Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 14, 1913
Pratt, West Virginia – Mother Jones Seriously Ill, Awaits Verdict of Militia Jury
From The Hinton Daily News and Leader of March 13, 1913:
MOTHER JONES IS NOW SERIOUSLY ILL
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The Fate of the 49 Strikers Are Now
In the Hands of the Militia Jury
of Six Soldiers-Verdict Soon
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Mother Jones in West Virginia with Children of Striking Miners
Charleston, March 13.-Mother Jones is reported to be seriously ill at the Military Camp at Pratt. She broke down completely and had to be carried out of the court this morning. She is getting the best of attention. Repeated adverse decisions seems to have the best of the labor worker and the condition may be serious.
The fate of the forty-mine miners and others, who are charged with violating the rules of the militia in the strike zone, are now in the hands of the military jurors, six in number. The last of the evidence for the prosecution was given yesterday and later there appeared two witnesses for the defense. With the close of their testimony, the cases then went to the soldier jurors.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From The Wheeling Majority of March 13, 1913:
Charleston, W. Va., March 14.—(Special.)-The lawless military commission of Governor Hatfield must grind on in its work of railroading striking miners to the State penitentiary at Moundsville. This is the decree of the Circuit Court of Kanawha county, as handed down by Judge Samuel D. Littlepage on last Wednesday. Mother Jones, Paul Paulsen, Chas. Batley and Charles H. Boswell, editor of The Argus, had applied to the circuit court for a writ forbidding the lawless military commission from proceeding with the trial. The action of Judge Littlepage dismissed the petition and put the petitioners out of court. He said that if the decision of the Supreme Court was not in his way he could decide the matter in “two minutes.”
This action of the Supreme Court of Appeals shows how a precedent may enslave the other subordinate courts and gradually take away the liberties of the citizens. The official organ of the West Virginia Bar Association takes the view that the Supreme Court rendered an unsound opinion. This is also the opinion of the able lawyers all over the State.
In their struggles against the operators, the miners have had to fight every conceivable form of opposition. Some of the traitors to the miners sent ashyster lawyer by the name of Matheny to the strike zone to “look after the interests of the miners.” Immediately upon his arrival he begins to lay plans for the conviction of the miners. He, together with two militiamen generously appointed by the khaki court to “represent the miners,” entered into an agreement with G. S. Wallace, he with the face “like a sewer rat,” whereby the so-called attorneys for the miners admitted practically everything charged against them by the military inquisition. This same professional crook of an attorney was instrumental in getting thirty-nine miners to sign a paper addressed to the Judge Littlepage asking that the military court be allowed to try them. This petition to the judge also stated that the pimps on the military commission could and would give the miners a just and fair trial. As a sample of professional crookedness and duplicity this action upon the part of M. F. Matheny is almost without a parallel. This is the same professional crook who has sucked the blood of the miners in the years gone by.
Will Convict Miners.
The military commission, now given a free hand by the courts, will proceed to convict the miners and railroad them to the penitentiary. In all the annals of English and American law there can be found no precedent for this crime against free government. It makes the constitution a mockery, and liberty a farce.
To Federal Courts.
The attorneys for the miners state that they are now preparing to go into the federal courts to test the right of the Governor to use the military court. The cases will be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States with all possible dispatch. Should the miners win out in the federal courts, it is their intention to bring civil actoins against all the parties implicated in railroading them to the penitentiary. They have just begun their fight, and there will be no let up until the last ditch is reached.
Mar 15, 1913, Pittsburg Coal Trade Bulletin p25
“WV Military Commission Hearing Case in Paint Creek Zone;
Court Upholds Martial Law”
-Names defendants, names charges, describes military trial from Mar 7 to Mar 10 when trial was paused awaiting decision of Judge Samuel Littlepage.
(search: jones boswell littlepage) https://books.google.com/books?id=TYI4AQAAMAAJ
In March 1913, labor agitator Mary Harris “Mother” Jones and forty-seven other civilians were tried by a [West Virginia] military court on charges of murder and conspiracy to murder, charges stemming from violence that erupted during the long coal miners’ strike in the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek areas of Kanawha County, West Virginia. Immediately after the trial, some of the convicted defendants received conditional pardons, but Mother Jones and eleven others remained in custody until early May…
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