 1920.
Second: All local unions will permit a sufficient number of men to remain at work to insure the proper care and protection of all mining property.
Third: We recommend that a vigorous organizing campaign be carried on in McDowell county to the end that all miners may be given the opportunity of joining the United Mine Workers of America.
We further recommend that all men continue at work, and that no strike be called in McDowell county until authorized by the district officers.
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES
Quote Mother Jones, Doomed, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel p213
https://books.google.com/books?id=vI-xAAAAIAAJ
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735035254105/viewer#page/1/mode/2up
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 – July 15, 1920
-Mother Jones & Sid Hatfield & Organizers at Matewan
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=2hg5AQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT328
See also:
Tag: Mingo County Coal Miners Strike of 1920-1922
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mingo-county-coal-miners-strike-of-1920-1922/
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting in Front of Court House at Williamson, West Virginia, June 20, 1920
Part I & Part II
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Fire in the Hole – Hazel Dickens