Tag: BTW Prisoners of Grabow Massacre 1912

Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: B. T. W. Members on Trial for Their Lives in Louisiana

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote BBH re Industrial Freedom BTW LA, ISR p , Aug 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday November 1, 1912
Lake Charles, Louisiana – Nine Members of B. T. W. on Trial for Murder

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of October 31, 1912:

WITNESSES ARE BADLY TANGLED
———-

BTW Trial re Grabow, Jury Names, IW p1, Oct 31, 1912

The jury that is to try the nine members of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers who have been singled out by the “Sawdust ring” as those it would most love to adorn with rope cravats, was completed at 3:25 p. m. on October 15th. The jurors were chosen in order named.

Court convened at 9 a. m. on the 16th and a roll call of witnesses showed 82 summoned by the state and 66 by the defense.

[…..]

Brothers in Toil!

Judge Hunter and all our lawyers are putting up a magnificent fight; nothing but a lack of funds can beat us, and we appeal to you to help us, now, today! In labor’s name, we appeal to you!

COMMITTEE OF DEFENSE, B. of T. W.

—————

Opening Events of B. T. W. Trial
———-

C. L. Filigno, IWW BTW Organizer, IW p4, Oct 31, 1912

The trial of the members of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers charged with conspiracy to murder A. P. Vincent, whiskey-soaked Lumber Trust gunman, at Grabow, La., opened at lake Charles, La., on October 7.

The first move of the state was absolutely in disregard to all of the capitalist laws governing conspiracy trials but the objection of the defense was overruled by the presiding judge, Winston Overton. The cases of nine of the defendants were brought into court, whereas the entire number of arrested men should be tried at one and the same time.

The nine men are A. L. Emerson, president B. T. W.; Ed Lehman, organizer; Edgar Hollingsworth, secretary Local 223, B. T. W.; J. H. C. Helton, secretary De Ridder Socialist Party local, and the following members of the B. T. W.: Louis Brown, Jack Payne, Ed Ezell, C. Havens, and R. H. Chatman.

The judge ruled that no member of the B. T. W. nor of the Southern Lumber Operators’ Association would be allowed to serve on the jury…..

The star witnesses for the state made a very poor showing on the opening days. By their own testimony it was proven that attempts were made to get the gunmen drunk so that they would provoke disorders. One witness was forced to admit that he did not want to testify but was paid to do so by the Lumber Trust. The testimony of others was very conflicting……

—————

Women With Them-Would They Riot?

(Special Telegram to the “Worker”)

Lake Charles, La., Oct. 28.-The defense opened today’s testimony with S. O. Cooley, who stated that John Helton took supper with him and afterwards went toward Grabow, where they heard shooting. They then returned home. Helton was unarmed and was never east of Grabow during the battle, as state witnesses had testified. The Ezell family came to his house after the shooting. Two of Ezell’s children were wounded.

J. D. Golden, was then called to the stand. He stated that Emerson talked only on unionism. Helton was never east of Grabow. He saw the first shots which came from the direction of Galloway’s office.

Christine Cooley stated that Helton and Golden came to her father’s home shortly before supper. Helton, Golden and her father had only left the house a little while when the shooting started. She paid attention to the time they were away because she was uneasy about her father when she heard the shooting.

Doris Lebieu stated that she went to all the towns with the unionists and other ladies and children were along. Her wagon stopped in front of the Galloway office. She was certain that the first shot was fired from the office as the bullet brushed her nose.

Minnie Tilly stated that her family tried to leave the house during the battle, but were met by armed negroes and became so frightened that they returned home. They left later, meeting Deputy Gibbs and armed negroes. On Saturday she, and her uncle met M. M. Galloway, who said: “Go back, you S. of a B., or I will blow your brains out.” They went.

Miss Bailey stated the “Leather Breeches” Smith told Denby to take that gun and take Deputy Grantham and Jim Whidden to old man Whidden’s and let no one hurt them.

Claude Payton stated that he saw the first shot fired from Galloway’s office. He left the commissary and went to Ezell’s house. He saw the shooting from Zook Galloway’s house and lumber yard. Ezell’s children and two of his children were wounded.

The prosecution was unable to shake the testimony of any of the witnesses. Labor’s right to organize, not the accused men, is really on trial. All unionists had better get busy.

COVINGTON HALL.

—————

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: President A. L. Emerson, of Brotherhood of Timber Workers, States: “We are the largest crowd of prisoners of war in the world today.”

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote BBH re Industrial Freedom BTW LA, ISR p , Aug 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 31, 1912
Lake Charles Jail, Louisiana – B. T. W. Members, Class-War Prisoners

From the Appeal to Reason of October 26, 1912:

[Brotherhood of Timber Workers on Trial]

A. L. Emerson, Pres BTW, Cmg Ntn p6, Aug 24, 1912

A. L. EMERSON, head of the 60 men on trial [re battle] at  Grabow, La., for seeking to better the condition of the timber workers, aptly says:

The class war is actually on. We are the largest crowd of prisoners of war in the world today.

By the way, have you noticed Woodrow Wilson saying anything about the oppression of those who wish to organize the workers in the south? Have Taft or Roosevelt protested against the fiendishness of the masters at Lawrence [Massachusetts]?

———-

BTW Prisoners of Grabow Massacre, NO Tx Dem p17, Oct 6, 1912
Group of Fifty-Eight Prisoners Held at Lake Charles in Connection with
the Grabow Riot. The First Trial is Set for Monday, October 7th.

—–

July 28, 1912, Prisoners of Grabow Massacre at Lake Charles Jail LA
Union Prisoners in Lake Charles Jail and the big dinner given them
by the ladies of DeRidder, La. July 28th. 12.
Copyrighted by Geo. Hanan

—————

[Photographs and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Nine Members of Brotherhood of Timber Workers Now on Trial in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote BBH re BTW LA White n Black Unity, ISR p106 , Aug 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday October 26, 1912
Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana – Fellow Workers on Trial for Their Lives

From The Wheeling Majority of October 24, 1912:

BTW, Shall Murder be Done, Def Com, Wlg Maj p6, Oct 24, 1912

—————

The Grabow “Conspiracy”
———-

Alexandria, La., Oct. 24.-(Special.)-at 11:40 a. m., Monday morning, October 7th, in the District Court of Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, Judge Winston Overton presiding, began the trial of President A. L. Emerson, Organizer Ed. Lehman, John Helton, R. H. Chatman, Edgar Hollingsworth, Louis Brown, Jack Payne, Ed Ezell and C. Havens, the nine members of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers the Southern Lumber Association has picked out to victimize in order to crush Unionism throughout the South.

The whole of  the first day was taken up in preparation and in a fight made by Judge E. T. Hunter, leading counsel for the defense, for time, about two weeks, in which to ask the Supreme Court of Louisiana for a writ of mandamus setting aside the District Court’s order severing the cases of the nine men on trial from the balance of their 58 brothers who had been indicted jointly with them for “conspiracy to murder.” The Court admitted Judge Hunter’s contention correct law, but refused to grant the petition, mainly on the round that it would be impossible to try the 58 accused all together, because the law gave them 1044 challenges.

Judge Hunter pointed out to the court that that was not the fault of the accused, that they had not indicted themselves and were not responsible for the blunders of District Attorney Joseph Moore or for those of the prosecuting attorney for the Southern Lumber Operators Association, Congressman A. P. Pujo, but the Court still refused and ordered the nine men to trial for the murder of the lumber trust gunman, A. P. Vincent, who was killed in the battle at Grabow, La., when the mass meeting of the Brotherhood and its farmer allies was fired on from ambush by the private thug army of the Association on the 7th of last July.….

[Emphasis and paragraph breaks added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Nine of Grabow Defendants, Members of Brotherhood of Timber Workers, Will Be Tried Together

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote BBH re BTW LA White n Black Unity, ISR p106 , Aug 1912

Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 7, 1912
Lake Charles, Louisiana – Nine of Grabow Defendents Will Be Tried Together

From the New Orleans Times-Democrat of October 6, 1912:

SEVERANCE IS GRANTED
———-
Nine of Grabow Defendants
To Be Heard Together.
———-

[…..]

Special to The Times-Democrat.

BTW Prisoners of Grabow Massacre, NO Tx Dem p17, Oct 6, 1912
Group of Fifty-Eight Prisoners Held at Lake Charles in Connection with
the Grabow Riot. The First Trial is Set for Monday.

Lake Charles, La., Oct. 5-After hearing the motion argued for more than an hour this afeternoon, Judge Overton rendered a deciaion granting the motion for severance in the Grabow riot murder cases, asked for by the district attorney. Accordingly the nine men named in the motion will be placed on trial Monday morning [October 7th]…..

The nine men who will be placed on trial Monday are: A. L. Emerson, president of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers; Jack Payne, alias Charles Gibbon, Louis Brown, Ed Lehman, Edgar Holingsworth, John Hilton, Doc Havens, F. E. Ezell and W. A. Chatman.

It is conceded that these are the men against whom the State has the striongest case…..

[Emphais added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: “The New Woman of The Old South” by Covington Hall, Heroic Stand with Brotherhood of Timber Workers

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote C Hall, Women of BTW Grabow, Prg Wmn p6, Oct 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 6, 1912
Lake Charles Jail, Louisiana – Heroic Women Stand by Fighting Lumberjacks

From The Progressive Woman of October 1912:

THE NEW WOMAN of THE OLD SOUTH
By Covington Hall
———-

Grabow, Union Prisoners Lake Charles Jail, Dinner, Prg Wmn p6, Oct 1912
Union Prisoners in Lake Charles Jail, and the Big Dinner Given Them
by the Women of De Ridder, La.

IN the long and bitter struggle of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers against the Southern Lumber Operators’ Association none have suffered more or borne their part in the battle more heroically than the wives, mothers and daughters of the fighting lumberjacks of the south.

In the long and terrible lockout, lasting from July, 1911, to February, 1912, when hundreds of families were reduced to the direst want and misery by the silken savages of the lumber trust in its brutish effort to starve the men out of the union and back into submission, the women, with their babies living on cornbread and molasses, still urged their husbands, fathers and brothers to keep up the battle for “A man’s life for all the workers in the mills and forests,” no matter what the cost, no mater what Kirby, Long and their brother wolves demanded as the price of liberty.

When the blacklist was added to the lockout, when thousands of workers were hounded from state to state, when the only way a man could get a job was to dishonor himself by taking an oath of allegiance to the lumber trust, by swearing obedience and loyalty to his sworn enemies, the women took up that other battle cry of the Union: “Don’t be a peon-be a MAN!” and the desperate fight for justice still went on.

When all law was suspended, when the states of Louisiana and Texas abdicated their authority to the Southern Lumber Operators’ Association and allowed this combine of grafters and gunmen to proclaim martial law throughout the timber belt, when the worst in this scum and slum class came to the surface and the reign of terror that reached its climax in the “riot” at Grabow was inaugurated, when no one’s life or person was safe anywhere in the empire of the lumber trust, the women still urged the men on to battle and in many instances took their places beside them on the “firing line.”

When sixty-five of our best and bravest boys were arrested, thrown into jail and charged with murder on account of the “riot” at Grabow, when men were torn from their sick mothers, wives and children, taken from their homes in the dead of the night by the deputy sheriffs of the Association, still the women did not quail but shrieked defiance at their enemies, still louder rose the cry of the Brotherhood: “ONE BIG UNION, life and freedom for ALL the workers!“

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Spokane Industrial Worker: B. T. W Prisoners Form Union Local at Lake Charles Jail, Louisiana

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote BBH re BTW LA White n Black Unity, ISR p106 , Aug 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 14, 1912
Lake Charles Jail of Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana – B. of T. W. Prisoners Form Union

From the Spokane Industrial Worker of September 12, 1912:

BATTLING B. T. W. FORM JAIL UNION

REBELLIOUS PRISONERS FORM UNION IN JAIL
-BLACK HOLE OF CALCASIEU IS LABOR’S RECRUITING GROUND
-NO COLOR LINE DRAWN IN PRISON-REBELS ARE RISING.

 

BTW Prisoners of Grabow Massacre at Lake Charles Jail, af July 7, 1912
B. of T. W. Prisoners, Lake Charles La.

On August 15th a charter was issued by the Brotherhood of Timber Workers to the following white and colored workers:

White: Pat Perkins, R. W. Perry, John Perry, L. Perry, J. M. Richley, Joe Rogers, J. H. Simpson, W. D. Smith, S. B. Slaydon, W. R. Stacey, Ben Sturgia, C. D. Woodard, Leon Zebeau, Chas. Zebeau, C. E. Jones, John Killen, C. Leblue, B. J. Lee, George M. Lacey, Ed. Lehman, J. W. Moor, W. A. Mathis, Frank McBride, R. Parkham, J. Pennington, Chas. Gibbons, Josh Perkins, Walter Delcour, Williams Davis, Andy Denby, A. L. Emerson, Will Estes, Ed. Eyell, Frank Farr, G. H. Gibson, G. M. Grim, J. H. C. Helton, C. Havens, C. C. Holley, Arthur Hammonds, R. V. Hennigan, W. E. Hollingsworth, H. L. McFillen, A. H. Burge, R. D. Burge, J. H. Baily, A. A. Bondreaux, J. W. Bowers, L. H. Brown, Waldon Cooley, W. A. Chatham, A. R. Cryar, A. F. Creed, Jeff Cooper, B. B. Collier, Tom Cooper, J. W. Callie, J. D. Perkins, Herman Slaydon, Charlie Hampton, O. P. Bell, John Hood.

Colored: Peter Blackman, Elisha Fowler, Jason Clark, Garfield Holcomb, Pink Morris, Silas Anderson, H. Green, Jim Cotton, Robert Chopin, Dennis Myles, Robert Johnson, Milton Mitchel, Robert Milton.

These boys compose the roll of honor making up the membership of Local Union, Jail No. 1, B. of T. W., office address, Parish Prison, Lake Charles, La. They also organized a local of the Socialist Party, Jail No. 1, with 54 members and both locals are still growing. Men are coming into the prison every day and joining, or sending in their applications. This is, indeed, the deathless spirit, the spirit that must and will conquer all before it. Dead, the souls of these boys will do a mightier work for the emancipation of their class than ever yet; imprisoned, yet their voices will be heard and, mingling with the cries of Ettor and Giovannitti, all the workers of the world will be awakened, triumphant the hosts of labor will arise and the social revolution be an accomplished fact. Truly did Edward Bellamy speak  when he said: “No masters class has ever learned anything from the experience of its predecessors and the capitalist class will be no exception to the rule.” Down here in the Land of Dixie the slugging committee of the capitalist class is still busy, just as it was in Lawrence, just as it is in Canada and San Diego,-power(?)-crazed, gold-drunk hyenas trying to slug and shoot back the onward upward march of the human race! Fools who base their system on a thug’s heroism and a detectives’s honor, this is what the capitalist class has already degenerated to, and this is the surest sign of a system’s fall. 

All that is now left for the working class to do to end its age-long misery is to unite and rise in ONE BIG UNION. 

RISE! 

Save Ettor, Giovannitti, Emerson, Lehman, and all the other hero lumberjacks now in the Black Hole of Calcasieu!

RISE!

Clan of Toil, awaken! Rebels of the South, arise! Workers of the World, unite! You have nothing but your chains to lose! You have a World to gain!

RISE!

Organize! Organize!! Organize!!!

COVINGTON HALL.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Shall Emerson Die?-President of Brotherhood of Timber Workers Jailed in Lake Charles, Louisiana

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote BBH re BTW LA White n Black Unity, ISR p106 , Aug 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday August 24, 1912
Jay Smith, Secretary of B. of T. W., Appeals for Funds to Save Fellow Workers

From Pittsburg (Kansas) Labor Herald of August 16, 1912:

Shall Emerson Die?
———-

[Letter from Jay Smith, B. of T. W. Secretary]

A. I. Emerson, Pres BTW, Cmg Ntn p6, Aug 24, 1912

Brother, Comrades, Fellow-workers:

On Sunday evening, July 7, 1912, while the Brotherhood of Timber Workers were holding a mass meeting on the public road at Grabow, La., thugs concealed in the office of the Galloway Lumber Co., fired upon our people with rifles and pump guns loaded with buck-shot. When the firing ceased, three men were found to be killed outright, several mortally and seriously wounded and thirty-odd others injured, the great majority being union men. Immediately following the “riot”, as it was called by the capitalists class, President A. L. Emerson, who was our chief speaker on the occasion, and other members of the Brotherhood, were arrested, denied bail, and placed in the county jail at Lake Charles, La., which prison is totally inadequate to accommodate the number of men now confined there, and is in a deplorably unsanitary condition, besides. Despite the condition of this prison, sick and wounded men are confined there, the authorities giving the excuse that there is no room in the I hospital for them and our boys are still being arrested.

This, so far, is the outcome of the “riot” at Grabow. That our boys were neither looking for nor expecting any such trouble is borne witness to by the fact that many of them had taken along their women and children, and, that none of the last were killed by the Trusts gunmen, is a miracle.

All the news and evidence so far reported shows that our men were not only ambushed, but that the “riot” had been carefully planned by the Lumber Trust, and we have every reason to believe, that hidden in the offices of the Galloway Lumber Co., were gunmen who had been sent over from other places by the Southern Operators’ Association. The “riot” was but the culmination of a long series of outrages against the Brotherhood and all other Union labor, and was staged by the Operators’ Association for the purpose of crushing out the unions in the Southern timber districts and terrorizing its workers back into meek submission into peonage. This has been the boasted purpose of the Operators’ Association: “To crush all union labor out of their mills and camps, drive all Socialist speakers out of their towns, and run things as they damned please.”

For twenty long months we have fought this mighty and merciless combination of capital, this vicious combine of grafters and gunmen, and, because they have not been able to whip us back into their mills and slave pens, they have planned the massacre of Grabow, and, failing there to kill our President Emerson and his bravest associates, they have taken him and them to jail and are preparing to stage another legal murder.

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