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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 26, 1921
“Miners Who Were Acquitted of Murder” -Photograph by Henry Koop
From the United Mine Workers Journal of June 15, 1921:
[Photograph cropped:]
Tag: Battle of Matewan
Hellraisers Journal: Sid Hatfield Goes to Williamson Alone, Post Bonds on Warrant Charging Assault of Mine Superintendent
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 26, 1921
Williamson, West Virginia – Hatfield Arrives Alone to Post Bond
From The Washington Herald of May 25, 1921:
HATFIELD AVOIDS DEPUTIES AND
GOES TO SHERIFF ALONE
———-
Baldwin-Felts Detectives Acquitted of
Slaying Mingo Mayor.
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WILLIAMSON. W. Va., May 24.-“Sid” Hatfield, of Matewan, reputed champion “two-gun bad man” of Mingo county, came to town today. The sheriff had sent a deputy or two to bring him on a warrant charging him with an assault with a rifle on P. J. Smith, superintendent of the Stone Mountain mine, but Hatfield took the train alone. Half the town was down to the station to see him arrive, and the “white way” was all lit up in expectation that something might happen, but Hatfield walked up to the court house, hung around until the sheriff got back from feeding the bloodhounds, then gave bonds and went home on No. 16. The town sagged back into dullness. At the sheriff’s office, Hatfield exposed his gold bridgework in a smile and remarked
When I aim to go anywhere I aim to go alone. They’ve got in the habit of blaming me for everything that happens at Matewan.
Hatfield, who is accounted the most dangerous man in the mountains is a queer mixture. He is as strong against liquor as is Bryan and as for gambling, only last week he chased a Kentucky native out of Matewan in a rage for suggesting that he be permitted to open a poker game. But gun shooting is something different. For months residents of these parts have been giving Matewan a wide berth, and one finds automobiles in this town sticking inside the city limits, unless it is something urgent.
This morning the mine of Lynn Coal and Coke company, just above Matewan, was burned. This mine was abandoned after the strike was called. The operators say that last winter strikers were allowed to take up quarters in company houses at Lynn on agreement they would vacate May 1. When moving day arrived some refused and evictions followed. Mine owners attribute the fire to strikers and term it another instance of sabotage. At Leesburg a Greenbriar county jury today acquitted the six Baldwin-Felts detectives who were on trial for killing Mayor Testerman and Tots Tinsley in the battle of Matewan May 19, 1920, when 10 were killed.
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[Photograph and emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Jubilant Citizens of Matewan, West Virginia, Welcome Home Sid Hatfield and Fifteen Co-Defendants
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 23, 1921
Matewan, West Virginia – Sid Hatfield and Co-Defendants Return Home
From The New York Times of March 22, 1921:
Home Folk Welcome Defendants.
MATEWAN, W. Va., March 21.-This little mining village called it a holiday today to greet the sixteen mountaineers, defendants in the Matewan battle trial, who were found not guilty by the jury at Williamson this morning.
Apparently all residents of the town were at the station late in the day when the train, which brought home Sid Hatfield, Chief of Police, and his fifteen companions, arrives.
A special car attached to the train held the hillmen and their bodyguard, Pinoon, six deputies, Captain Brockus and ten State troopers.
As the sixteen men stepped from the train and rushed into the arms of relatives and friends women laughed and cried, alternately, and for an hour the defendants were kept busy shaking the hands of men, women and children.
“It is the happiest day Matewan ever knew,” declared one rugged mountaineer as he grasped the hand of Sid Hatfield.
“At least for me,” Sid replied.
Chief Hatfield was the centre of the admiring throng, and it was with great difficulty that he made his way to his home through the crowd. It took him more than an hour to traverse the 100 yards from the railroad station to his residence.
Arrived at the door of his home, Hatfield gazed upon his right hand, swollen from the hearty grasps of his neighbors, and remarked: “It’s good to know you have so many friends.”
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[Photograph and emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Williamson, Mingo County, West Virginia: Sid Hatfield and Fifteen Co-Defendants Found “Not Guilty”
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 22, 1921
Williamson, W. V. – Matewan Defendants Found Not Guilty
From The Pittsburg Press of March 21, 1921:
SID HATFIELD AND
15 CO-DEFENDANTS
FREED BY JURY
—–By S. D. Weyer,
International News Service Staff Correspondent
Courthouse, Williamson, W. Va., March 21.-Sid Hatfield and his 15 co-defendants in the trigger trial were found not guilty by the jury at 11:21 o’clock this morning.
Three minutes later judge Bailey told the defendants to go back to the county jail, where they will give bond for their appearance in court for the indictments of murdering six other detectives. Bailey arranged to allow the 16 men to go back to Matewan on the noon train.
J. J. Coniff, chief counsel for the defense, made this statement to the International News Service staff correspondent immediately after the verdict was read by the clerk of courts:
I think the result is what the public generally anticipated. It means, in my opinion that the private guard system in West Virginia has been on trial and been condemned, and the legislature now in session should take notice of this fact.
The 16 defendants received the verdict without any show of emotion, except that Sid Hatfield, chief of police of Matewan, smiled his perpetual smile.
After Judge Robert D. Bailey had told them to “go back to jail,” they crowded around Coniff and grasped his hand.
Then, accompanied by two “double gun” deputy sheriffs, they filed out of the court room, where they have sat daily since Jan. 26, and walked through lines of men and women congratulating them, across the court house lawn to the jail.
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[Drawing of Sid Hatfield by Robert Minor and emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Williamson, Mingo County, West Virginia: “Sid Hatfield and Tom Felts Size Each Other Up in Court”
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 8, 1921
Williamson, West Virginia – Hatfield and Felts Size Each Other Up in Court
From the Baltimore Sun of February 6, 1921:
Sid Hatfield And Tom Felts Size
Each Other Up In Court
———-Principal In Mingo Trial Engages In Duel Of Eyes With
Head Of Detective Agency, As Process Of Securing
Jury Slowly Drags Along.
———-(By a Staff Correspondent of The Sun.)
Williamson, W. Va., Feb. 5.-This has been a day of speculation and rumors and of desperate struggle on the part of everyone, except Sid Hatfield and the 20 others on trial for the Matewan murders, to be reasonably cheerful and comfortable. Court adjourned before noon today without having added to the jury panel and left all of those in attendance upon the case with nothing to do except talk and wander about muddy streets in a dismal rain, with bare, scarred, cut-over hills rising at one’s elbows, it seemed, to press down the gloom.
Out of all that came to the front stories from quarters favorable to the defense that the prosecution is deliberately trying to prevent a jury being selected in this county. The theory is that there is little hope of any Mingo county jury convicting Hatfield and the others, while there may be some hope that a jury from another county will do so, if the West Virginia Legislature passes the bill permitting juries to be drawn in murder cases from other counties. Also the theory is that the desire of the prosecution to get the case before a jury where there would be more chance to convict is based upon more than the usual ardor of the prosecution for success, or even that ardor plus the anxiety of the Williamson coal operators for conviction.
Added to all of that is the blood feud created by the killing of Albert and Lee Felts in the Matewan battle. They were brothers of Tom Felts, manager of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. Tom Felts, known in these parts as “the man-hunter extraordinary,” a suave gracious-mannered man, and next to John J. Coniff, chief counsel for the defense, the most impressive and distinguished looking man connected with the case, is on the spot, surrounded by a large number of trusted operatives. He is supposed to be paying part of the large force of lawyers assisting Prosecuting Attorney Bronson, and he wants blood for the blood of his brothers.
Melodrama in life is had when he appears in court. Sid Hatfield occupies his consciousness, and he occupies that of Hatfield. After he had directed attention of the court to Hatfield’s possession of guns in court, and thereby led not merely to disarming the mountain fighter, but to the frisking of everyone entering the courtroom, including reporters, who do not know which end of a pistol goes off, the absorption of the two men in each other, when Felts is in court, became more pronounced. Each concentrated upon the other, is moved by an almost boyish craving to emphasize by physical proximity lack of fear.
Hellraisers Journal: Sid Hatfield, Matewan Police Chief, and 19 Citizens on Trial in Mingo County for Killing of Gunthugs
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 26, 1921
Williamson, West Virginia – Trial of Sid Hatfield and 19 Matewan Men Set to Start
From Indiana’s Logansport Pharos-Tribune of January 25, 1921:
TWENTY MEN GOING ON TRIAL FOR THE KILLING
OF MINE GUARDS AT MATEWAN
—–FRIENDS AND FOES MEET IN WILLIAMSON, W. VA.,
AS POLICE CHIEF AND 19 CITIZENS FACE COURT
—–
(N. E. A. Staff Special.)
WILLIAMSON, W. Va., Jan. 26.-Friend and foe rub elbows here, as miners and Baldwin-Felt guards assemble for the trial of Sid Hatfield, chief of police at Matewan, and 19 of his fellow citizens charged with killing seven Baldwins in a street battle.
Five Baldwin-Felts detectives engaged in the same battle will be tried under change of venue at Lewisburg, Greenbrier county, in April.
Hellraisers Journal: From the Literary Digest: “West Virginia’s War” -Miners of Mingo Battle for Right to Unionize
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 21, 1920
Mingo County, West Virginia – “Civil War Has Become a Fact”
From The Literary Digest of December 18, 1920:
WEST VIRGINIA’S WAR
THE BIGGEST AND BLOODIEST FEUD in the history of West Virginia, say special correspondents on the ground, continues in the vicinity of Williamson, in the bituminous coal-mining district [note: photo above incorrectly states “anthracite field”]. With the private feud on a gigantic scale is combined an industrial war-a strike and lockout. “The issue of the open versus the closed shop is being put to the acid test,” says John J. Leary, Jr., in the New York World, and the scene of the battle between coal-operators and miners is said to be just across the river from the county in which the McCoy-Hatfield feud was waged a generation ago. The strike in the Williamson coal-field began in May with an attempt of the United Mine Workers to unionize the men, we are told by the New York Herald, and the death-toll since that time is thirty-nine. Six hundred men have been wounded. Mine-workers, on one hand, and mine-guards, private detectives, and deputy sheriffs, on the other, have staged a civil war, during which time the estimated loss in production of coal has been 5,000,000 tons and the loss to the miners $3,500,000 in wages, according to the figures of The Herald. Many coal-plants and at least one power-house have been dynamited, declares the New York World, while Mr. Leary continues in that paper:
Murders and killings on both sides have been frequent; hundreds of families have been driven from their poor homes; civil war has become a fact. Back of the mountaineers are the 400,000 union coal-miners of the country. Back of them the sympathy, and, if necessary, the support of the other 3,600,000 members of the American Federation of Labor.
Back of the operators are the open-shop interests. Quietly, but none the less effectively, they are protecting and sustaining the smaller operators who have small resources. They are assisting with advice and with experts in such matters. Likewise they are assisting in Charleston, the capital of the State.
Meantime, the deadlock.
At any time it may flare up again with heavy loss of life on one side or the other, or both.
Hellraisers Journal: Twenty-Four Men Face Trial for Part in Battle of Matewan; Life is Grim in Miners’ Tent Colonies
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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 15, 1920
Matewan, West Virginia – 24 Charged with Murder of Gunthugs
From The Washington Times of December 12, 1920:
[There follows a long account of the Battle of Matewan.]
Hellraisers Journal: United Mine Workers Journal: Fred Mooney Reports on Struggle in Mingo County, West Virginia
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 7, 1920
Mingo County, West Virginia – Fred Mooney Reports on Miners’ Struggle
From the United Mine Workers Journal of December 1, 1920:
Figures About Mingo County Are Juggled
Editor The Journal-One B. C. Clarke, supposed to be a representative of the New York Herald, in its issue of Sunday, November 7, says in part, that the “strike” in Mingo county, West Virginia, has cost $24,200,000.00 and a loss in tonnage production of five million tons. We do not know what prompted Mr. Clarke to juggle figures as he did in this article, but anyone with any intelligence whatever, can readily see that the article is a gross misrepresentation of facts.
In the first instance, Mr. Clarke leaves the impression that the “strike” in Mingo county is a continuance of the Hatfield-McCoy feuds. Nothing could be further from the truth, as there is no feud in this territory now, nor has there been any marks of one for years. The economic aspect of the struggle now going on in Mingo county is a struggle of a group of crushed wage slaves who have been robbed from their birth of from 35 to 50 per cent of the wages rightfully earned by them and that portion of their wages of which they were robbed was paid out to private armies of “gunmen” to club the miners into submission.
Let us review the figures quoted by Mr. Clarke. He says that 700 miners are on “strike”, which is a fabrication manufactured of whole cloth. Let us see if the loss in tonnage production is 5,000,000 tons. The miners were locked out on July 1, 1920. Four months they have been out of employment, 26 days to each month. If every miner had worked full time, each would have had to produce in round figures, 68 tons per day; or take his total number of employees thrown out of employment, which was 3,500 and they would have had to produce 13.73 tons per day, which is impossible, as the highest average of production per employe was reached in 1918, and for that year, the average production per employe, was 4.20 tons. The average production per miner for the year of 1918 in the State of West Virginia, was 7.65 tons. This average was the highest in the history of the state.
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for August 1920, Part I: Found Speaking at Princeton, West Virginia, Near Baldwin-Felts HQ
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 25, 1920
-Mother Jones News for August 1920, Part I
Found in Princeton, West Virginia, Speaking Near Baldwin-Felts HQ
From The Richmond Daily Register of August 6, 1920:
“Mother” Jones has reached the West Virginia mines and is said to be responsible for much of the recent trouble started there.
August 15, 1920 – Princeton, West Virginia
-Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting:
[Part I]
My friends, in all the ages of man the human race has trod, it has looked forward to that mighty power where men could enjoy the right to live as nature intended that they should.
We have not made millionaires, but we have made billionaires on both sides of the house. We have built up the greatest oligarchy that the world has ever known in history.
On the other side, we have the greatest slaves the world has ever known. There is no getting away from that.
I am not going to abuse the operators nor the bosses for their system. The mine owners and the steel robbers are all a product of the system of industry. It is just like an ulcer, and we have got to clean the ulcer.
(Hissing from the audience.)
God—they make me sick. They are worse than an old bunch of cats yelling for their mother.
Today, the world has turned over. The average man don’t see it. The ministers don’t see it and they don’t see what is wrong. They cannot see it. But the man who sits in the tower and his fortune of clouds clash, knows there is a cause for those clouds clashing before the clap of thunder comes. All over the world is the clashing of clouds. In the office, the doctor don’t pay attention to it. The man who watches the clouds don’t understand it. People want to watch the battle.
