Hellraisers Journal: Strikebreakers Shipped Into Cripple Creek Strike District, Guarded by Troops, Escape to Union Hall Under Fire

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Quote Frank Gould Poem Scab, IW p3, Aug 6, 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 26, 1903
Cripple Creek District, Colorado – Imported Strikebreakers Escape to Union Hall

Report of Emma F. Langdon of Victor, Colorado:

51 STRIKE BREAKERS ARRIVE IN THE DISTRICT.

Cripple Creek, Scabs Shipped In, SL Tg p8, Sept 8, 1903

On Sept. 18 the much heralded strike breaking miners from the “east’’ arrived in Denver on their way to the district under heavy guard.

When the train carrying these men reached Cripple Creek the soldiers abandoned them, but the mine owners had places provided for their comfort. The newsboys followed them down the street and cried, “scab!” after them. This frightened the mine owners and a detachment of troops was immediately sent from Camp Goldfield to Cripple Creek, going over on the 9 o’clock electric low line from Victor. These soldiers were soon joined by two other companies of infantry and they lined Bennett avenue from First to Third streets and guarded the alleys more particularly. The soldiers’ headquarters were made at the Mining Exchange building, from where they received their orders. Citizens walking along the streets were told to move on and not to loiter.

The Finns and Norwegians, which constituted most of the men brought in—in fact, there was only two Americans among them—and very few who could speak English. The ones who could speak English stated that conditions had been misrepresented to them. They had just finished their work in the harvest fields of northern Michigan and were told that a new gold field had been opened here and that the mine owners wanted men badly. They were informed that in order to get men at once they would pay $3 for eight hours work and that the first men who responded would get the jobs. They were told further that if they did not like the work they would pay their expenses back to their homes and that it would not cost them a cent to get to the district.

There was eighty-seven in the crowd when they reached Denver, but twenty-six of the number pulled away in that city and about nine quit at Colorado Springs, leaving fifty or fifty-one to arrive in the gold camp.

STRIKE BREAKERS CONVERTED TO UNIONISM.

Eighteen of the men shipped into the district from Michigan were at union headquarters Friday night, Sept. 18, and stated that they would not go to work under the conditions here; that matters here had been grossly misrepresented to them. The balance of the fifty-one were taken to the Independence mine in the morning under heavy guard, but when they got to the mine they refused to go below. They were kept there all day and fed at Camp Goldfield.

On Saturday morning, Sept. 19, while the remaining twenty-three imported laborers were being escorted along Bennett avenue, Cripple Creek, by the military, the first shot of the “Cripple Creek District War” occurred when Lieutenant Hartung, of company B, took a shot at one of the imported Finns, Emil Peterson, who had been drawn off by the unions.

The strike breakers were being escorted from Miners’ Exchange hall to the depot by a detachment of company B. At the corner of Second and Bennett avenue Peterson broke through the lines and tried to talk to the strike breakers. He was ordered out by Capt. Frazier. As the man turned away he shouted in an excited manner, in his own tongue, to the others, and the captain called on Lieut. Hartung, “Arrest that man.” Peterson ran up the avenue, and Lieut. Hartung called, “Halt!” three times. The man increased his speed. The officer then sent a bullet after the man, who was now running like a frightened rabbit, his hat falling off in his mad rush for freedom and perhaps unionism.

Saturday morning unionists persuaded eighteen of the imported Finns to desert the mine owners, one of them being the man who was shot at by the lieutenant and whom the private sharp shooter offered to kill if the order was given. Peterson claimed that all of the strikebreakers were induced to come to Colorado by false representation, and the promise of high wages, from $4 to $5 a day being offered.

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Hellraisers Journal: Don MacGregor of the Denver Express Describes the Great Exodus of Striking Miners and Their Families from the Coal Camps of Southern Colorado

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The Exodus from Coal Camps to Ludlow, Don MacGregor, Dnv Exp Sept 24, 1913 per Beshoar p—————

Hellraisers Journal- Thursday September 25, 1913
The Great Exodus of Striking Miners from Company Towns 

Southern Colorado, September 23, 1913
-Evicted Families Arrive at Ludlow and Trinidad as Rain Turns to Snow.

So Colorado Miners Evicted, Dy Bk p22, Sept 24, 1913
Chicago Day Book
September 24, 1913

As the miners and their families were evicted from the company towns, Don MacGregor, a reporter from the Denver Express, was a witness and filed this report which was published September 24th:

No one who did not see that exodus can imagine its pathos. The exodus from Egypt was a triumph, the going forth of a people set free. The exodus of the Boers from Cape Colony was the trek of a united people seeking freedom.

But this yesterday, that wound its bowed, weary way between the coal hills on the one side and the far-stretching prairie on the other, through the rain and the mud, was an exodus of woe, of a people leaving known fears for new terrors, a hopeless people seeking new hope, a people born to suffering going forth to new suffering.

And they struggled along the roads interminably, in an hour’s drive between Tinidad and Ludlow, 57 wagons were passed, and others seemed to be streaming down to the main road from every by-path.

Every wagon was the same, with its high piled furniture, and its bewildered woebegone family perched atop, and the furniture! What a mockery to the state’s boasted riches. Little piles of miserable looking straw bedding! Little piles of kitchen utensils! And all so worn and badly used they would have been the scorn of any second-hand dealer on Larimer Street.

Prosperity! With never a single article even approaching luxury, save once in a score of wagons a cheap gaily painted gramophone! With never a bookcase! With never a book! With never a single article that even the owners thought worth while trying to protect from the rain!

[Emphasis added]

John Lawson, International Organizer for the United Mine Workers of America, was on hand through-out the day. When a superintendent taunted him by shouting, “A good day for a strike,” Lawson replied:

Any strike-day would look good to the people from your mines.

At Ludlow, Lawson helped to set up the canteen and greeted arriving families with milk and hot coffee as the rain turned into a snow.

One thousand tents being shipped from West Virginia by the U. M. W. have been delayed. At the Ludlow Tent Colony, many miners and their families spent the night in the big central tent. Some were taken to local union halls, and others were given shelter in the homes of nearby union sympathizers. The Greek miners, many of whom are single men, spent the night camped out in the snowstorm.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Don MacGregor of the Denver Express Describes the Great Exodus of Striking Miners and Their Families from the Coal Camps of Southern Colorado”

Hellraisers Journal: Coal Strike is On in Southern Colorado Coalfields; Mass Exodus from Company Towns into Tent Colonies

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Quote Mother Jones, Rise Up and Strike, UMW D15 Conv Sept 16 Trinidad CO, Dnv Exp Sept 17, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal- Wednesday September 24, 1913
Southern Colorado-Thousands of Striking Miners and Families Exit Company Towns

From the Trinidad Chronicle-News of September 23, 1913:

HdLn Coal Strike Begins in Southern Colorado, CNs p1, Sept 23, 1913

A meeting was held at Sopris this morning and talks were made by Frank J. Hayes and “Mother” Jones. A meeting will be held at Ludlow this afternoon. These meetings will continue from day to day at differenct camps to “keep the enthusiasm going”, as Vice President Hayes intimated last night.

Mother Jones worked up to a high pitch bordering on frenzey deliverd an impassioned address to more than three hundred coal miners at Sopris this morning. The meeting was held under canvass and the venerable labor leader sought to stir up the fires of revolet in the breast of every miner. While the speaking was going on scores of miners were receiving union cards. International vice president Frank J. Hayes also spoke. There was a good deal of enthusiasm manifested.

[Statement of Vice-President Frank Hayes to C-N reporter:]

We have conducted a quiet, dignified campaign. We feel confident the operators will accede to our demands in the near future. The miners by their action today have proved that they desire to enjoy better working conditions and work as union men and enjoy the same rights and privileges as the miners of Wyoming and neighboring states.

This is an age of co-operation and we demand the same right as the mine owners assert to band ourselves together for the purpose of promoting social and economic welfare. The statutes of Colorado concede us this right and the right to sell our labor collectively. We cannot surrender this legal right.

In view of the prosperity of this particular company [C. F. & I.] which also reflects the prosperity of other big corporations, we see no good reason why the miners should not enjoy more of the comforts and refinements of modern civilization. We have repeatedly sought to secure a joint conference but without success. We are still waiting for a conference to adjust the present controversy. If working conditions are as good as the operators say they are, then the operators ought not to fear to meet the miners in joint conference.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Coal Strike is On in Southern Colorado Coalfields; Mass Exodus from Company Towns into Tent Colonies”

Hellraisers Journal: From the Denver United Labor Bulletin: Miners’ Strike in the Colorado Coal Fields Will Begin on Tuesday

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Quote re Mother Jones, Fighting Angel, Denver CO ULB p1, Sept 20, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 22, 1913
Southern Colorado Coalfields – Miners Will Begin Strike on Tuesday

From the Denver United Labor Bulletin of September 20, 1913:

Colorado Coalfield Strike to Start Sept 23, Dnv ULB p1, Sept 20, 1913

U. M. W. District 15 of Colorado Issues Strike Resolution, Makes Demands:

Colorado UMW D15 Strike Resolution n Demands, Dnv ULB p1, Sept 20, 1913

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Denver United Labor Bulletin: Miners’ Strike in the Colorado Coal Fields Will Begin on Tuesday”

Hellraisers Journal: Convention of District 15 of the United Mine Workers of America Issues Strike Call for Southern Colorado

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Strike Call, UMW District 15 for Sept 23, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 19, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – U. M. W. District 15 Convention Issues Strike Call
-Strike to begin Tuesday September 23rd. Demands put forth.

Strike Call, UMW District 15 for Sept 23, 1913, Demands listed.

The Demands of District 15
United Mine Workers of America

The demands agreed upon during the Special Convention which voted to strike on Tuesday, September 16th, are seven in number:

1. Union recognition
2. A wage scale for various types of mine work
3. The eight-hour work day
4. Pay for all narrow work and dead work
(The coal companies have historically expected the men to work without pay when brushing, timbering, removing falls, handling impurities, etc.)
5. A checkweighman at every mine, elected by the miners
6. The right of the miners to shop where they please, board where they please, and to choose their own doctors.
7. Enforcement of the Colorado Mining Laws and:
abolition of the the notorious and criminal guard system which has prevailed in the mining camps of Colorado for many years.

As the convention ended, Vice President Hayes told the cheering delegates that most of the demands were simply a demand for compliance by the coal companies with mining laws which were on the law books of the state of Colorado, and had been for many years.

Hayes continued:

I was never more hopeful for success than I am in this strike. I do not think it will last long. The operators cannot fight an organization of 450,000 men for long. I think we shall realize in Colorado the greatest victory in the history of our organization. I know we cannot lose because our demands are just, and, having made every honorable effort to adjust the differences, the responsibility rest not on us, but on the operators. I hope that when next Tuesday comes every miner will lay down his tools and never take them up again until they take them up as United Mine Workers, recognized by the operators.

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Convention of District 15 of the United Mine Workers of America Issues Strike Call for Southern Colorado”

Hellraisers Journal: “Rise Up and Strike”-Mother Jones Speaks at UMW District 15 Special Convention; Miners Vote to Strike

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Quote Mother Jones, Rise Up and Strike, UMW D15 Conv Sept 16, 1913 Trinidad CO—————-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 18, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – U. M. W. District 15 Holds Special Convention
-Mother Jones Speaks; Miners Vote to Strike

From The Rocky Mountain News of September 17, 1913:

HdLn RMN p1, Sounther CO Miners Vote Strike, Mother Jones Speaks, Sept 17, 1913

Monday September 15, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – District 15 of U. M. W. of A. Meeting in Special Convention

The Special Convention of District 15 of the United Mine Workers of America begins today in Trinidad, Colorado. All efforts to negotiate with the mine owners has been exhausted, and it is expected that a strike call will be issued which could shut down the coal mines of the entire state of Colorado. Delegates from Huerfano County have made their way into Trinidad despite the declaration by Sheriff Jefferson Farr that not a single miner from his district would make it to the convention. Apparently, Farr and his 326 deputies were no match for the determined union coal miners.

Mother Jones is in Trinidad and will address the Convention tomorrow.

—————-

Tuesday September 16, 1913
Trinidad, Colorado – Special Convention Opens with “Battle Cry of Union.”

The Special Convention of the United Mine Workers of America’s District 15 opened yesterday with 250 delegates singing the “Battle Cry of Union:”

We will win the fight today, boys,
We’ll win the fight today,
Shouting the battle cry of union;
We’ll rally from the coal mines,
We’ll rally from the hills,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union.

The union forever, hurrah boys, hurrah!
Down with the gunthugs and up with the law;
For we’re coming, Colorado,
We’re coming all the way,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union

While general business was being conducted in the hall, the Scale and Policy Committee, led by John Lawson, took testimony from the coal miners of the southern fields. The grievances of the miners are many and include: being paid in script worth only 90 cents on the dollar at the company stores or saloons which they are forced to patronize, being robbed in the weighing of coal at the rate of 400 to 800 pounds per ton, being forced to vote according to the views of the company superintendent, being discharged for union membership, being discharged for voicing any complaint whatsoever about short weights, safety conditions or camp conditions.

But mostly the coal miners hate the company guard system. These gunthugs who lord it over them in the company towns, have become increasingly intolerable as the union organizing drive in the southern coalfield has progressed.

Mother Jones will speak at the convention today, a strike vote will be taken, and demands will be issued. The miners know full well that a strike will lead to to eviction from their homes. They will be homeless along with their families, creating 20,000 refugees in all. The U.M.W. has been shipping tents, food, blankets, and clothing into the area. Locations are being rented by the Union where strikers’ tent colonies can be established.

—————

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Rise Up and Strike”-Mother Jones Speaks at UMW District 15 Special Convention; Miners Vote to Strike”

Hellraisers Journal: Shawnee County Socialist: “Cleve Woodrum, Humble Martyr to Cause of Labor” by Cabin Creek Striker

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Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, ed, Ab Chp 6, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 25, 1913
Cleve Woodrum, Martyred Union Miner by Cabin Creek Striker

From the Shawnee County Socialist of August 23, 1913:

CLEVE WOODRUM AN HUMBLE MARTYR
TO THE CAUSE OF LABOR.
———-

Jury Probes Mine Battle, Cabin Creek WV, WDC Hld p1, July 26, 1913
The Washington Herald
July 26, 1913

There are some who would wish us to believe that the West Virginia outrages have ceased since the Senate Committee and the Socialist Party Committee have made their report, but they still go on.

Cleve Woodrum was picking berries for his sick wife, but had with him his rifle, when two hired murderers of the mine owners attacked him. Woodrum killed both of them, and was himself wounded. The other hired assassins, finding the two did not return from their murder, hunted and found one of the guards mortally wounded and the other dead. The wounded guard, Don Slater, they sent to the Hospital where he died, but, [finding] Woodrum, these [gunthugs] tortured the wounded man and then mutilated his body and left it in the bush where it was afterward found by his friends.

This was a cowardly assassination and then a brutal savagery of which only [gunthugs] are capable, and yet no paper but a few labor papers will mention it.

Read this letter from a Cabin Creek striker and remember that the mine owners, whose money hires these [gunthugs] are mostly pious church members, and they pay some of this blood money to the preachers to preach as they the mine owners demand.

This may be Christianity, but it has nothing to do with the gentle and loving Jesus.

Our Comrade, Cleve Woodrum.
Eskdale, West Virginia.

Cleve Woodrum, the martyr to the cause of human liberty, born October 12, 1884, killed July 24, 1913, entered the coal mines at the early age of 11, denied an education by the same class that hired the gunman to kill him. The departed comrade leaves a father, mother and eight brothers and sisters, an invalid wife with six little children, the eldest being eight years old and Mrs. Woodrum soon to become a mother. Cleve met his death while just out of hearing from home and was picking berries for his sick wife who had just returned from the hospital after undergoing surgical treatment. A plot between the coal operators and the military thugs to put Slater out of the way as Slater knew too much about the dirty work, murders and sluggings the coal operators had ordered and which had been carried out to the letter and the operators taking the advantage of the jealousy existing between the old line of Baldwins and the military Baldwins and Slater was ambushed by his own crowd.

Comrade Woodrum immortalized this great fight for the cause of justice and the freedom of his class from wage slavery, as much so as the John Brown martyrdom immortalized the scaffold for his opposition to chattel slavery.

I knew the deceased when he was a little trapper boy in the mines years ago. Standing in water cold as ice up to his knees while the young bones were trying to develop and powder smoke so thick you could hardly see. Long weary hours of toil, and food that was kept in a dinner pail closed in tight for several hours which was not nutritious or fit to eat. Even at that Cleve was manly, honest, upright, square, hard working man.

He had been in the Socialist movement about two years when he saw the light, his honest heart just responded to the working class’s philosophy of reason that the worker should receive the full product of his labor just like the rose to a spring shower.

This was his creed, this was his religion. He professed the religion of humanity, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man and to attain that end he had the highest of motives first taught by a union carpenter and Social Revolutionist by the name of Jesus, put to death by the ruling class for his radical teachings and would not recant one iota.

The union miners of this field should place suitable shaft over his tomb and ae well provide for his widow and little helpless children. Why not? The capitalist class pension their uniformed hired murderers for shooting down their own class and calling them heroes. So it is to the Socialist and union miners to provide for these widows and keep the grave green of working class heroes, as the coal barons forgot Slater as soon as the last breath went out.

A CABIN CREEK STRIKER.

This is the class war. Comrade Woodrum’s tortured and mutilated body is the dumb witness to the class war, and should rouse us slaves to class consciousness.

We should resolve over the mutilated body of this humble and faithful comrade to unite, organize and resolve that this class war shall end in the coming Co-Operative Commonwealth.

[Newsclip and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Miner’s Bulletin: Two Strikers Shot Down by Gunthugs in Michigan’s Copper Country

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

Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 18, 1913
Seeberville, Michigan – Deputies and Waddell Gunthugs Kill Two at Boarding House

From the Miner’s Bulletin of August 16, 1913:

Murder of Tijan and Putrich at Seeberville MI, Mnrs Bltn p1, Aug 16, 1913

Strikers Murdered by Deputies in Cold Blood
Will they be Punished?

Two men were murdered at a mine location near Painesdale known as Seeberville, Thursday afternoon August 14. Two others were shot, one of whom may die.

Louie Tijan was shot and instantly killed at his boarding house, by secret service men last night. Steve Putrich shot through the breast, died from his wounds in the hospital about noon Friday. Stanko Stepic in hospital shot through left wrist and wounded in body, may die.

John Stimac, shot in the stomach while sitting at table. The above outrages came as the crimes to the reign of organized thuggery under the direction of James Waddell. These killings are among the fruits harvested in this district from the importation of man-killers. The morning lyer [liar?] of the operator [the Mining Gazette?] stated that the killing was the result of resisting arrest.

Here are the facts.

John Kalem and J. Stimac came from South Range yesterday afternoon, to their home in Seeberville following the railroad track till near the bridge when they took a by-path leading to a mine shack, and on the property of the mining company, although in general use. While near the shaft, a secret service man ordered them back. They replied: “We always go this way, it’s closer,” and went on. They had scarcely reached the house, when Deputy Sheriff, Henry James, trammer boss, and six secret service men arrived. The trammer boss pointed out Kalem as the man. The leader of the secret service man says: “come with me.” He replied: “I guess not.” At that the leader sprang upon him and began clubbing him. All the men ran into the boarding house. Upon command from the leader, the secrete service man, two at each window, began firing into the little home, and James shot one of the party, shooting from the doorway, with the results indicated above.

The tragedy occurred in an Austrian boarding house. The wife of the proprietor has four children, the oldest four years old, the youngest a baby of six months, in her arms, was burned by powder smoke from the shots of the secret service men shooting into the room where she and her children were. Almost at once after the shooting, deputies and soldiers arrived. They searched the house, even going through the trunks of the men. They found no weapons of any kind. There was no resistance to the officers. There was no call upon the men to surrender. The secret service men [Waddell men, many of them sworn in as deputies] came to murder, and they accomplished their infamous purpose.

Then, as if to afford some justification for their murder, they went around the houses of the location picking up all old broken bottles, the product of years and gathered them up, claiming they had been thrown at them. It was too late to manufacture evidence. There were too many witnesses to the crime, who knew what the thugs were doing.

It is reported that the Prosecuting Attorney twice requested that the Sheriff serve warrants upon the murders. He has not done so yet. He divides honors(?) with other accessories before the facts.

Let the reader put down these facts as against the statements of the Mining Gazette, the advocate of deportation, and constantly inviting to assassination.

Seeberville Murders of August 14, 1913:

Two men were gunned down Thursday August 14th in a small hamlet just south of Calumet when deputies and Waddell gunthugs opened fire on a boarding house. Inside the house were men, women and children. Several other men were seriously injured and a baby was burned on the face by gunpowder.

The trouble started when two strikers took a well worn shortcut across mine property. This had long been their route home, and little did they think it would be cause for arrest, much less a murderous barrage of bullets upon their home.

The dead are Steve Putrich and Alois Tijan.

Funeral for Brothers Tijan and Putrich, August 17, 1913:

Mourners arrived in Calumet by train from all over the Keweenaw August 17th  for the funerals of Alois Tijan and Steve Putrich. Services were held at the Croatian Catholic Church, St. John the Baptist, with Father Medin presiding. The mourners than marched two miles to Lake View Cemetery lead by the Finnish Humu Band.

After the funeral, 5,000 gathered for a demonstration of solidarity. Joseph Cannon spoke. He blamed the “sultans of industry” for murdering these two men. He named Governor Ferris “as an accessory before the fact of this lamentable double murder.” He pointed out Sheriff Cruse whose “hands dripped with blood.” And to the mine owners, he said:

Boston coppers, long have you boasted of your mines of wealth untold. Long have you grown fat by keeping us lean.

He honored the Martyrs:

Their lips are sealed in death, but they spoke in a thousand tongues the victory which is coming and for which they have not worked in vain.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Miner’s Bulletin: Two Strikers Shot Down by Gunthugs in Michigan’s Copper Country”

Hellraisers Journal: Summary of Testimony before Senate Investigating Committee, Charleston, W. V., June 10-17, 1913

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Poem for Child of Cesco Estep, Clifford Allan Estep, by Walter Seacrist, wvgw net—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 19, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – Summary of Testimony before Senate Committee

From The Omaha Daily News of June 18, 1913:

WV Sen Com 1913, US Senators, Omaha Dly Ns p2, June 18, 1913
United States Senate Committee Taking Testimony
in the Kanawha Hotel, Charleston, West Virginia
WV Paint Creek Coal Miners Wives, Omaha Dly Ns p2, June 18, 1913
Group of Paint Creek Coal Miners’ Wives and Children

Tuesday June 10, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – First Session of the Senate Investigating Committee

The Senate Investigating Committee began taking testimony this morning in Charleston. Five U.S. Senators make up this committee: Senator Swanson, the Chairman, and Senators Martine, Shields, Borah, and Kenyon. Together they are more formally known as the Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor of the United States Senate. They are here to investigate conditions in the Paint Creek District of West Virginia. Also present were the attorneys representing the United Mine Workers and the coal operators. Bonner S. Hill, Sheriff of Kanawha County was also represented by counsel.
—————

Friday June 13, 1913, Afternoon Session
Charleston, West Virginia – Testimony of Maud Estep, the widow of Francis Estep

Maud Estep was called as a witness before the Senate Investigating Committee. She was sworn in by Senator Kenyon. Mrs. Estep is the widow of Francis Estep, the striking miner who was shot down during the attack on the Holly Grove Strikers’ Colony last February.

This is a summary of her testimony:
She continues to reside at Holly Grove. Before the strike she lived on Cabin Creek and Acme. Her husband died on the 7th of February of this year. Her husband was shot by gunmen from the Bull-Moose Special as it passed by their house.

Well, he was shot from the train, I suppose; the train went up there, and they were shooting from the train at the house..Between 10 and 11 o’clock, some time; I don’t just exactly know what time; that was by my time.

At the time of the shooting, they were living in house across from the station, near the creek.

She describes the panic as shots were fired at the house:

He was in the house when the train commenced shooting down on the other side. We were all in the house sitting there carrying on and talking. We heard the train come shooting, and he hollered for us to go to the cellar, and he went out the front door – him and some more boys that were in there; they ran out of the front door, and I went through the kitchen way, and I never got any farther than the kitchen door; we were all trying to get to the cellar. He was standing right at the corner of the cellar near the kitchen door where I was standing hollering for me to go and get into the cellar. It was so dark that I could just see the bulk of him. It scared me so – and I had a little one in my arms – that I could not go any farther. His cousin was there on a visit, and after the train commenced shooting he took hold of me and told me not to fall, and about that time a shot struck him [the cousin] in the leg.

The cellar of the house was right off the ground. The house was elevated a few feet above the ground.

There had been a cellar under there, and it was torn down, and they were fixing it up, so if any trouble started I could go there.

She was pregnant at the time, and that baby is 2 months old now. The child that she was holding as her husband was shot will be 2 years old on the 16th of September.

The first thing we heard was shots from the train. I suppose it started from the train. It was away below our house. We live up above the first town where the station is…We heard [the train] after it commenced shooting. We had not heard it before. We had our doors closed.

She learns that her husband is dead:

I didn’t know he was killed until after the train quit shooting, and I heard some of them speak to him and call his name, and I never heard him answer…[His body was] right on the outside of the house, pretty near to the back corner of the house.

She has never been back to that house since the night her husband was killed.

Her husband did have gun, but she is unsure if he was holding it when he was shot.

Her husband’s last words:

The last I heard him he was hollering for me to go in and get in the cellar. Hessie Willis was in there with me, and me and her went out the back way, and he was standing there; I could just see him in the dark; I could just see the bulk of him in the dark, and he was saying: “You women get in right quick; get in the cellar.”

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Summary of Testimony before Senate Investigating Committee, Charleston, W. V., June 10-17, 1913”