———-
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 26, 1920
Pike County, Kentucky – Miners Marched in Chains by Company Gunthugs
From The Buffalo Labor Journal of June 24, 1920:
EVICTED MINERS IN CHAINS
—–Charleston, W. Va.-When Pike county (Ky.) miners joined the union they were evicted from company houses, chained together and marched in mud and rain 30 miles by armed guards.
This is one of the sensational statements made in a report to President Keeney, district No. 17, United Mine Workers’ union, by Thomas West, attorney, who investigated Pike county mining troubles. Pike county is opposite Matewan, where several persons were recently killed by Baldwin-Feltz detectives.
[Said the investigator:]
The miners were chained together and were walked in a pouring rain to Pike, 25 or 30 miles away. Mud was almost knee deep. Pike county deputies shot a man’s hands off on the Kentucky side of Borderland. About 30 of them were terrorizing both sides of the river. The Pike county deputies were all drunk. In my opinion they constitute one of the most dangerous gangs of men I ever came in contact with.
[Newsclip added from Ellsworth County Leader of Kansas of June 24, 1920.]
From the Duluth Labor World of June 26, 1920:
MINERS HAVE NO TIME FOR
W. VA. PRIVATE POLICE
—–
Protest Against Continued Use-
Demand That U. S. Senate
Make Investigation.
—–INDIANAPOLIS, Ind., June 25.— Every possible effort is being made by the United Mine Workers of America to bring about a full and thorough investigation of conditions in West Virginia under which coal miners are employed. The recent battle between coal miners and coal company gunmen at Matewan, W. Va., in which 10 men were killed, has caused the officials of the union to redouble their efforts to induce congress to make a sweeping probe of the situation.
Operating under the guise of private detectives, hundreds of gunmen and thugs, nearly all with criminal records, are employed by coal operators of some fields of West Virginia, and these men enforce a reign of terror among the miners and their families. Miners are beaten, slugged and shot. They are arrested and thrown in prison on no valid pretext whatever.
The gunmen bully the miners’ families. Miners are denied the right to meet or to use the highways, under penalty of bodily harm. Beaten and mutilated victims of thug brutality have been taken before the governor of the state as evidence of the bloody work. Evictions of miners and their families from company houses are of almost daily occurrence, the thugs and hired gunmen acting as the eviction agents without authority of law. The Matewan battle followed the eviction of a number of families by a gang of these thugs.Time after time the United Mine Workers have called the attention of the West Virginia authorities to the fact that such methods were in violation of the Constitution and the laws of the state. Police powers, they declare, belong to the state and not to gunmen hired by private interests. However, the authorities have failed to put a stop to the system.
At the headquarters of the United Mine Workers the hope is expressed that congress will heed the insistent demand for an investigation that will bring to light the vicious West Virginia system and let the public see what is going on in the mountains and coal fields, of that state.
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of June 8, 1920:
TUMULTY JARRED BY SPIVAK IN LETTER
—–
Wilson’s Secretary Rebuked for
Procrastination in Case of Repression
of W. Virginia Coal Miners.
—–By PAUL HANNA.
Staff Correspondent Federated Press.Washington, June 8.-How slowly the mills of politics grind in behalf of the working class is indicated by the failure of any department of the federal government to respond to the cry of the West Virginia miners for relief from the tyranny of the mine owners, which culminated recently in the killing of 11 men at Matewan.
After some 10 days spent in making personal appeals to the white house, John Spivak, authorized spokesman for the miners, wrote the following letter to the secretary to the president, Joseph P. Tumulty, on June 2, and departed for New York. Using white house stationery, Spivak wrote:
Secretary Tumulty: I told you this morning that. I had to leave Washington tonight. You promised that you would have an answer for me by 5 o’clock. Now, I am informed that you have nothing for me, and you suggest that I see you in the morning.
For the past 10 days you have refused to answer 200,000 citizens of West Virginia. This political dilly-dallying must cease.
We want to know whether the constitution is to be enforced in West Virginia. The state officials refuse to enforce it, and the president, through you, avoids answering their question. If the president refuses to enforce it, we want to know it, that we may take appropriate steps.
I shall be in New York tomorrow, at 138 West Thirteenth street. Please wire me collect, what the president intends to do about this extremely serious proposition.
Former telegrams and letters to the president have been “lost.” I trust this will not meet with a similar fate.
Respectfully.
JOHN L. SPIVAK,
Representing
West Virginia State Federation of Labor;
District 17, U. M. W. of A.;
District 29, U. M. W. of A.;
American Civil Liberties Union.
From the Cleveland Toiler of June 11, 1920:
Coal Barons’ Private Gunmen Rule
West Va. Coal CountiesWASHINGTON-A demand for immediate Federal intervention to restore constitutional liberty to the coal miners of West Virginia was filed with President Wilson by John L. Spivak, representing the United Mine Workers of West Virginia, the West Virginia State Federation of Labor and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Spivak’s letter to the President, made public June 3, reads as follows:
In response to Secretary Tumulty’s request that I present you with a summary of conditions in West Virginia, and what the miners and ail other crafts wish of you, I submit the following:
There exist in certain sections of West Virginia, notably Logan, Mingo, Mercer and McDowell counties, conditions closely akin to peonage. These conditions, which have been tolerated, if not tacitly assisted, by the state officials, at two distinct periods, have threatened to throw the state into a civil war. At the present moment they have become so intolerable, and the utter indifference of the state officials to the enforcement of state and national laws so open, that it has become urgent that the President or Congress intervene and avert imminent open strife.
For the purpose of brevity, I shall take Logan county as an example. Briefly, the conditions there are as follows:
This country, better known as the Guyan Valley, is practically outside the pale of American laws. The Constitution of the United States has never been enforced. The inalienable rights of all Americans to free speech and peaceable assemblage are forbidden upon penalty of death. This penalty has been executed by private gunmen until a reign of black terror exists which is almost unbelievable on the American continent, and which can no longer be suffered.
Logan, the county seat of Logan county, cannot be entered by an American citizen. To enter Logan without a pass, endangers one’s life. Even newspapermen cannot enter that town without passes and even then not without danger.
There are hundreds of heavily armed gunmen, paid by the coal operators whose sole work is to guard the town against anyone who might even attempt to claim the rights of free speech or peaceable assemblage. Between twenty and twenty-five machine guns, 6,000 high powered rifles and two carloads of cartridges, approximately one million are kept by this private army to enforce their reign. These arms and munitions are stored in the Logan country court house, ready for instant use. In addition there are from 1,500 to 2,000 gallons of whiskey also stored in the court house. Illegal traffic in liquor is open and unchecked in this country, sales being made in the court house by these private guards.
The attention of Governor John J, Cornwell, of West Virginia, has repeatedly been called to the existence of these conditions. The only thing he has ever done was to “deplore” them. Never was he made an effort to check assaults and murders. Killings occur with irregular regularity and no efforts are made to arrest the murderers.
The roads leading into Logan are heavily guarded by machine guns and armed men on continuous patrol. In Logan there are about 150 gunmen always lounging about the railroad station and the town proper prepared to evict forcibly any citizen, who, in their opinion, is undesirable,
In September, 1919 the beatings, brutality and murders to which miners wore subjected, and the cold indifference of the governor, so infuriated several thousand miners that they armed themselves and set out openly to invade Logan county and enforce the Constitution of the United States.
Civil war was imminent, and the governor perceived that he had tolerated wrongs and injustice for too long a period. He and C. F. Keeney, president of Dist. No. 17, U M. W. of A. intercepted the enraged miners as they neared Logan, and begged them to lay down their arms and return to their homes. The governor promised a thorough investigation and a speedy righting of wrongs.
To go into details of this investigation would be fruitless, at this this moment; suffice it to say that admissions of all these charges were frankly made, and on December 20, 1919, placed in the governor’s hands. He has never even taken the trouble to read it! It lies in his desk 300,000 words, containing sufficient evidence to cause his impeachment for tolerating so vicious a system. Yet murders go on unchecked, and the vicious private army remains unhampered.
Only a few days ago [May 19th], while the governor toured the country, telling citizens how to enforce law and order, twelve men were killed and others wounded in Matewan, Mingo county. Among those killed was the mayor of Matewan, who attempted to enforce the laws of the city, state and nation. These deaths are the result of the system tolerated by the governor.
The attention of the [U. S.] attorney general, to the conditions existing in Matewan which resulted in the wholesale murder, was called before the battle took place. He took no steps to stop these conditions, and since than has again refused to interfere, stating that it was a matter for the state officials to cope with. Technically he is correct; but thousands of citizens are now confronted with the following situation:
The Constitution of the United States, laws-state and national-are ignored and openly violated by private armies in the pay of coal operators. The governor either cannot or will not enforce the constitution, state and national laws. All appeals to him have been made in vain.
On the other hand, the Federal Government states that, technically, it is unable to interfere
Surely there are exigencies which arise which call for the overlooking of pure technicalities. When bloodshed is imminent, when there is no recourse but the president and the Federal Government for the righting of wrongs and the reestablishment of the rights of citizens, there must be redress given by the president or the Federal Government to thousands of citizens of a great state.
On behalf of all the organized miners of West Virginia, the West Virginia State Federation of Labor, and the American Civil Liberties Union, I have been requested to secure a plain answer to the question whether the rights guaranteed by the constitution of the United States apply to the citizens of West Virginia. If they do, why are they not enforced?
I earnestly appeal to you to end the reign of terror in the southern counties of West Virginia, and re-establish the Constitution of the United States in that region; that thousands of American citizens may be permitted to live in peace and tranquility.
Respectfully,
JOHN L. SPIVAK
Representing:
The West Virginia State Federation of Labor.
District No. 17, U. M. of A.
District No. 29. U. M. W. of A.
The American Civil Liberties Union
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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
Buffalo Labor Journal
(Buffalo, New York)
-June 24, 1920
https://www.newspapers.com/image/255006739/
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-June 26, 1920
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1920-06-26/ed-1/seq-1/
The Butte Daily Bulletin
(Butte, Montana)
-June 8, 1920
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045085/1920-06-08/ed-1/seq-6/
The Toiler
(Cleveland, Ohio)
-June 11, 1920, page 4
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/thetoiler/123-jun-11-1920-toiler.pdf
IMAGE
Pike Co KY Terrorized by Gunthugs, Ellsworth Co Ldr KS p1, June 24, 1920
Note: this appears to be a pro Farmer-Labor Party paper.
https://www.newspapers.com/image/486961375/
See also:
Tag: Battle of Matewan
https://weneverforget.org/tag/battle-of-matewan/
Company Gunthugs Inflict Reign of Terror
on Miners in Pike County KY
Company Gunthugs Inflict Reign of Terror
on Miners in Pike County KY (cont.)
The Battle of Blair Mountain
The Story of America’s Largest Labor Uprising
-by Robert Shogan
Basic Books, Jul 26, 2006
(search: spivak)
https://books.google.com/books?id=IVmypbQvHwAC
The United Mine Workers of America,
and the non-union coal fields
-by Albert Ford Hinrichs
Columbia University, 1923
(search: logan)
https://books.google.com/books?id=fnZEAAAAIAAJ
John L. Spivak
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Spivak
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They’ll Never Keep Us Down – Hazel Dickens