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Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 20, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1912, Part IV
Found on the Ground in West Virginia Strike Zone, Shadowed by Mine Guards
From The Wheeling Majority of August 15, 1912:
Kanawha Miners Still on Strike
———-[Mother Jones on the Ground.]
(By G. H. Edmunds.)
Charleston. W. Va., Aug. 15.—(Special.)-The great strike of the miners of the Kanawha valley is still on, and is spreading daily. When this strike started it was confined to the mines along Paint Creek and Little Coal river and Briar creek, but it now embraces the entire Cabin Creek and Big Coal river district. The miners of this section voluntarily organized themselves into local unions and then applied to the district organization to admit them into the district of West Virginia, which is District No. 17, U. M. W. of A. In all, there are close to 4,000 miners and 40 mines affected. The miners are demanding the right to organize, and also are demanding the doing away with the mine guard system. The guard system has become unbearable, and it has been definitely decided among the miners that it must go…..
The Demands.
The demands in brief are:
1. The recognition by the operators of their right to organize.
2. The abolition of the guard system.
3. The recognition of the union as in affect on the Kanawha river between the operators and miners.
4. The short ton of 2,000 pounds in lieu of the long ton of 2,240 pounds.
5. Nine hours to constitute a work day in lieu of a 10-hour day.
6. Semi-monthly pay. [State law, but unenforced.]
7. The right to purchase goods at any place desired.Demands Reasonable.
Now, anyone can see that these demands are reasonable, and should not be refused to any body of workmen. There has been all kinds of trouble since the strike started. Miner after miner has been shot, killed and beaten up by the guards, until the governor was compelled to send the militia to Paint Creek. Cabin Creek is now the battle ground, and all eyes are looking in that direction.
“Mother” Jones is on the ground, and the miners are organizing daily. By next Monday not a mine on the Creek will be operating…..
[Photograph and paragraph break added.]
From the Baltimore Sun of August 20, 1912:
1. Sentry on guard at Mucklow, W. Va. More than a hundred bullets struck this house on the morning of July 26, when strikers shot up the town.
2. Striking miner’s family living at Holly Grove, on Paint Creek, W. Va., in tent furnished by United Mine Workers’ organization. At the time the picture was taken the husband and father had walked 12 miles to hear “Mother” Jones speak. Several hundred miners live in the Holly Grove Camp.
3. View of miners’ camp at Holly Grove, W. Va.
From the Clarksburg Daily Telegram of August 23, 1912:
“MOTHER” JONES LOOKING
FOR TROUBLE IT SEEMS
———-
Declares That She Will Speak in District
Covered by Proclamation.
———-ADJUTANT ELLIOTT
———-
In a Hospital But He Will Be Out
Within a Few Days.
———-CHARLESTON, Aug.23-The appearance of some of the labor leaders in the strike zone, among them “Mother” Jones, who, it is reported, has said she will attempt to hold meetings, in the district covered by Governor Glasscock’s proclamation prohibiting the holding of meetings of any kind that tends to arouse and incite the miners, may cause further trouble.
No difficulty had been reported this morning on either side of Cabin or Paint creek, but no report had been had from the trouble district in Raleigh county.
Adjutant General Elliott, who was injured yesterday in being thrown from a railroad motorcycle, is in the Sheltering Arms hospital. He suffered no broken bones and will be able to leave the hospital within a few days.
From the Baltimore Sun of August 25, 1912:
TIGHT REIN ON MINERS
———-
Militia Commander Stops All Meeting
At Cabin Creek.
———-BOTH SIDES GET WEAPONS
———-
Sixteen Cases Of Whisky And Several Kegs Of Beer
Reported To Have Been Sent To Companies.[MOTHER JONES SHADOWED.]
(From a Staff Correspondent.)
Charleston, W. Va., Aug. 24.-As a result of the meeting held yesterday at Kayford, on Cabin creek, by Mother Jones, and because neither the mine guards nor the miners here obeyed the proclamation of Governor Glasscock to lay down their arms, Adj. Gen. C. D. Elliott this morning issued a normal order prohibiting any further meetings or the marching of any bodies of men or women in the Cabin creek district as long as the troops are there…..
Both Get Arms And Ammunition.
Elliott is exactly right in his statement that both sides are still receiving arms and ammunition. Yesterday, it is reported on authority that cannot be questioned, that a case of rifles and 23,000 rounds of ammunition were consigned to the companies on Cabin Creek. It is also reported that 16 cases of whisky and a couple of kegs of beer also were sent to the companies, presumably for the mine guards.
The companies deny that the arms, ammunition and liquors were shipped to them, but the express manifests show they were. Also that they were receipted for. It is known that the companies have several machine guns placed where they will do the most good in case of trouble.
At the same time the miners have not been idle. Most of them have rifles hidden and they are well supplied with ammunition. The greater number of their guns are of the old army Springfield type, while there are some Swiss mausers and Spanish mausers bought from department stores. There are also some modern high-power rifles among them. The mine guard are all equipped with the most modern rifles…..
Mother Jones Shadowed.
Mother Jones, the “Stormy Petrel” of the labor movement, returned to Charleston last night after two days spent on Cabin creek. She was followed wherever she went by the mine guards and addressed a meeting yesterday [August 23rd] at Kayford, at the head of one of the branches of Cabin creek. She had about 200 men, women and children in her audience. But for the presence of Major Davis and Captain Ford it is admitted that the meeting would never have been held.
The officer did not go up to Kayford however, to see that Mother Jones was allowed to hold her meeting, but to see that the meeting was orderly: that there was no violence and that no incendiary speeches were made. In other words, he was there to see that the orders of Governor Glasscock in this respect were not violated. At the same time it was his duty to see that Mother Jones and her followers were protected.
Distasteful To Operators.
That the holding of the meeting was decidedly distasteful to those in charge of the mining operations on the creek was shown by the attitude of the Baldwin detectives, who have been engaged by the operators as mine guards. They followed the old lady everywhere she went and refused to allow her to put her foot on company property. This means that she was compelled to keep to the county road, which is nothing more than a rough trail up the valley, and she was even forbidden to walk on the railroad tracks. For a part of the way the road runs through the bed of the creek, and Mother Jones was compelled to wade the creek, although the dry railroad track and a path alongside it were not more than five feet away. But the old lady, who is in her eighty-first year, trudged along through the creek undaunted until she retched her destination.
Not a word was said to her by any of the guards until she reached Kayford. She took the train in the morning at Eskdale, where she had spent the night and which is a “free town,” accompanied by several of the guards and the officers of the State troops. That is, they all got on the same train with her. She made a mistake in the place she wanted to get off and left the train at Leewood, about four miles below Kayford.
Trudged On To Kayford.
The officers and the guards got off with her. She realized her mistake as soon as the train had pulled away. Then she started to trudge the distance to Kayford, so as not to disappoint the men who expected to meet her. The officers and the guards trailed along behind. She had only walked mile, however, before she learned from one of the strike sympathizers that she could get on a train that ran up the other side of the creek and get off at a coal tipple opposite Kayford. This she did and the officers and the guards did likewise and scrambled down the steep side of the mountain after her.
When she reached Kayford she was tired and weak and Lawrence Dwyer, who had arranged for the meeting, started to escort her to his home for a cup of tea. She was forbidden to go there by a guard.
Told to Get Out.
“Get out of there!” he ordered. “You are on company property. If you move up there I’ll arrest you.”
“I thought I had a right to take anyone I pleased to my house,” Dwyer protested.
“Yes, you think too d—-d much,” was the response. “Get out of that!”
“Mother” Jones and Dwyer went hack to the road and proceeded along it for several hundred yards, when she came to a wet place and started to go up on the railroad track, but was ordered back, and back she went.
A couple hundred of men, women and children followed along on the tracks, but the white-haired old woman was obliged to pick her way along among the stones in the road in water that was frequently up to her shoe tops. Up beyond the last tipple a halt was made and the meeting begun.
The mine guards are also deputy sheriffs and have the authority to prevent the obstruction of a public highway, notwithstanding there happened to be no travel upon it, so to avoid trouble, Mother Jones stood on one side of the road, with her audience on the other and made her speech. It was not long, however, before her audience spread up along the track and blocked up the sides of the road, but there was no interference on the part of the guards.
She Oppose Violence.
The speech made by Mother Jones was exceedingly temperate. She cautioned her hearers against violence of any kind and especially warned them not to molest property of the company. She also urged them not to revile the mine guards and not to fight with them. At the same time she urged them not to give up their rights, but to fight for them if necessary.
She told them to stay out on strike until their fight was won and that the present fight was a fight to the death for unionism. The men must obey the laws and if the laws were not what they ought to be to send men to the Legislature who would change them. They would not get what they wanted from the Republican party, she told them, because the Republican party was dead and dead beyond resurrection. It had served its purpose and had passed away.
The speech thrilled her hearers and made a decided impression on them. She spoke for more than an hour and at the end of the speech she went around in the crowd shaking hands with the men and urging them to stand firm and not to be coerced into giving up the fight unless their demands were granted. Then she returned to Charleston. She will be in the region for some time……
H. E. WEST.
From the Appeal to Reason of August 31, 1912:
A Busy Revolutionist.
Mother Jones, who has so often been termed “the stormy petral of the revolution,” is aiding the striking miners in West Virginia. The miners have been under the control of mine guards who have been abusing and threatening the workers. In a recent speech Mother Jones said: “We will give the governor till tomorrow night to take those guards out of Cabin Creek and if he doesn’t take them we will, take them out.” The response of the governor was to put the militia in Cabin Creek at the instance of business men and against the protest of the workers. Mother Jones has been collecting money for “her boys” and there is not one among them who would not die for her. She is past seventy-five years of age, but is full of snap and vigor. There is never an occasion where she can be of help to the working class that she is not present. Hundreds and thousands of workers all over the country affectionately call her “Mother Jones.”
Recently the guards had badly beaten a man when Mother Jones appeared on the scene alone. At the appearance of this valiant, little old warrior the guards took to their heels and ran. She had come for the sole purpose of administering to the wounded.
Note: Emphasis added throughout.
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SOURCES & IMAGES
Quote Mother Jones re Get Rid of Mine Guards,
Charleston WV, Aug 15, 1912, Steel Speeches p95
https://digital.library.pitt.edu/islandora/object/pitt%3A31735035254105/viewer#page/116/mode/2up
The Wheeling Majority
(Wheeling, West Virginia)
-Aug 15, 1912
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86092530/1912-08-15/ed-1/seq-1/
The Sun
(Baltimore, Maryland)
-Aug 20, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/373103471/
-Aug 25, 1912
https://www.newspapers.com/image/legacy/373106397/
The Daily Telegram
(Clarksburg, West Virginia)
-Aug 23, 1912
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85059715/1912-08-23/ed-1/seq-1/
Appeal to Reason
(Girard, Kansas)
-Aug 31, 1912
https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/appeal-to-reason/120831-appealtoreason-w874.pdf
IMAGE
Mother Jones, Tacoma Tx p3, Feb 14, 1912
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88085187/1912-02-14/ed-1/seq-3/
See also:
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1912, Part III
Found Speaking to West Virginia Miners from Steps of Capitol at Charleston
Conditions in the Paint Creek district, West Virginia.
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]
Search Volume 1: “mine guards”
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/search?q1=mine+guards&id=nyp.33433004194795&view=&seq=1&sort=seq&sz=25&start=1
Search Volumes 2 & 3: “mine guards”
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt/search?q1=mine+guards&id=nyp.33433004194787&view=&seq=1&sort=seq&sz=25&start=1
Tag: Baldwin-Felts Gunthugs
https://weneverforget.org/tag/baldwin-felts-gunthugs/
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