Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 10, 1903 Indianapolis, Indiana – United Mine Workers Receives Report from Chris Evans
From the Baltimore Sun of March 9, 1903:
WERE MINERS KILLED IN BED?
Evans Describes Atkinsville Affair As A Massacre By Officers.
Chris Evans, 1890
INDIANAPOLIS, March 8.-The official report of Chris. E. Evans, who was sent to the West Virginia coalfields to investigate the killing of the colored miners at Atkinsville [near Stanaford City, Raleigh County] has been received at the headquarters of the United Mine Workers.
The report states that General St. Clair, attorney for the coal companies, created an agitation to have the men arrested and taken to Charleston, and that immediately afterward arrangements were made with the United States Marshal by the Mine Workers’ officials to give bond for all who were arrested. Later, on account of the agitation created by Deputy Marshal Cunningham, he says, the agreement with the Marshal was broken and Cunningham was sent to arrest the men.
According to the report, there was a great feeling against Cunningham, and the men decided not to allow him to arrest them and he was driven away. Mr. Evans says that he, as a miners’ official, sent a telegram to the men to submit quietly, but the local coal companies, who own all the telegraph and telephone lines into the town, refused to deliver it. Before he could get any message to the men Cunningham and his deputies. Evans alleges, went to the town a second time and killed the miners in their beds at night.
Mr. Evans says that he went to the scene of the trouble the next morning and that 48 men had been arrested for conspiracy to kill Cunningham. He found in a house occupied by a colored man named “Stonewall” Jackson the dead bodies of William Dodson, William Clark and Richard Clayton, all negroes.
The report continues:
We found that the wife of Jackson and her four children, with eight negroes, were in the house, and that about daybreak all were awakened by shots, fired into the house from the outside. This shooting took place without warning, and the three colored men were found dead on the floor. Two were in their night clothes and the other one was partly dressed.
We visited another house, where Joseph Hizer lay in bed mortally wounded, having been shot as he was dressing. Hizer lived with his sister, and she made the statement at the inquest that she pleaded with those shooting not to kill her children, and in reply Cunningham said: “Women and children must take care of themselves.” In no instance could we find where these people had been asked to surrender until after the deputies had commenced shooting at the occupants of the house.
We next went to the house of Lucian Lawson, who was considered mortally wounded. I understand that after the shooting referred to this man, with others, returned the fire of the posse, and this is the only instance where any attempt of resistance was made by the miners.
During the shooting in many instances the men and women pleaded with the men outside to have mercy on them, but their cries were met with derision and curses. Our investigation proves conclusively that no effort was made to shoot or resist except in the one case mentioned, but that all would have been glad to surrender if they had been allowed the opportunity.
Mr. Evans says that the coroner’s jury has returned a verdict of felonious killing against Cunningham for the killing of William Dodson.
[Photograph, emphasis and paragraph breaks added.]
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday March 5, 1903
Stanaford, Raleigh County, West Virginia – Deputies Gun Down Striking Miners
From The San Francisco Call of February 26, 1903:
CHARLESTON, W. Va., Feb. 25.-At Stanniford [Stanaford] City, in Raleigh County, at dawn this morning, a battle took place between the joint posses of Deputy United States Marshal Cunningham and Sheriff Cook on one side and rioting miners on the other, as a result of which three miners were killed, two others mortally wounded and a number of others on both sides more or less seriously hurt…..
Miners murdered by deputized gunthugs at Stanaford, Raleigh County, West Virginia, at dawn, Wednesday February 25, 1903:
Hellraisers Journal – Friday August 2, 1912 Lake Charles, Louisiana – A. L Emerson, President of B. T. W., in Jail
From the International Socialist Review of August 1912:
[Part I of II]
A. L. EMERSON, President of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers, is in jail at Lake Charles, La. He was arrested following the shooting at Grabow, La., where three union men and one company hireling were killed outright and nearly two score of men were more or less seriously wounded.
The shooting is the outcome of the bitter war waged against the members of the Brotherhood of Timber Workers by the Lumber Trust for the last eighteen months. The scene of the tragedy that occurred on Sunday, July seventh, is a typical Southern lumber camp. The mill at this place is operated by the Galloway Lumber Company. In common with all others, it is surrounded by the miserable houses where the workers find habitation, the commissary store of the Company being the largest place of business in the towns. A strike has been on at this place since the middle of last May. The single demand on the part of the union men was for a bi-weekly pay day. Heretofore the pay days have been at long intervals-usually a month apart.
During the intervening weeks, when the men were in need of money to meet the necessities of life, they could secure advances on their pay but not in real money. They were compelled to accept Company Scrip payable only in merchandise and exchangeable only at the company commissary. If accepted elsewhere it is uniformly discounted from 10 to 25 per cent on the dollar.
In the commissary stores where the cash prices are always from 20 to 50 per cent higher than at the independent stores, the company has established another means of graft by making two prices-the coupon or scrip price being much higher than that exacted for real cash.
The conditions at Grabow can be used as an illustration of nearly all of the other lumber camps of the South.
The commissary store is not the only iniquity imposed upon the Timber Workers. For miserable shacks they [are] compelled to pay exorbitant rents; sewerage there is none; there is no pretense at sanitation ; the outhouses are open vaults. For these accommodations families pay from $5 to $20 a month. In one camp worn-out box cars are rented by R. A. Long, the Kansas City philanthropist, for $4 a month. Insurance fees are arbitrarily collected from every worker, for which he receives practically nothing in return, but whether his time be long or short-one day or a month-with the company, the fee is deducted. The same is true of the doctor fee and the hospital fee, which, in all places, is an imaginary institution. The nearest thing to a hospital that the writer saw was an uncompleted foundation at DeRidder, the place visited a few days prior to the Grabow tragedy. The gunmen and deputy sheriffs are an expensive innovation in the manufacture of lumber. These miserable tools are to be found everywhere and are used to browbeat and coerce the workers.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 16, 1921 Washington, D. C. – Frank Ingham Before Senate Investigating Committee
From the Washington Evening Star of July 15, 1921:
From Hearings before Senate Committe -Now Investigating West Virginia Coal Fields -July 14, 1921, excerpt from testimony of Frank Ingham:
Mr. INGHAM. Then they [McDowell County sheriff’s deputies] drove the car down there between Welch and Hemphill, and there they stopped and they dragged me out of the car, and they took me about 100 yards away from the car and then they began to beat me over the head and back with these iron clubs, and then when they decided that I was dead, when they decided that there was not any life in me, they drew off of me and stood and talked, and Ed Johnson, the sheriff’s deputy , he came back to me and kicked me in the face…He holds the position of deputy sheriff under Sheriff Daniels, and he come back and he kicked me in the face and he robbed my pocket…Well, I had prayed earnestly to God, and I believe that God heard me and that he answered my prayer, and I was conscious all the way. I had $25.07 in my pocketbook, and I also had a receipt from Mr. R. H. Campbell; I had borrowed $100 from him and I had a receipt from him and one from Dr. Hamburger, and my railroad ticket…Ed Johnson [took those things]….I never got anything [back].
And then they went off and they left me lying in the woods, and they went out to the road and they got in their machine and drove back toward Welch, and the automobiles ran out of my hearing. I raised my head up from off of the ground, and I stayed there until I collected strength enough to get out of the road, and then I went out to a little coaling station, I believe they call it the Farm coaling station, I believe they call it that, and an engineer was there and a fireman was there coaling up an engine, and they asked me what was the matter with me and I told them that I had been in the hands of the mob. They asked me what I had been in the hands of the mob for and I told them because I belonged to the union.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 27, 1920
Montesano, Washington – Centralia I. W. W. Defendants Threatened
From The Butte Daily Bulletin of January 26, 1920:
———-
CENTRALIA I. W W. FORCED TO TRIAL IN TOWN
WHERE LYNCHING IS THREATENED —–
(Special United Press Wire.)
Montesano, Wash, Jan. 26.-An attempt by George Vanderveer, chief counsel for the defense, to introduce articles and editorials printed in a Gray’s Harbor newspaper during November and December, as the basis of his request for a change of venue for the I. W. W. defendants accused of the Centralia Armistice day killings, met defeat when the trial began this morning. Judge Wilson ruled that only new matter arising since his previous ruling denying a change of venue can be considered now.
The accused were freshly shaven when they entered the courtroom this morning. For the most part their faces were expressionless.
Montesano, lying in a valley between wooded hills, doesn’t seem unduly excited. There is, however, a rather grim determination to mete out “justice” apparent in the faces of the citizens who thronged the corridors of the courthouse.
Elaborate precautions have been taken by the authorities to prevent any trouble during the trial. Twenty-four deputy sheriffs are constantly patrolling the streets. Sheriff Barten announced he had deputized 100 members of the American Legion at Centralia, 300 at Hoquiam and 100 at Elma, who will be called if trouble arises.
The hundreds of witnesses who will be called during the trial will be fed in a huge dining room established at the city hall.
The defense’s application for a change of venue was denied by Judge Wilson at the end of the morning session. The court held that the showing of the defense was insufficient to cause the trial to be shifted from Montesano and that the law does not permit a second change of venue in a case of this kind.
All doubt that self-defense will be the keynote of the defense was swept away by Attorney Vanderveer in his argument on a motion for a change of venue.
[He declared:]
That the legionaires attacked the I. W. W. hall will not even be disputed before we finish this trial. Even from the prosecution’s own witnesses we will prove the attack was made before a shot was fired.
—————
—————
———-
———-