Hellraisers Journal: From The Coming Nation: “Military Despotism in West Virginia” by John W. Brown, Part II

7th May 20239th May 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote re John W Brown Revolutionary, AtR p2 Mar 15, 1913 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 7, 1913
John W. Brown on West Virginia Despotism: Mother Jones and Organizers Arrested

From The Coming Nation of May 3, 1913:

[Part II of III]

When Governor Glasscock issued his first declaration of Martial law, he seized everything in the shape of guns that could be found in the “War Zone.” After the embargo was raised he returned to the operators and Baldwin guards their gattling guns, high-power rifles and pistols, but not so with the miners guns. Consequently when these midnight assassins made their murderous attack on the sleeping village [of Holly Grove] the miners were practically unarmed.

Saturday afternoon and Sunday [February 8th and 9th, following the attack upon Holly Grove] was devoted to the mobilizing of sufficient guns and ammunition to enable the miners to put up a defence. Some of these men traveled as much as forty miles on foot simply to borrow a gun. In the meantime, all kinds of rumors were flying thick and fast. The governor sent men into the field to investigate, but the miners have long since lost confidence in these investigations. They have seen their comrades murdered before by this band of hired assassins, and then seen the governor send men out to “investigate,” and invariably the investigation resulted in turning the murderers loose to work out their hellish designs.

A well-founded rumor reached Hansford that the guards were going to make an attack on the town and had a gattling gun mounted upon the hill over-looking the main street and in a position that would enable them to rake the town from one end to the other. A small body of men went into the mountains by a round about way and overtook the guards and a pitched battle was fought in the hills from which the guards made a hasty retreat. Just why they should run off and leave a brand new $1,800 gattling gun that shoots three hundred and fifty times a minute, was not clear to the miners, but the secret came out later on when in the trial of “Mother Jones” she was accused of stealing the gun.. These fellows have such a holy horror for Mother that when they saw her coming they just quit that gun and ran. Some went by the way of the creek, but most of them took the Springfield route.

Monday the tenth was a day long to be remembered by the citizens of Hansford and the wives and children of the miners who had sought shelter in the town. During the latter part of the forenoon and up until late in the afternoon people kept streaming out of the main forks of the creek, many of whom were strangers who had been taken into the mines under false representation, and who took this first chance offered to escape the terrible conditions of peonage that now prevails throughout the whole field.

Shortly after noon, a group of men, women and children dragged themselves into Hansford. Everyone that could carry anything had a back load, and the poor women and children were ready to drop at the first friendly greeting.

Aside from what they carried on their backs they brought a new terror with them in that they reported that the guards, driven out of the hills by the miners, had mounted a gattling gun on a hand car and were going to make an attack on the town. This report was somewhat confirmed later in the day when Dr. Hunter of the “Sheltering Arms Hospital,” which is situated on an elevation on the opposite side of the Chesapeake and Ohio tracks from the town of Hansford, sent word through the town to the effect that the town would be fired upon and that the women and children should come to the hospital. There seemed to be an understanding between the hospital authorities and the coal baron’s assassins that the hospital was immune from attack, a thing not to be surprised at when it is remembered that Czar Cabel of Cabin Creek fame is treasurer of the hospital fund.

The miners and citizens of Hansford were not asking for any quarter at this time, though they did accept the hospitality for their wives and children, and by 6 p. m. all the women and children were safely out of range of the assassin’s bullets.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Coming Nation: “Military Despotism in West Virginia” by John W. Brown, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: From The Coming Nation: “Military Despotism in West Virginia” by John W. Brown, Part I

6th May 20239th May 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote re John W Brown Revolutionary, AtR p2 Mar 15, 1913 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 6, 1913
John W. Brown on West Virginia Despotism: The Attack on Holly Grove

From The Coming Nation of May 3, 1913:

[Part I of III]

NOW that hostilities between the hired assassins of the coal barons and the coal miners have ceased, the new governor, H. D. Hatfield, inaugurated, and well on his way with “his policy,” and all the undesirable citizens incarcerated and held incommunicado, and “peace reigns throughout the war zone,” society in general may find time to consider for a few brief moments just where we are at, and, incidentally, decide whether or not West Virginia is still a part of the United States, or whether she has not put herself clear outside the organic law of the nation.

Owing to the fact that all the miners and their sympathizers who were arrested with them have been kept practically incommunicado, while the most strict censorship has been enforced so far as the facts are concerned, I make haste at this the first opportunity we have had to present the miners’ side of the conflict. I do not wish to deal here with the long-drawn-out conflict which has been going on now between the miners and the operators for the past year. Of this the general public is more or less conversant.

It is with recent developments and the new administration that we have to deal in this article, and these date from February 7th, 1913.

Since the strike broke out a year ago, the dispossessed miners have been living in tents at Holly Grove, which is situated about one mile up the Paint Creek branch of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. This village of canvas tents has attracted considerable attention owing to the fact that it was so near the junction where the men were ever on the watch for scabs going in, and always ready to help out of the mining regions those who were taken there under false representations.

It became apparent to the operators very early in the struggle that so long as Holly Grove remained a haven of rest for the homeless miners and escaping peons they could never secure a sufficient force to operate their mines successfully, and on more than one occasion they set out through the aid of their hired assassins, the Baldwin-Feltz detectives, to wipe it off the map, but in anything like an even brake the miners put them to route.

The Baldwin guards have a special train at their disposal which became known throughout the region as the “Bull Moose.” Driven desperate by the passive mood of the miners, and unable to break down their solidarity, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, at the instigation of the coal barons, had this “Bull Moose” armored with one-half inch boiler plate with suitable port holes on each side.

On the night of February 7th [Friday], about 10 p. m., this “Bull Moose” stole into Holly Grove with all lights out and when abreast of the dwelling of the miners opened fire. One of the strikers, whose tent was so near the track that the shots ranged over it, in describing the shooting said that when the fire opened it sounded like “thirty-thirty” rifles and pistols, but when the train got abreast of the village proper, they turned loose the machine guns.

Several people were hit with bullets, the most serious being Mrs. John Hall, who was shot through both legs while she sat by her own fire, and Sesco Eastep [Francis/Francesco/Cesco, Estep] who was killed with his babe in his arms.

At first it was thought that the shooting was done on the initiative of the Baldwin guards, but the following day brought forth the fact that Bonner Hill, the republican sheriff, and several operators as well as Baldwin guards, were on the train, and that the orders to shoot were given by the man who only a few days previous held up his hand and swore, “so help him God,” that he would use whatever power vested in him as sheriff of Kanawah County to keep the peace.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From The Coming Nation: “Military Despotism in West Virginia” by John W. Brown, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Ralph Chaplin on Military Violence Against Striking Miners, Part II

2nd April 20233rd April 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Ralph Chaplin, WV Miners Longing for the Spring, Leaves, Paint Creek Miner, ISR p736, Apr 1913 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 2, 1913
Ralph Chaplin on the Attack by the Bull Moose Special Upon Strikers’ Colony

From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:

[Part II of III.]

The operators, realizing that violence has always been their big trump, thought they would have everything their own sweet way when trouble started. Everything was in their favor-armed guards and regiments of militiamen-so why should they not feel confident? But it is evident that the miners have fooled them. The miner knew the hills better than the blood-hounds that were sent to track them down. After a few months of it, the odds are just about even, and the fight is not half over. Soldiers in the strike zone are becoming uneasy and are using the slightest excuse to make a getaway. Many of the guards have deserted their posts of duty in a panic. One hundred and fifty of them have paid for treason to their class with their lives! They are in mortal fear of the time when the bleak hillsides will be covered with greenery-when “the leaves come out!“

The miners have been hounded into the using of violence. Just an instance in which the above-mentioned armored train figures conspicuously: This train is called, for some reason or other, the Bull Moose Special. Needless to state, it is thoroughly hated by the miners. The engineer and fireman and others of the train crew are reported to be extremely proud of the union cards they carry. This hellish contraption was a lovely plaything to put into the hands of the cut-throat, coyote-hearted guards and, like children with a new pop-gun, they were simply aching for an opportunity to use it against the strikers. The opportunity soon presented itself. Just how it came about nobody seems to know. The guards claim that some of the miners had fired into an ambulance carrying wounded mine-guards to the hospital. The strikers claim that the train was first used to avenge the death of a couple of guards who had been held to account for insulting some of the girls in the tent village. I, myself, have spoken with miners who claim to have been eye-witnesses to the insulting of these girls.

Mine guards are noted for their inhuman and brutal treatment of the women of the miners. Their authoritative positions often gave them advantages over the helpless women, especially in the absence of the men, and the full record of their unrestrained animal viciousness will never be written. Between the miners and the guards there is an open war to the knife. More than once these Kanawha cossacks have evicted mothers, in the pangs of childbirth, from company houses, and children have been born in the tents of the strikers while the murderous bullets of the guards were whistling and zipping through the canvas. At all events these cut-throats of the coal operators had the long wished for chance to use the Bull Moose special. They would have their revenge.

So in the dead of night, and with all lights extinguished, the Death Train drew up over the sleeping tent village at Holly Grove and opened fire with machine gun and rifle. Miners’ huts were torn to splinters and tents were riddled with bullets. One woman had both legs broken by the murderous rain of lead; and a miner, holding an infant child in his arms and running from his tent to the shelter of a dugout, fell, seriously wounded. The baby was, by some miracle, unhurt, but three bullet holes had tattered the edge of its tiny dress. Men, women and children ran hastily through the dark night seeking the cold security of the woods. The miners, as could be expected, were desperate enough to do most anything and returned the fire as best they could. Bonner Hill, sheriff of Kanawha county, who was only elected by a small and suspicious majority over Tincher the Socialist, candidate, was on the train, and it is claimed by the train crew that it was he who gave the order to fire the first murderous volley.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Ralph Chaplin on Military Violence Against Striking Miners, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Funeral of Frances Estep Who Was Shot Down by Gunthugs During Sneak Attack Upon Holly Grove from Bull Moose Special

13th February 202323rd June 2023 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III —————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 13, 1913
Holly Grove, West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks at Funeral of Francis Estep

From The Washington Times of February 11, 1913:

Cesco Estep, striker…was buried yesterday [February 10th near Holly Grove, West Virginia]. At his funeral, “Mother” Jones made an appeal to the men to get their guns and “Shoot them to hell,” meaning the mine watchmen and others who will not join their ranks.

[Emphasis added.

Note: Initial reports, in newspapers across the nation, claim that a striking miner, “Robert Estep,” was killed during rioting at Mucklow. In fact the striking miner killed was Francis Estep, member of the United Mine Workers of America. He was murdered at Holly Grove by gunthugs firing upon men women and children from a train-car called the “Bull Moose Special.” The attack was perpetrated against the small village at about 10 p. m. Residents scrambled for shelter and few miners were able to respond to the attack in an attempt to defend their families.

From the Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia) of February 9, 1913:

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Hellraisers Journal: Chicago IWW Trial: Ralph Chaplin on West Virginia and His Undying Hate for Industrial Tyranny

28th July 2018 Janet RayeHellraisers Journal

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hellraisers Journal, Sunday July 28, 1918
Chicago, Illinois – Testimony of Ralph Chaplin

Report from Defendant Harrison George:

Ralph Chaplin, defendant, artist-poet, and editor of “Solidarity” during 1917, took the stand on the morning of July 19th, 1918, and gave an account of how his life’s events had influenced his conclusions upon industrial and political questions. Born in Kansas thirty years ago, he had studied art at night-school while working during the day-time in the darkroom, “Spot-knocking” photographs. Later, another boss, knowing he was a “scissor-bill,” had him pledge $10 a week out of a $16 wage to invest $500 in the boss’ business. When that was paid in, the boss told him to go to hell and got another victim. This $500 was recovered because Chaplin was a minor when the contract was made; so he took this and started into business for himself with the ambition to be “independent.” But—he found a trust controlled all supplies and he was unable to buy anywhere and had to quit. So he went back to the easel, working for wages.

He then went to Mexico for one year and noted the extreme poverty of the peon class under the Diaz regime. Coming back, he had worked for the Chicago Portrait Company until the artists struck against conditions there. When that strike was lost he went to West Virginia, where he did artist work in the coal mining region. For several years previous he had been an enthusiastic member of the Socialist Party, “soap-boxing” and writing articles.

In West Virginia he did much work on the “Socialist and Labor Star” at Charleston [Huntington], which paper became the spokesman for the U. M. W. of A. coal miners’ strike at Paint Creek and Cabin Creek. During this strike Chaplin acquired his hatred of the labor-crushing militia. He described to the jury the “Bull Moose Special,” an armored train, built by union machinists in the C. & O. shops, loop-holed for machine guns and rifles; a train that was manned by Baldwin-Felts detectives and commanded by Quinn Morton, a company superintendent, and in the darkness run through the strikers’ colony at Holly Grove, belching death to men, women and children.

Chaplin came out of that strike zone with undying hate for industrial tyranny. He had written many poems about that strike and Vanderveer read them to the jury: “What Happened in the Hollow,” “The Mine Guard,” “When the Leaves Come Out,” and “Too Rotten Rank for Hell.” The latter Vanderveer asked about. “Does it express your contempt for the prostitute newspaper men?” “Well,” said Chaplin, “a part of it.”

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