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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 6, 1921
Washington, District of Columbia – President Keeney Seeks Senate Investigation
From The Washington Times of February 5, 1921:
URGES SENATE QUIZ IN MINGO
———-Mine Workers’ Chief Says Constitution
is in Discard-Gunmen in Power.
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By DAVID M. CHURCH.
International News Service.
Declaring that “the Constitution has been kicked into the discard in West Virginia,” Frank Keeney, president of District No. 17 of the United Mine Workers of America, is here today seeking a Senatorial investigation of labor troubles in the West Virginia coal fields.
“GOVERNED BY GUNMEN.”
[Said Keeney:]
The time has come for civil government to be restored in Mingo county and other West Virginia fields. We want a Senate committee to investigate this situation. The miners want them to come into the fields, see conditions as they are, investigate present and past troubles, and let the chips fall where they may.
Keeney today conferred with a number of Senators and laid before them evidence of what he termed “the brutal government of gunmen.” He stated that he had assurances that a resolution would be introduced in the Senate shortly authorizing a complete investigation of the West Virginia troubles.
[Said Keeney:]
The fact that the troops are in West Virginia is prima facia evidence that civil government has been destroyed there. We are tired of these shooting affrays and lawlessness, and we can prove that the blame for these shooting affrays can be laid at the door of the operators’ gunmen. We have evidence to back up all of our statements, and we are confident that this evidence will stand the scrutiny of any fair committee.
MINERS ARE DISARMED.
Why, all the miners have been disarmed by the troops, yet it is claimed that the miners are doing some of the shooting. They say that some of the troopers have been shot at as many as forty times. Let me tell you that those miners are crack shots, and it they ever shot at a trooper more than twice he wouldn’t be alive. We are willing for a committee of Senators to decide who is doing the shooting.
The Winchester rifle and the gun is the law in West Virginia coal fields now, and the gunmen aren’t at all backward in telling you so, either.
