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Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 27, 1921
West Virginia Federationist Demands Removal of Gunthug Army
From the Duluth Labor World of June 18, 1921:
CHARLESTON, W. Va., June 16.—In an address to business men in this city Governor Morgan said: “Thank God, the awakening is coming in Mingo county.”
To this statement the West Virginia Federationist replies:
Yes, it is coming, but through no effort of you, the coal masters or any of the state officials.
The awakening will arrive when the federal investigation committee makes public their findings and expose the vicious system of the industrial overlords who have ruled with brute force and crushed a liberty loving people under the iron heel of greed by the usurpation of the constitution and the enforcement of a law of the gun and club in the hands of their thug army, aided and abetted by the public officials whom they own and control.
Governor Morgan was absolutely right when he stated that “the people of West Virginia don’t understand the situation as it exists today.” If they did there would be a mighty roar throughout the entire state demanding that he perform his sworn duty to uphold law and order by removing the private army of coal company thugs from Mingo, Logan and McDowell counties and restore constitutional rights to the citizenship thereof.
If he wanted to acquaint the people with conditions he could have quoted an editorial from the Charleston Mail in openly advocating mob law, said: “What is needed to settle that trouble on Tug river is a few tugs by the sheriff’s assistants at a stout rope.”
In other words, the Mail advocates that the thugs and bums recruited by agents of the coal masters to break the miners’ strike should string up the citizens of Mingo county who are struggling for their American rights and more bread and butter for their families.
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[Emphasis added.]
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Mother Jones Princeton WV Speech Aug 15, 1920, Steel Speeches, p230
https://books.google.com/books?id=vI-xAAAAIAAJ
The Labor World
(Duluth, Minnesota)
-June 18, 1921
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn78000395/1921-06-18/ed-1/seq-6/
See also:
The West Virginia Federationist
(Charleston, West Virginia)
-1916-1927
“Official organ of the Kanawha Valley Central Labor Union
and the Charleston Building Trades Council”
-Frank W. Snyder, Editor
https://www.loc.gov/item/sn85059874/
May 22, 1921-Pittsburgh Post Gazette, re First Day of Martial Law in Mingo County: Federationist Banned
Note: article states Federationist is “the weekly organ of the West Virginia State Federation of Labor, with which the local branches of the United Mine Workers of America are affiliated.”
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80350821/may-22-1921-pittsburgh-post-gazette/
https://www.newspapers.com/clip/80351050/may-22-1921-pittsburgh-post-gazette/
Tag: Mingo County Coal Miners Strike of 1920-1922
https://weneverforget.org/tag/mingo-county-coal-miners-strike-of-1920-1922/
Civil War in West Virginia
-by Winthrop David Lane
B. W. Huebsch, Incorporated, 1921
https://books.google.com/books?id=3hYtAQAAIAAJ
https://archive.org/details/civilwarinwestvi00lanerich/page/n7/mode/2up
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001432266
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They’ll Never Keep Us Down – Hazel Dickens