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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday September 17, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1912, Part I
Found Speaking to West Virginia Miners in Charleston and Montgomery
Thursday, August 1, 1912, Charleston Levee
-Mother Jones speaks to striking miners from the back of a dray wagon.
Now, you have gathered here today for a purpose. Every movement made in civilization has had an underlying purpose. You have reached the century in human civilization when the charge of human slavery must forever disappear. (Applause.)
You, my friends, in my estimation, have stood this insult too long. You have borne the master’s venom, his oppression, you have allowed him to oppress you. When we said, “a little more bread” he set out to get the human blood-hounds to murder you. Your Governor [Glasscock] has stood for it. He went off to Chicago [Republican convention] and left two Gatling guns with the blood-hounds to blow your brains out…..
This industrial warfare is on. It can’t be stopped, it can’t be put back, it is breaking out over all the nation from the city of Mexico clean through to the border of Canada, from the Atlantic Ocean clean across the oceans of the world; it is the throbbing of the human heart in the industrial field for relief. They are preaching appeal to the Legislature, they appeal to Congress—and I must give this Congress credit—I always want to give credit where credit is due—you have had more labor bills passed in the last session than in all the days of your Congress.
I was in Washington not many weeks ago. I sat up in the gallery watching the voters. I was watching the fellows who would vote against your bill. One fellow, when they asked for roll call, he got up among those who didn’t want it, but when the vote came he had to be registered on the Congressional Record, he took mighty good care that his vote was in your favor Why? Because the whole machine of capitalism realize for the first time in history that there is an intellectual awakening of the dog below, and he is barking. Have you been barking on Paint Creek?…..
You have inscribed on the steps of your Capitol, “MOUNTAINEERS ARE FREE.” God Almighty, men, go down through this nation and see the damnable, infamous condition that is there. In no nation of the world will you find such a condition. I look with horror when I see these conditions…..
I know the Baldwin guards are here, maybe Baldwin is here, but I want to say, you take back water, or by the Eternal God we will make you do it. (Loud applause.) We won’t down further. There will be no guards to shoot us down. We will watch the property, it is ours, and in a few years we will take it over. And we will say to Taft and Teddy, “You have had a devil of a good time, go in and dig coal.”…..
I see the babies, the children with their hands taken off for profit; I see the profit mongers with their flashing diamonds bought by the blood of children they have wrecked. Then you ask us to be quiet! Men, if you have a bit of human blood, revolutionary blood in your veins and a heart in your breasts, you will rise and protest against it……
Today we are four hundred thousand strong, marching on to liberty, marching on to freedom. We are the United Mine Workers of America today numbering four hundred thousand……
Now wait until I read this:
The miners and workmen in mass-meeting assembled, believing in law and order and peace should reign in every civilized community, call the attention of honest citizens of the State of West Virginia to the fact that a force of armed guards of men belonging to the reckless class, the criminal and lawless class, have no respect for the rights of their fellow man, who have been employed in the coal fields of Kanawha and the New River valley. These lawless men and criminals beat up her citizens on the public highways, a menace to the traveling public.
If you are molested you have a right to sue the railroad.
They insult our wives, our daughters, arrest honest citizens in lawful discharge of their duties, without process of law; they carry on a course of conduct which is calculated to bring about warfare and disturb the peace. We earnestly insist that the recent trouble on Paint Creek Valley was brought about by the armed criminals against whose depredations we could get no relief from the courts.
I will explain the courts to you directly, and I hope the judge is here. He belongs to the corporations if he is here.
(From the audience: “You bet your life he does.”)
We earnestly and sincerely call upon the State administration, men in public life throughout the State, all good citizens, to cooperate with us, to use their influence by enforcing the law, by forcing such guards to disarm themselves and leave the territory where they are now stationed. We believe their presence there will lead to further riot and bloodshed and murder and general disturbing of the peace, a condition to be deplored by all law-abiding citizens.
We hereby promise and pledge our support and cooperation with Major C. D. Elliott, who is in charge of the State militia, in the interest of law and order, at the same time insist that law and order cannot be restored until the armed guards are discharged.
We pledge ourselves to abide by the law, doing everything within our power to cause our sympathizers to do likewise, upon the condition that said guards and bloodhounds are disarmed and removed from the State.
We condemn the action of the Circuit Judge of this county for leaving the bench at the time of the threatened impending danger, at a time when there existed a condition that brought fear and unrest to the members of our families, to our neighbors and friends. We submitted our cause to said court in which the action of said armed guards was clearly set forth, through and by our attorneys, and an injunction and restraining order was asked for, and said restraining order was denied by the judge. We hold that the recent outbreak and riot was due to the fact that said judge refused to grant a proper restraining order against said guards under the condition set forth in the bill and proof filed in support thereof.
Resolved that a copy of this resolution be forwarded and transmitted to the Honorable William E. Glasscock.
[…..]
[Photograph added.]
From The Wheeling Intelligencer of August 2, 1912:
STRIKERS BUY GUNS
———-PROTEST AGAINST THE NON-UNION MINERS
———-
Announce Big Meeting for Sunday Afternoon
—No Disorders at Paint Creek.
———-Special Dispatch to the Intelligencer.
CHARLESTON W. Va., Aug. 1.-About fifteen hundred miners of the Kanawha district came to Charleston to-day and this afternoon held a meeting on the public levee, and, returning took with them 700 rifles, all they were able to procure in the city. One department store reports selling 350, besides all the ammunition it had.
The purpose of the coming of the miners was not stated. A report was circulated, however, that they came to meet the governor, but no communication was had with that office relative to such a meeting. The governor, however, was not in the city, and has not been for some time. The meeting here was addressed by “Mother” Jones and several Socialist candidates for county offices. The aged woman counseled the men to keep away from the saloons, not to attack the state militia, as it was paid to do the duty given it to perform, but that they should prepare and stand for their rights. The miners, she contended, rightfully belonged to them.
Hand bills were distributed calling attention to a big meeting at Holly Grove, on Paint creek for Sunday afternoon. Another meeting is scheduled for Montgomery in Fayette county. Practically all the mines along the north side of the Kanawha river were idle today and an effort is being made to induce the Cabin creak miners to come out. The latter, however, are not working under the scale agreement, but may belong to the Miners Union…..
From The Cincinnati Enquirer of August 2, 1912:
ALL RIFLES
———-
In West Virginia Capital Carried Away
By Visiting Miners.SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE ENQUIRER
Charleston, W. Va., August 1.-On special train and a chartered river steamer, 1,500 miners from the Kanawha coal fields poured into Charleston to-day, ostensibly to confer with Governor William E. Glasscock, who is ill at Huntington, and falling in that purpose, marched through the principal streets of the Capital City, ending their demonstration with speeches by “Mother” Jones and other labor leaders on the river levee.
With bitter invective the coal operators on Paint Creek, where the strike is in progress, and the Baldwin Guards under their employ, were denounced by the leaders of the miners, while Governor Glasscock was freely criticised for sending the state troops into the strike district. Socialists predominated among the visiting miners, and President Taft and Colonel Roosevelt were vigorously denounced.
Although the miners were cautioned not to attack the officers of the law who were on duty in the field, they were encouraged by the speakers not to permit the coal company guards to oppress or harass them.
When the miners arrived at Charleston this morning they marched direct to the Capitol. Few of the miners who participated in the local demonstration came from the mine on Paint Creek, where the strike is in progress. The great majority were union miners from points in the valley, where the mines are operating under a two-year wage agreement with the operators.
Unable to see the Governor, with whom no engagement had been made, the miners called a general mass meeting of the miners throughout the Kanawha valley to be held at Montgomery on next Sunday afternoon, and Governor Glasscock was invited to be present.
Before leaving the city the visiting miners literally carried away with them every rifle in the city. One local department store sold more than 300 rifles, with great quantities of ammunition. The successful effort of the miners to arm themselves is taken to indicate continued trouble in the strike zone.
August 4, 1912, Montgomery, West Virginia
Mother Jones Speaks to Six Thousand Miners at the Baseball Park
Fellow Workers: Let me say this to you, that not one person wins a strike, that it takes the combined forces of the oppressed, the robbed, class to get together and win a strike. The operators, the money power, never in all of human history have won a strike. You have never lost a strike, that is, the workers have not. You have simply rolled up your banners and retreated for a while until you could solidify your army and then come back and ask the pirates, “What in hell are you going to do about it?”…..
I want to say to you tyrants of the world that all the centuries past have been yours, but we are facing the dawn of the world’s greatest century, we are facing the dawn of a separate century.
This, my friends, is indicative of what? No church in the country could get up a crowd like this, because we are doing God’s holy work, we are breaking the chains that bind you, we are putting the fear of God into the robbers. All the churches here and in heaven couldn’t put the fear of God into them, but our determination has made them tremble…..
And so they got the Civic Federation, they got Morgan, Belmont, and the labor leaders. I said, “That is only a ‘Physic’ Federation, what are you joining it for?” There are some fellows in the labor movement, when their heads get swelled, they sit down with the thieves. They had their feet under the table, twenty-six thieves and twelve labor leaders, and you stood for it. I begged them not to join it, and some of them left it. They stuck their feet under the table and drank champagne, and the bloody thieves, when we had the women fighting for bread, that gang of commercial pirates were feasting on our blood in New York. And then we stand for it……
Not so long ago in this State-I came into your state and found the Baldwin bloodhounds, and find your wives and children thrown out like dogs on the street. They beat you up, put into their hands weapons to beat you with, to beat any of us, yet I didn’t find the courts saying, “Stop it.” I didn’t hear of the Governor saying, “Stop it.”…..
Now, then, we are here, my friends, in protest against a system of peonage such as the world has not dealt with in all its ages……
Let me say to you, my friends, let me say to the Governor, let me say to the sheriffs and Judges in the State of West Virginia, this fight will not stop until the last guard is disarmed. (Loud applause.)
Forty thousand men, forty thousand braves, said to me, “We are ready for battle, Mother, if they don’t do business.” So we are, my friends, and the day of human slavery has got to end. Talk about a few guards who got a bullet in their skulls! The whole of them ought to have got bullets in their skulls. How many miners do you murder within the walls of your wealth-producing institutions! How many miners get their death in the mines!…..
Say, brave boys, say, the star that rose in Bethlehem has crossed the world, it has risen here; see it slowly breaking through the clouds. The Star of Bethlehem will usher in the new day and new time and new philosophy—and if you are only true you will be free…..
Away back in Palestine they were robbing and plundering them. There was a humble carpenter that came. It was not the leaders that came to him, it was not a member of the church that came to him, it was not a society woman, she would shun him then as she would now, if he came to her. It was that woman crushed by economic wrongs that came to wash his feet with her tears and wipe them with her hair—then he gave her the hope, the light of the future economic age. It was she in gratitude that fell at his feet and paid tribute to him—it was on her sacred head he placed his hands.
It has ever been the humble that have done the world’s enlightening. It has been those that have been pointed to with scorn that have had to bear the brunt…..
So, my boys, I said, we are in the early dawn of the world’s greatest century, when crime, brutality and wrong will disappear, and man will rise in grander height, and every woman shall sit in her own front yard and sing a lullaby to the happy days of happy childhood, noble manhood of a great nation that is coming. She will look at her mansion and every room will be light and there will be peace and justice.
I see that vision today as I talk to you. Oh, God Almighty grant-Oh, God almighty grant-God grant that the woman who suffers for you suffers not for a coward but for a man. God grant that. He will send us another Lincoln, another Patrick Henry. God grant, my brothers, that you will be men, and the woman who bore you will see her God and say, “I raised a man.”…..
[Resolutions]
The miners and citizens of Fayette and Kanawha Counties, in Mass-Meeting assembled in the Town of Montgomery, West Virginia, make the following resolution:
Resolved: That we most earnestly denounce certain officials of Kanawha County, State of West Virginia, because they failed to do their duty under the laws of West Virginia, which has resulted in the most cruel, inhuman treatment of the United Mine Workers, of their wives and children by certain Baldwin guards, in the County of Kanawha. Because we know that if the Judge of the Circuit Court of Kanawha County, and the Judge of the Intermediate Court of said county, had, at the time the oppressions were being committed against defenseless miners, their wives and children, had called a special session of the grand jury to indict certain criminals, that if the prosecuting attorney had prosecuted them as they should have been prosecuted, and as other criminals in said county, and sent them to the penitentiary, the trouble would all have been settled and peace would reign.
We declare that said officials have disregarded their sworn duty, that had they regarded their duty it would have saved the state enormous expense.
We denounce the coal operators of Fayette County as unworthy of confidence by the people. They have met in political conventions and denounced in strong terms the guard system of West Virginia. At the same time they are contributing to the salaries of these guards, who have caused such outrages to be committed on many mine workers of this state.
We denounce the candidates for office who have gone into those conventions, because they have not the courage to demand that there should be steps taken to get rid of the Baldwin guards of West Virginia.
Be it Resolved Further: That we now, seeing as never before the vast importance of the laborers of the country vote as one man to elect the officers of this state, that the laborers meet and organize.
These resolutions are drawn up by the citizens and miners of Montgomery, so that they will go to the Governor and state officials.
From the Scranton Tribune-Republican of August 5, 1912:
DISARM THE GUARDS IS
PLEA OF MINERS
———-
Paint Creek Men Promise That There’ll
Be No Violence As Result.
———-“MOTHER” JONES SPEAKS
———-CHARLESTON, – W. Va., Aug. 4.-Declaring that if the mine guards were disarmed there would be no trouble and no violence in the strike district, six thousand miners at Montgomery, Fayette county, today adopted resolutions calling upon Governor William E. Glasscock to disarm the mine guards.
The meeting, the largest ever held in the state, was presided over by Mayor Thomas J. Davis, of Montgomery, while the principal speeches were made by “Mother” Jones, leader of the miners and Circuit Judge William R. Bennett, of Fayette county. Contrary to expectations, the miners did not go to the meeting armed with rifles. The speakers urged the miners not to resort to violence and especially against the National Guardsmen.
It is said the governor has nothing whatever to do with arming or disarming the mine guards, and that if any carry revolvers they secure the privilege from Circuit courts which alone have the power to revoke such licenses. There is no license required to carry rifles. The coal companies, it is said, have not indicated a willingness to withdraw the mine, guards.
If the operators insist on maintaining the guard system only martial law, it is contended, can disarm the guards and send them from the district.
From The Fairmont West Virginian of August 5, 1912:
SIX THOUSAND MINERS AT
BIG MASS MEETING
———-JUDGE BENNETT ONE OF THE SPEAKERS
-NO LEGAL WAY OF DISARMING MINE GUARDS
EXCEPT BY MARTIAL LAW.
———-CHARLESTON, W. Va., Aug. 5.-The largest meeting of miners ever held in the State assembled at Montgomery [August 4th], and although “Mother” Jones made the principal speech, the miners were cautioned to be peaceable. The subject of all the speaker’s address was on the mine guard system, which was condemned in the bitterest terms. A conservative estimate of the size of the crowd places it at six thousand. Resolutions were adopted asking Governor William E. Glasscock to disarm the mine guards.
The speakers declared that if the mine guards were disarmed there would be no trouble, no violence. The speakers as well as the miners declared there was no feeling of bitterness against the national guardsmen.
There was no meeting of the miners at Holley Grove as advertised.
The meeting at Montgomery was presided over by Thomas J. Davis, Mayor of Montgomery, who also cautioned the miners not to resort to violence.
William R. Bennett, Judge of the Circuit Court of Fayette county, and a former attorney for the United Mine Workers, was also a speaker.
“This disarming of the mine guards is a question with which the governor has nothing whatever to do,” said the attorney. “The license to carry revolvers is granted by the Circuit courts of the State and such license can only be revoked by them. Railroad police which are classed among the mine guards, carry revolvers by taking out a license. The guards who carry rifles are employed by the coal companies to protect their properties. They are not employed by the State, nor the county. There is no way to disarm these mine guards who carry rifles to protect property if the coal companies insist on employing them.”
By a proclamation declaring martial law the mine guards would be disarmed as would all miners. Up to the present time the operators and railroad company have not shown any indication of disarming their guards.
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES
The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones
-ed by Edward M. Steel
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1988
https://books.google.com/books?id=vI-xAAAAIAAJ
-page 56 (78 of 360), Quote by Mother Jones on page 66.
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735035254105/viewer#page/78/mode/2up
-page 70 (92 of 360)
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735035254105/viewer#page/92/mode/2up
Mother Jones Speaks
Collected Writings and Speeches
-ed by Philip S Foner
Monad Press, 1983
-pages 163 & 177
https://books.google.com/books?id=T_m5AAAAIAAJ
The Wheeling Intelligencer
(Wheeling, West Virginia)
-Aug 2, 1912
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86092536/1912-08-02/ed-1/seq-1/
The Cincinnati Enquirer
(Cincinnati, Ohio)
-Aug 2, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/33389536
The Tribune-Republican
(Scranton, Pennsylvania)
-Aug 5, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/48275487
The Fairmont West Virginian
(Fairmont, West Virginia)
-Aug 5, 1912
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86092557/1912-08-05/ed-1/seq-1/
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Tacoma Tx p3, Feb 14, 1912
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085187/1912-02-14/ed-1/seq-3/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 16, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June and July 1912
Found in West Virginia Standing with Striking Miners of Kanawah County
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 7, 1912
re Aug 1, Charleston, West Virginia
-Mother Jones speaks to striking miners from the back of a dray wagon.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 8, 1912
re Aug 4, Montgomery, West Virginia
Mother Jones Speaks at Mass Meeting, Demands End of Rule by Gunthug
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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I Am A Union Woman – Deborah Holland