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Hellraisers Journal – Friday June 6, 1913
Clarksburg, West Virginia – Comrade Kintzer’s Plea for Help
From the International Socialist Review of June 1913:
Hatfield’s Challenge to the Socialist Party
By Leslie H. Marcy
[Part III of III]
The National Committee received the following plea for help at its meeting held in Chicago, May 10th, and it is up to the rank and file of the party to force immediate action in this crisis. The conditions are so well known that investigating committees are only an insult to the intelligence of the comrades in West Virginia and elsewhere. What they ask for is regular or volunteer organizers. Why should not their request be granted immediately?
The Plea for Help
Clarksburg, W. Va., May 9, 1913.
To the National Committee, Socialist Party, Chicago:
Dear Comrades-Owing to the temporary absence of State Secretary Houston, the State Executive Committee motion following was instituted by myself, asking that the four comrades send their vote upon the motion to Executive Secretary Work, so that in the event it carries it may be properly put before you at the annual convention. The committeemen are widely scattered, and there is a possibility that their votes upon the motion will fail to arrive in time.
Following is the motion and comment by myself:
“That the National Committee, in session of May 11, be requested to furnish a number of regular or volunteer organizers to be routed through West Virginia, for the purpose of apprising the people of the outrages upon life, liberty and constitutional right, perpetuated and practiced by government officials, with Hatfield’s consent. That the financial deficit, if any, be borne by the national organization.”
COMMENT:
Comrade John W. Brown, National Committeeman, is now held incommunicado, in the county jail at Clarksburg, by order of Governor Hatfield. When I last saw him we spoke of this plan of reaching the people of West Virginia.
We all are aware of the subsidy of our state press, and now that Governor Hatfield has set the gauge of battle for the Socialists, having eliminated every other element, we must accept the fight or be conquered.
“In this state issue is involved the greatest violation of constitutional guarantees the American labor movement ever experienced. If we submit tamely we deserve the galling chains of slavery. If we fight as a united working class, we mark another mile post on the road to economic freedom.”
The Republican state machine elected Dr. Hatfield as governor of West Virginia by a few thousand majority, after the Bull Moose fused with them. Wilson, for president, received a majority. Hatfield is a “standpatter,” having advocated Taft’s re-election. His stature as a man and his ability as an executive are pygmy. He is of hasty action and sensitive of criticism.
His official acts are in bad repute even with his supporters, and the press is endeavoring to cover his blunders by flattery. He is of the dictator type of ruler. Coming from McDowell, the border county of Kentucky and West Virginia; he is, as his name implies, a clansman of the McCoy-Hatfield feudists. “Devil Anse” Hatfield, who slew his scores of feudists and government officers, is his uncle. “Devil Anse” could not be captured, but was promised freedom if he would give himself up and come to Charleston to see the governor. He consented, with the provision that he could come armed, which condition was accepted.
Hatfield is the alleged slayer of a negro, who was shot in the back. He has or had investments in saloons and coal mines, and represented to the people that if he were elected the prohibition amendment, if carried (which it has) would be rigidly enforced, and he would abolish the guard system in vogue in the mining camps of West Virginia.
These facts are recounted to illuminate the character of the man Hatfield. Another illustration: In a letter to The Socialist and Labor Star, Huntington, W. Va., Comrade Brown remarked:
“That “con” of Hatfield’s may look fairly good to some, but when one has to read it behind bars it looks different. The big stiff, we’ll sting hell out of him before his four years are over.”
This letter was published, and with the result shown in a letter to me from Brown:
“Hatfield refused my wife a permit to see me on account of a letter I had in the Star…..What does the world think of a governor so small that he would vent his spleen on a defenseless woman?”
But, comrades of the National Committee, the world does not know; even the general public of the state of West Virginia do not know the status of affairs. Some things were mentioned in the press about martial law, military commission, drum-head court martial, acts of violence on the part of miners, inciting to riot, accessory before the fact, inflammatory writing and speaking, jailing without indictment, abolishment of jury trials, arrest without warrant, and the latest act-seizure of the Labor Argus and the arrest of Fred H. Merrick.
But the exact facts and the significance is not appreciated because of the color given to them by the subsidized press.
The political side of the Socialist movement in West Virginia is worth noting here. Not withstanding the somewhat unapproved, impassive tactics used in the strike as, for instance, the use of firearms by the strikers against the machine guns of the operators and their hired mine guards, the miners never lost sight of political action. Nor were the resistful tactics hurtful when considered in the light of ballots. West Virginia’s voters of the Socialist ticket approved by giving 316 per cent gain in 1912 over 1908.
The governor has now eliminated all classes but the Socialists, and is making his fight directly upon them. “Mother” Jones and eleven other prisoners, held under sentence of a drum-head court martial, are all Socialists. Nearly half a hundred others, non-Socialists, tried by the military court, were pardoned.
The impression has been generally gained through the prostitute press that the Socialists are the lawless element, that they have been guilty of murdering coal company employes, since nothing is mentioned of the many miners whose blood has been spilled on the hillsides.
This impression can be corrected by literature and speakers. John Brown is preparing a pamphlet that deserves wide circulation and clearly defines the issue.
If the National Committee will furnish speakers, men who do not fear jails and “bull pens,” the day can be saved for the Socialists. Otherwise, we are in defeat.
Fraternally yours,
EDWARD H. KINTZER,
State Executive Committeeman.P. S.-Since writing the above I have learned of the confiscation, by Hatfield’s order, of the “Socialist and Labor Star,” and the arrest of its editors, among whom was one of the State Executive Committee-Comrade Gillespie. Therefore, disregard the voting on the motion and act upon the necessity of the preservation of the Socialist Party in the state of West Virginia. -E. H. K.
[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Ralph Chaplin, WV Miners Longing for the Spring
Leaves, Paint Creek Miner, ISR p736, Apr 1913
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v13n10-apr-1913-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf
International Socialist Review
(Chicago, Illinois)
-June 1913, page 884
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v13n12-jun-1913-ISR-riaz-ocr.pdf
See also:
Tag: West Virginia Court Martial of Mother Jones + 48 of 1913
https://weneverforget.org/tag/west-virginia-court-martial-of-mother-jones-48-of-1913/
Tag: Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike of 1912-1913
https://weneverforget.org/tag/paint-creek-cabin-creek-strike-of-1912-1913/
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Solidarity Forever – Seth Staton Watkins
Lyrics by Ralph Chaplin