Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 17, 1921 Editor Marlen E. Pew Wires Protest to Governor Morgan of West Virginia
From the United Mine Workers Journal of September 15, 1921:
DEMANDS AN EXPLANATION
The Washington Herald September 5, 1921
NEW YORK, Sept. 3.—The shooting and arrest of newspaper correspondents in the West Virginia reign of terror, which included a woman reporter, has aroused members of the press throughout the country.
An indignant protest was sent to the governor of West Virginia tonight by Marlen E. Pew, of the International News Service. Mr. Pew wired as follows:
Hon. E. F. Morgan, Governor, Charleston, W. Va.
Sir: Miss Mildred Morris of our Washington staff, one of the best known, most accomplished and conscientious reporters in this country, assigned to Logan because of her special knowledge of industrial affairs, wires me tonight that she was slightly injured, arrested and submitted to indignities today by state guards. Miss Morris weighs, I should say, about 100 pounds, but I do not believe that all the thugs in the livery of your state can terrorize or intimidate her when she is sent on a mission for the press.
I think I am justified in asking you if there is a censorship of terror in your state. If the state guards of West Virginia, their native sense of chivalry dead and buried, are of the belief that they can prevent the publication of the truth concerning not only the surface, but the underlying facts of this private war, by insults and injury to a woman representing some 600 newspapers and equipped with credentials from the commander of the federal forces in your state, I am here to tell you that they are mistaken. Please advise me by telegram tonight what you propose doing to redress this wrong to this lady, and whether we may expect some respect for the constitutional right of the press from the government of West Virginia, if indeed West Virginia still has a government in the meaning of the original democratic institution.
I am indignant and I want your blood to boil as a man as well as a governor and punish this particular infamy.
MARLEN E. PEW, Editor and Manager, International News Service.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 16, 1921 Mildred Morris Describes Her Sojourn into the Battle Zone of West Virginia
From the United Mine Workers Journal of September 15, 1921:
HUNTINGTON , W. Va .– Four newspaper correspondents who have the memorable experience of penetrating the mountainous regions where war between the miners and state police has been raging for nearly two weeks and being the first to obtain an eye-witness picture of the firing line, are alive tonight by the grace of God.
As a member of the party I arrived here after escaping from Logan, where the four of us had been placed under guard.
Under a shower of bullets from both sides we convinced ourselves that war–real war-has been going on in West Virginia.
Three times a fusillade of steel bullets poured on us from the Springfield rifles of the state gunmen and three times we were fired on by the miners.
And after it was all over we were taken with our wounded to Logan, under guard.
Boyden Sparkes, of the New York Tribune, was shot through the leg and a bullet all but penetrated his scalp. One of the miners whom we had persuaded to act as a guide was shot in the ankle and is seriously wounded. When we were able to convince the state police, whose lines we had penetrated, that we were non-combatants merely on a sightseeing tour all military operations ceased while officers stared at us in amazement and asked:
“How in h–-l we had got there and what we meant?”
Military passes we presented from General Bandholtz, representative of the War Department, and commander of the United States troops now in the war zone were scorned.
“We don’t know nothing about him. Nobody has told us federal troops are here and we haven’t seen them, so we don’t know nothing about them,” the young officer in charge informed us.
Charged with being spies and “red necks” we were taken to state military headquarters in Logan and after an insulting examination by Sheriff Don Chafin of Logan county, we were ordered taken to a hotel. Each of us, including the wounded members of our party, was placed in charge of a guard, who was given orders to accompany us wherever we went.
For more than three hours I was subjected to indignities by this guard and other members of the state police.
Only after frantic appeals Mr. Sparkes was permitted to communicate with his office in New York in order that his wife might know he was not seriously injured. None of the rest of us was permitted to establish our identity and our passes from General Bandholtz were received with the same scorn by Sheriff Chafin and his attaches as the officers of the state police on the battle front had shown. My guard, an insolent youth, insisted on going with me into the bedroom assigned to me. When I objected he said he was acting under orders. To avoid this indignity, I was compelled to sit in the hotel lobby while more insolent and youthful members of the state police made insolent queries and threatened me if I refused to answer.
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