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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 18, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1912, Part II
Found Speaking to West Virginia Miners at Eskdale on Cabin Creek
Circular distributed in Eskdale August 4th through the 6th:
From the Clarksburg Daily Telegram of August 6, 1912:
SPREAD OF MINERS’ STRIKE TO
CABIN CREEK IS FEARED
———-“MOTHER” JONES BUSY
———-
Big Meeting is Being Held Today for
Purpose of Sympathetic Strike.
———-CHARLESTON. Aug. 6.-With no threat of an immediate outbreak and with Governor Glasscock conferring with the miners, all is quiet today in the strike zone on Paint creek. The miners insist that until the special guards employed by the coal companies are disarmed there can be no reconciliation. The operators claim that the guards are already disarmed.
Some fear is expressed today that some of the miners on Cabin creek will join the strikers. From the beginning the strikers have attempted to get the Cabin creek miners to join them but have failed. Today a meeting of miners is scheduled to be held at Eskdale and it will be addressed by “Mother” Jones. Many of the strikers have planned to attend in the hope of getting a sympathetic strike.
Several thousand miners are employed on Cabin creek and in case the strike spreads over that section the situation will become more serious, and the proclamation prepared for martial law by the governor will likely be issued. In that event the militia will be recruited to full strength. Already some new enlistments have been accepted.
Representatives of the miners called upon Governor Glasscock here this morning, but the result of the conference was not made public.
From The Fairmont West Virginian of August 7, 1912:
CONFERENCE
———-CHARLESTON, W. Va., Aug. 7.-The conference with the miners and operators were continued yesterday by Governor Glasscock, but no one had any statement to make for publication, all agreeing that while various phases of the strike situation on Paint Creek were discussed with a view to placing before the governor the issue contended by each side, no definite conclusion was reached, nor did the operators and miners join in any statement or facts. Each held separate conferences with the state’s executive…..
A meeting of eight hundred miners was addressed yesterday [August 6th] by “Mother” Jones at Eskdale, on Cabin Creek, and the miners organized. The aged leader’s advice was far different to that given in her speech in this last week. The miners were unarmed and have promised to return to work tomorrow. They offered to help protect rather than destroy property.
From The Cincinnati Enquirer of August 11, 1912:
SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE ENQUIRER.
Charleston. W. Va., August 10.-Still more serious became the strike situation in the Kanawha Valley to-day when 3,000 coal miners employed in the nonunion mines on Cabin Creek laid down their picks, bringing the total number of striking miners in the Kanawha coal fields above the 5,000 mark.
In the Cabin Creek field the miners walked out without making any demands upon the coal operators, asserting that they would refuse to longer work under the conditions existing on that creek, but they are expected to insist upon the employers recognizing the United Mine Workers’ organisation, the same demand made by the striking miners on Paint Creek, and the removal of the Baldwin Guards.
In addition to the general strike on Paint Creek, which has been in progress since last April, and the present extension of the strike to the mines on Cabin Creek, 1,400 miners are idle at Boomer, Fayette County, in close proximity to the strike zone. The miners at Boomer walked out Friday because of the refusal of the mine owners to meet their demand in connection with the semi-monthly pay day…..
Says Miners Are Assaulted.
“Mother” Jones, one of the strike leaders, who initiated the strike movement on Cabin Creek when she spoke to 800 miners at Eskdale on Thursday [Tuesday, August 6th], stated to-day that the guards on the Cabin Creek had assaulted a score of the miners since yesterday morning. She said further that the national organization of mine workers would be compelled to care for the 3,000 or 4,000 striking miners and their families from the Cabin Creek section.
The mines on Cabin Creek have been operated on the open shop plan since 1904, when the Miners Union in that field was destroyed. Since that year no efforts have been made to organize the miners on that creek, but the coal operators in the adjoining organized field have complained bitterly against being forced by the miners to compete in the markets with the coal produced by the nonunion labor on Cabin Creak.
The strike on Cabin Creek was a severe disappointment to Governor Glasscock, who has been making an effort to bring together the contending forces on Paint Creek. The action of the Cabin Creek miners further complicates a situation that appeared almost ready for solution…..
From The Fairmont West Virginian of August 12, 1912:
STRIKE IS SPREADING IN
THE KANAWHA FIELD
———-WHILE THE STRIKE ZONE IS INCREASING,
OPERATORS HOPE THAT IT WILL
NOT SPREAD OVER THE STATE.
———-ORGANIZERS ARE AT WORK
—–NEARLY SEVEN THOUSAND MEN NOW
AFFECTED BY STRIKE,
INCLUDING THE BOOMER MINERS.
———-CHARLESTON, W. Va., Aug. 12.-Growing out of the strike of coal miners on Paint Creek, which has been on since the middle of April, is an organized movement having for its purpose the organization of all coal miners in West Virginia for a general strike.….
The miners held a meeting yesterday at Eskdale and were addressed “Mother” Jones.
Cabin creek is reported by the operators as unorganized, while the union officials claim most of them are affiliated with the organization.
Thousands Affected.
If the Cabin creek miners refuse to to work tomorrow the strikers will number, in the Kanawha field, between five and six thousand, not including the fifteen hundred at Boomer, who went out Friday because of a dispute over pay day…..
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Fred Mooney re Mother Jones at Cabin Creek Aug 6, 1912, Ab p27
https://books.google.com/books?id=nE3tAAAAMAAJ
Conditions in the Paint Creek district, West Virginia. (Volumes 2 & 3)
Hearings before a subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor, United States Senate, Sixty-third Congress, first session, pursuant to S. res. 37, a resolution authorizing the appointment of a committee to make an investigation of conditions in the Paint Creek district, West Virginia [June 2-Oct. 29, 1913]
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433004194787&view=1up&seq=246&skin=2021
The Daily Telegram
(Clarksburg, West Virginia)
-Aug 6, 1912
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85059715/1912-08-06/ed-1/seq-1/
The Fairmont West Virginian
(Fairmont, West Virginia)
-Aug 7, 1912
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86092557/1912-08-07/ed-1/seq-8/
-Aug 12, 1912
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86092557/1912-08-12/ed-1/seq-1/
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86092557/1912-08-12/ed-1/seq-8/
The Cincinnati Enquirer
(Cincinnati, Ohio)
-Aug 11, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/33353219/
See also:
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
Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 12, 1912
Aug. 10-Cabin Creek, West Virginia
–3,000 Miners Walk Out on Strike, Join Paint Creek Strike
Tag: Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike of 1912-1913
https://weneverforget.org/tag/paint-creek-cabin-creek-strike-of-1912-1913/
—————
MOTHER JONES BRINGS OUT CABIN CREEK
Cabin Creek was known as “forbidden territory.” Miner Frank Keeney was not afraid to enter, but could find no one to go with him until early August when he found Mother Jones. Miner Fred Mooney later told the story:
He [Frank Keeney] proceeded to locate Mother Jones and after a thorough understanding was reached, a date was set for Mother Jones to go into the forbidden territory.
I was standing on the bridge at Cabin Creek Junction the day Mother Jones entered Cabin Creek.
Her hair was snow white, but she could walk mile after mile and never show fatigue. When we saw her drive by in a horse drawn vehicle we knew the meaning of that visit and we fully expected to hear of her being killed by the gunmen. She arrived at Eskdale without mishap, but after she passed through the business center of town and as she approached the southern residence section a body of gunmen could be seen just ahead.
The morning sun cast its rays on the steel of machine guns, behind which stood creatures that could have been men, and as Mother Jones came near the frowning muzzles of these death dealing implements of war, some of these gunmen fingered the triggers of the guns and licked their lisps as though thirsty to shed human blood.
But she drove her rig near [to the gunmen] and one of the miners assisted her to alight. She surveyed the scene with a critical eye and walked straight up to the muzzle of one of the machine guns and patting the muzzle of the gun, said to the gunman behind it, “Listen here, you, you fire one shot here today and there are 800 men in those hills (pointing to the almost inaccessible hills to the east) who will not leave one of your gang alive.”
[Emphasis added.]
It was a bluff, there were no miners in those hills. But the bluff worked. Mother Jones held her mass meeting in Eskdale, and the miners of Cabin Creek joined the strike with Eskdale as a militant center of strike activity.
SOURCE
Struggle in the Coal Fields:
-Autobiography of Fred Mooney
-ed by JW Hess
WV University Library, 1967
-pages 27-8
https://books.google.com/books?id=nE3tAAAAMAAJ
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I Am A Union Woman – Deborah Holland