Tag: August 1921

Hellraisers Journal: Witnesses to Murder of Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers Declare Lively’s Claim of Self-Defense is False

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones Princeton WV Speech Aug 15, 1920, Steel Speeches, p230—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 21, 1921
Sworn Statements Show That Neither Hatfield Nor Chambers Had Guns

From the Duluth Labor World of August 20, 1921:

Mingo Sid Hatfield Thugs Story False, LW p1, Aug 20, 1921

(Charleston, West Va., Special to the Labor Press.)

That the statement of Lively, carried in the press to the effect that he acted in self defense, and that Sid Hatfield pulled his gun first, is absolutely false has been sworn to by three reputable citizens of McDowell county, who were present when the shooting took place and they have furnished the names of many others who will substantiate their statements.

One of the men making sworn statements said that “this is one of the most foul and brutal murders he has ever read or heard of.” He also said that he saw Lively run down the steps and pick up the gun that he had thrown over toward Chambers and say “here is his gun and it is empty too.”

Fired Into Dead body.

In the sworn statement of another he says,”I seen men shooting Chambers and saw them come down the steps past Chambers and saw him raise up a little as they passed and at that time saw one of them place a pistol almost against him and fire into him body.”

The affidavits of these men prove conclusively that murder had been carefully planned and arranged beforehand and that it was a deliberate and cold blooded murder and that neither of the victims used or attempted to use  a gun.

The editor of the West Virginia Federationist is in receipt of a letter from an attorney who with others are investigating the murder. Accompanying the letter are three affidavits from eye witnesses, but the names of the witnesses are withheld from publication They will be produced in court and at the trial.

[…..]

Organized labor throughout the state is passing strong resolutions against the reign of terror in West Virginia. The governor of the state is severely condemned for not furnishing protection to Hatfield and Chambers as he had promised to do when informed of the plot to take their their lives.

—————

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Visits Miners Locked Behind the Bars of Mingo County Jail at Williamson, West Virginia

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones Princeton WV Speech Aug 15, 1920, Steel Speeches, p227—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 18, 1921
Williamson, West Virginia – Mother Jones Visits Mingo County Jail

From the Hinton Daily News and Leader of August 17, 1921:

Mother Jones, ed WDC Tx p2, Aug 29, 1920MOTHER JONES VISITS MINGO
COUNTY JAILS
———-

Williamson, W. V., Aug.,-16.-“Mother” Jones, labor organizer, arrived in Williamson tonight after, it is said, permission was granted by Governor Morgan to visit the Mingo coal fields, where there has been an industrial controversy since July 1, 1920. Upon her arrival she obtained permission from Sheriff A. C Pinson to visit the county jail, where nearly 100 prisoner are confined, some of them being idle miners. This is the third time “Mother” Jones has visited the Williamson district since the controversy began.

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: West Virginia Miners Rally at Charleston, Speakers Include Mother Jones and Frank Keeney

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones Princeton WV Speech Aug 15, 1920, Steel Speeches, p230—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 13, 1921
Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones and Frank Keeney Speak at Miners Rally

From the Martinsburg Journal of August 9, 1921:

MINERS ASK MORGAN TO SETTLE WARFARE
They Submit Basis for Settlement.
[Mother Jones Speaks]
———-

Mother Jones, ed WDC Tx p2, Aug 29, 1920

Charleston, Aug. 7-Governor Morgan tonight asked for time in which to consider the demands submitted by the miners in a ten-hour mass meeting here today. The chief executive promised to send his answer to Frank Keeney, president of District 17, United Mine Workers, within the next few days. Keeney will convey the governor’s answer to local unions by mail.

The miners and their sympathizers began arriving in Charleston early this morning and by noon a throng variously estimated from 1,500 to 2,500 had gathered on the old capitol lawn. Mother Jones and other speakers addressed the crowd. The meeting disbanded at 10 o’clock…..

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: West Virginia Miners Rally at Charleston, Draft Resolutions for Settlement of Troubles in Mingo County

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones Princeton WV Speech Aug 15, 1920, Steel Speeches, p230—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 12, 1921
Charleston, West Virginia – Miners Mass Rally Sends Resolutions to Governor

From The New York Times of August 8, 1921:

DRAFT MINGO PEACE TERMS
—————
Miners Adopt Resolutions and Present
Them to Governor.

CHARLESTON, W. Va., Aug. 7.-Resolutions setting forth terms for a settlement of the industrial controversy in Mingo County were adopted here to-day at a mass meeting of union miners and presented to Governor Morgan. The Governor requested time to consider them, and said that he would send his reply to C. F. Keeney, President of District 17, United Mine Worker of America.

UMW D17, Mooney Keeney, Lbtr p9, Aug 1920

More than 1,000 miners were at the meeting, held in the open near the site of the Capitol, recently destroyed by fire. They were addressed by “Mother” Jones, labor organizer, and other speakers.

The resolutions suggest these point for a settlement:

Appointment of a commission of six, three to represent the and three the operators, to adopt rules and methods for adjustment of any disputes arising between the two parties.

Creation of a board of arbitration, consisting of one to be selected by the miners, one by the operators and these two to select a third who shall be a non-resident of the State. This board will settle questions on which the commission fells to agree, and their decisions shall be binding and final.

That employers involved agree that all employes return to work without discrimination against any one belonging to a labor union.

Establishment of an eight-hour working day.

That employes shall have the right to trade where they desire.

That employee  shall have the right to elect check weighers, and that 2.000 pounds shall constitute a ton.

That where coal is not weighed on a standard scale and the miner is paid by the car or the measure, the weight of each car shall be stamped thereon.

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: C. E. Lively, Baldwin-Felts Gunthug and Confessed Labor Spy, Held for the Murder of Sid Hatfield

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Sallie Chambers re Murder of Sid Hatfield n Ed, Blt Sun p2, Aug 5, 1921—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 7, 1921
West Virginia Gunthug, C. E. Lively, Held for Murder of Sid Hatfield

From the Duluth Labor World of August 6, 1921:

HdLn Spy Lively Held for Murder of Sid Hatfield, LW p1, Aug 6, 1921

Matewan Defendants Sid Hatfield n Ed Chambers, WV Hx Center, see also UMWJ p14, June 15, 1921

Sid Hatfield, former chief-of police of Matewan, W. Va., who made such a heroic struggle in behalf of law and order when Baldwin-Felts private detectives attempted to evict striking miners from their homes 14 months ago, was assassinated in cold blood on the steps of the court house at Welch Tuesday morning last, where Hatfield was going to face trial on an alleged shooting charge. Ed. Chambers, Hatfield’s companion, was also killed. Neither was armed.

C. E. Lively, a private detective, and George “Buster” Penice, a deputy sheriff, are being held for the shooting. A coroner’s jury “could not” be obtained. The Baldwin-Felts men threatened to “get” Hatfield. They hold it was his gun that put five of their number out of business in the Matewan affair.

[…..]

The assassination of Hatfield and Chambers will bring to a head the charges union labor have made against the private police-ridden methods employed by the coal owners of West Virginia, such as surpass the most brazen of feudalism just before the French revolution. Every right guaranteed by the constitution has been ignored. King Coal rules with a rod of iron. His ukases supersede federal, state and local laws. The courts and state officials are his puppets, except in rare cases. Those who refuse to obey his edicts are removed from office, and the fearless, like Sid Hatfield, are put to death.

West Virginia is the shame of America. Its governor has boldly defended the reign of capitalistic lawlessness with which the state is festered. Its legislature has enacted laws against labor and justice that would make a czar tremble in his boots out of fear that they would hasten his downfall. Its courts have accepted the mandates of the coal barons, just as they did of old when they were the mere tools of kings and princes.

Innocent men, dangerous to the mine owners, have been wrongfully convicted, merely to be gotten out of the way. Lively “killed this man” in Colorado, where conditions were once equally as bad, but his employers were influential enough to save his neck, so he might continue his nefarious work. He has lived to kill another, a brave, young mountaineer whose independent spirit was a challenge to outlawry in West Virginia, the pocket state of “wealth gone mad.” It will be interesting to observe developments in the case. 

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers Were Unarmed When Murdered on Steps of McDowell County Courthouse

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Sallie Chambers re Murder of Sid Hatfield n Ed, Blt Sun p2, Aug 5, 1921————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 6, 1921
Matewan, West Virginia – Widows of Hatfield and Chambers Speak Out

From the Baltimore Sun of August 5, 1921:

Hatfield Was Unarmed, His Widow Asserts
———-

Mrs. Chambers Declares That Her Husband
Also Was Without Weapon.

Sid and Jessie Testerman Hatfield, Stt Str p14, Sept 15, 1920
Sid Hatfield (inset) and
Jessie Testerman Hatfield
—–

Matewan, W. Va., Aug. 4.-Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers, Mingo mountaineers, who were killed on the steps of the Courthouse at Welch, McDowell county, in a gun fight last Monday, were unarmed, their widow told newspaper men here today. Both Mrs. Hatfield and Mrs. Chambers accompanied their husbands to the court last Monday, where Sid, former chief of police at Matewan, was to have answered a charge of being the instigator of the “shooting up” of Mohawk, McDowell county, last year.

The widows said that they or their husbands did not anticipate trouble in Welch and that Hatfield locked his pistols in a traveling bag and Chambers laid aside his arms before starting for the Courthouse.

The women declared that C. E. Lively, Baldwin-Felts detective, charged with being implicated in the killings, boarded the train on which they were going to Welch early in the morning and followed them about the town until it was almost time for them to appear at the court. Mrs. Chambers, describing how she and her husband and Sid and his wife went to the Courthouse and started for the entrance, said:

I heard a shot fired. I turned and looked at Sid and he was falling. Then I looked at my husband and he was falling loose from my arm. The shooting then became general. I saw only two men shooting and they were C. E. Lively and a short, heavy-set man who wore glasses.

Mrs. Hatfield said that she lost consciousness while the shooting was going on. She charged Sheriff Bill Hatfield with negligence in not protecting her husband.

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Nation: Letter from James Rowan, Class War Prisoner 13113 at Leavenworth, Kansas

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote BBH IWW w Drops of Blood, BDB, Sept 27, 1919—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 5, 1921
Letter from Fellow Worker James Rowan, Class War Prisoner

Leavenworth Prisoner #13113:

James Rowan, Chg IWW Class War Prisoner, Lv Sept 7, 1918

From The Nation of August 3, 1921:

The Imprisoned I. W. W. at Leavenworth

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

SIR: May I call your attention, as well as that of your readers, to the cases of the I. W. W. prisoners at present doing time at Leavenworth? There are about one hundred and twenty of these men, all told. They are serving sentences varying from five to twenty years. I happen to be one of those serving a twenty-year sentence, so I can speak from first-hand knowledge.

We were arrested in 1917 under three indictments, known respectively as the Chicago, Sacramento, and Wichita indictments, charging us with conspiracy to hamper and obstruct the United States Government in the conduct of the war. After being held from one to two years under unspeakable conditions which caused the death of some, and others to go insane, in the county jails of Chicago, Sacramento, Wichita and other towns in Kansas, we were “tried,” convicted, and given sentences varying from one to twenty years. Fifteen received twenty-year sentences and the majority of the remainder are now serving ten year sentences.

Not one of us was proven guilty of any crime. We were convicted under the stress of war-time hysteria and public prejudice. Our real offense was that we all were, or had been, more or less active members of the I. W. W. We held, and still hold, certain opinions regarding the present system of society which are unfavorable to the ruling class and at variance with those held by the great majority of the people. Whether these opinions are right or wrong cuts no figure as far as the principle involved in these cases is concerned. If men can be imprisoned for their opinions then the liberties guaranteed by the Constitution no longer exist in the United States; free press and free speech are only empty phrases used to deceive the unthinking. If we are forced to serve out these sentences then no one is safe. Anyone holding opinions which the American plutocracy consider dangerous to their privileges can be thrown behind prison bars and forced to spend many years in a felon’s cell.

Our imprisonment not only means loss of liberty and all that makes life worth living to us. It is also a direct attack on the liberties of one hundred and ten million people. If the American people stand for these high-handed and savage judicial acts, unparalleled in any modern civilized country, it means that they have abandoned all claims to the rights and liberties for which our forefathers shed their blood. The lives of one hundred and twenty men are of little consequence. If forced to serve out our sentences we can do so, and I for one would rather stay in jail with a clear conscience than bow the knee to privilege on the outside. The real tragedy lies in the moral breakdown of a great people.

The only power that can free us is aroused public opinion. These cases must be investigated and the facts given wide publicity, and such a strong protest made to the officials at Washington that they may see their way clear to take action leading to the early release of all political prisoners in the State and Federal prisons of the United States. A small group of liberals and radicals are doing all in their power to bring about general amnesty for all political prisoners. Needless to say we thoroughly appreciate their efforts on our behalf. I ask you to add your voice to theirs, to the end that justice may be done and the voice of freedom, in unmistakable tones, may once more ring through the land.

JAMES ROWAN
Leavenworth, Kansas, July 13

[Emphasis and paragraph break added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Double Funeral for Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers Held in Drenching Rain, “Even the Heavens Weep”

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Sam Montgomery, Funeral of Sid and Ed, Aug 3, 1921, FM Ab p89,—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday August 4, 1921
Buskirk Cemetery, Kentucky – Sam Montgomery Speaks for Hatfield and Chambers

Double Funeral Held for Miners’ Heroes,
Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers

Matewan Defendants Sid Hatfield n Ed Chambers, WV Hx Center, see also UMWJ p14, June 15, 1921

August 3.-The double funeral for Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers was held today in a drenching rain, at Buskirk Cemetery, on the Kentucky side of the Tug river, just across the bridge from Matewan. Sam Montgomery delivered the funeral oration and said, in part:

We have gathered here today to perform the last sad rites for these two boys who fell victims to one of the most contemptible systems that has ever been known to exist in the history of the so-called civilized world. Deliberately shot down, murdered in cold blood, while they were entering a place which should have been a temple of justice, and by whom? Men who are working under the direction of and taking their orders from coal operators who live in Cincinnati, Chicago, New York City, and Boston.

Sleek, dignified, church-going gentlemen who would rather pay fabulous sums to their hired gunmen to kill and slay men for joining a union than to pay like or lesser amounts to the men who delve into the subterranean depths of the earth and produce their wealth for them. At the same time these same men prate of their charities, their donations to philanthropic movements, act as vestrymen and pillars of the churches to which they belong.

Even the Heavens weep with the grief-stricken relatives and the bereaved friends of these two boys.

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Hellraisers Journal: Bodies of Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers Brought Home to Matewan from Welch for Double Funeral

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote FK re Murders of Sid and Ed, Wlg Int p1, Aug 2, 1921—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 3, 1921
Matewan, West Virginia – Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers Return Home

From The West Virginian of August 2, 1921:

Mingo WV, HdLn Sid and Ed Taken Home, WVgn p1, Aug 2, 1921

MATEWAN, W. Va., Aug 2.-Sid. Hatfield and Edward Chambers, who yesterday were shot to death on the court house steps at Welch, W. Va., as they were about to be tried for the part they were alleged to have played in a pistol attack on a mining town in the Mingo coal field were brought home last midnight. The open space around the little railroad station was filled with former friends and neighbors but there was no demonstration. State police and armed militiamen patrolled the streets and after the body had been taken to the little homes where the men had formerly lived the crowd quietly dispersed.

Mrs. Hatfield and Mrs. Chambers who were in Welch when the tragedy occurred arrived on the same train and were given sincere sympathy by their friends in the village.

 

Arrangements for the double funeral were not completed today but it was stated by friends of the family that services probably would be held tomorrow afternoon and interment made in the cemetery here.

Matewan was quiet this morning. At an early hour friends of the dead men called at their homes, looked for a moment upon the body and then passed out to their dally work or to discuss the tragedy as they walked along the streets. There were no better known men in all the Tug river country than Hatfield and Chambers and many incidents of their stormy lives in he narrow valley and out through the mountains were told and retold as the day advanced.

Armed militiamen and state policemen were here in force but from outward appearances they were not needed as the town was strangely quiet. Leading citizens who had sounded public sentiment in the fear that reprisals for the killing of the men might develop during the day expressed the opinion that there would be no disorder of any kind. Many persons from the surrounding country came in during the morning and it was expected that a great crowd would be here for the funeral.

—————

[Emphasis added.]

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