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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 30, 1922
Mingo County, West Virginia – Miners’ Tent Colony Saved, for Now
From the Duluth Labor World of April 29, 1922:
TENT-SMASHING JUDGE CHECKED
BY HIGH COURT
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Circuit Court Stays Order to Drive Miners
and Families From Tented Homes.
———-RICHMOND, Va., April 27.—Federal Judge McClintic’s injunction to smash the Mingo tent colony has been ordered held up by Hon. Martin A. Knapp, judge of the federal court of appeals, fourth circuit.
Judge Knapp’s decision stays this order until it can be heard by the court of appeals. McClintic is also ordered to scrap his injunction machine until the court of appeals reviews his acts.
Several years ago this federal court of appeals set aside the notorious “yellow dog” decision by Federal Judge Dayton, since deceased. This decision legalized the individual contract whereby each worker accepting employment agreed not to join a trade union. The reasoning of the court of appeals was rejected by the United States supreme court, which upheld the “yellow dog.”
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CHARLESTON, W. Va., April 27. —In holding up Federal Judge McClintic’s injunction to destroy the Mingo tent colony and stop union organizing, the federal court of appeals at Richmond has temporarily clipped the wings of a judge who is openly charged with receiving his present position as a reward for subserviency to coal owners while he was a member of the West Virginia state senate.
McClintic is recognized as the author of the West Virginia jury law which permits the prosecution to take a man charged with crime out of his county into another county for trial.
Under this law, which is now in effect, the trial of a striking miner can be transferred to a county like Logan, which is under the complete domination of Baldwin-Feltz gunmen.
When McClintic was appointed last year the A. F. of L. made strong objection because of his bias in favor of coal owners. The latest exhibition of this bias was shown by his issuance of an injunction that would oust hundreds of miners and their families from the only homes they have and which are located on land leased by the union.
The trade, unionists, made no progress in blocking McClintic’s indorsement by the senate because he was supported by the two West Virginia senators-Messrs. Sutherland and Elkins.
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[Photograph and emphasis added.]