Hellraisers Journal: The Wheeling Majority: “Evidence Shows Peonage Practiced by Coal Corporations in West Virginia”

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

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 26, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – Testimony Before Senate Committee Reveals Peonage

From The Wheeling Majority of June 19, 1913:

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Survey: “Civil War in the West Virginia Coal Mines” by Harold E. West of Baltimore Sun

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

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 9, 1913
“Civil War in the West Virginia Coal Mines” by Harold E. West

From The Survey of April 5, 1913:

War in WV by Harold West, Survey p37, Apr 5, 1913

FOR nearly a year a state of turmoil amounting in practical effects to a civil war has existed in the coal fields of West Virginia. The situation centers in the Kanawha Valley, hardly more than twenty miles from Charleston, the capital of the state.

The military power of the state has been used with only temporary effect; martial law has been declared and continues in force; the governor of the state has been defied and denounced from the state house steps and within his hearing; men and women have been thrown into prison and are still there for espousing the cause of the miners, and the grim hillsides of the canons in which the mines are situated are dotted with the graves of men who have been arrayed against one another in this conflict between capital and labor…..

WV Confiscated Arms, Survey p39, Apr 5, 1913

[U. S. Secretary of Labor William B.] Wilson charged that a condition of peonage existed in the mines and that men were held there by force and compelled to work against their will. The coal operators denied this vehemently, at the same time fighting bitterly a federal inquiry. Evidence I was able to gather on a trip of investigation to the mines convinced me that a form of peonage does, or did exist; that the miners were oppressed; that the rights guaranteed under the constitution were denied them; that the protection of the law of the state was withheld from them and the law openly defied and ignored by the coal operators……

WV Cabin Creek Woman w Rifle bf Her Tent, Survey p40, Apr 5, 1913

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Hellraisers Journal: West Virginia Miners Brutally Treated Under Military Despotism; Letter Sent Underground from the Bull Pen

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Quote Mother Jones, UMW Strong, Speech Charleston WV Levee, Aug 1, 1912—————

Hellraisers Journal -Saturday March 22, 1913
Mucklow, West Virginia – Striking Miner, Held in Bull Pen, Smuggles Out Letter

From The Wheeling Majority of March 20, 1913:

Articles re WV Bull Pen, Military Despotism, Gov H to Strike Zone, Wlg Maj p1, Mar 20, 1913

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