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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 1, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – Socialists Committee Investigates Industrial Conditions
From the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star of May 30, 1913:
From The Coming Nation of May 24, 1913:
Tag: Eugene Victor Debs
Hellraisers Journal: From the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star: Plant Destroyed, Staff Sent to Jail under Military Despotism
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Hellraisers Journal – Saturday May 31, 1913
Huntington, West Virginia -Report on Military Raid of Socialist and Labor Star
From The Socialist and Labor Star of May 30, 1913:
—–
—–
To the ‘Star’ readers who are no doubt wondering why they failed to receive the little truth teller the last few weeks we dedicate this explanation.
There was a reason!
On the morning of Friday May 9th, between the hours of 1 and 2 the printing establishment belonging to the Socialist Printing Co., and in which the mechanical work on the Star had been done for the last few months, was raided by militiamen acting under orders from Governor Hatfield. The raiding party was composed of Major Tom Davis and Lieutenants Rippitoe and Templeton who ruthlessly destroyed job work, type printing material, plates, etc.
The type “forms” of the Star had just been completed and were ready for the regular issue of the paper. Some of the type in the newspaper pages was beaten to a shapeless mass of massed metal. After the types and plates had been beaten and broken, the “forms” were hurled from the composing stones and their contents scattered over the office and street. Portions of the wrecked material were found the next morning two squares from the Star office.
Not satisfied with their destruction of the Star forms, the valiant soldiers proceeded to demolish departments in which the Socialist Printing Co. did commercial job printing. Every job in the department, including forms for several sets of By-Laws for local unions, which had not yet been printed, were smashed and printed matter ready for delivery to local merchants was destroyed.
All of the account books, letters, invoices, files, and copy in the office were confiscated and carried away.
The Socialist Printing Co. incorporated under the laws of W. Va. authorized to do business in this state, has suffered a loss conservatively estimated at $2,000.
[W. H. Thompson, editor of the Star, Elmer Rumbaugh, F. M. Sturm, R. M. Kephart and Geo. W. Gillespie were arrested and transported into the martial law zone of the State. The home of Thompson was then raided ransacked.]
We almost forget to state that these midnight proceedings were ordered because The Labor Star and its owners had dared to disagree with Gov. Hatfield in the matter of the miners strike which he has just settled so satisfactorily-to Tim Scanlon and the Huntington Chamber of Commerce…..
[Emphasis added.]
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Hellraisers Journal: Letter from Mother Jones Published in Iola, Kansas, Newspaper: “If Our Socialist Would Act More and Talk Less We Might Get Some Results.”
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 25, 1913
Letter from Mother Jones Sent Out from West Virginia’s Military Bastile
From the Iola (Kansas) Co-Operator of May 24, 1913:
LETTER FROM MOTHER JONES
———-Pratt, W. Va., May 1, 1913.
Military Bastile.Lee J. Dock,
1502 N. Carson
San Antonio, Texas,Dear Comrade:
Your letter of the 8th reached me in due time but I was unable to answer it before owing to the fact that I was locked up in a military prison and had no chance to do any writing. Now that some of the militia has been taken away I am a little freer but still a prisoner.
I appreciate your letter very highly and wish I would have been able to reply to it earlier but owing to the fact that I was here under the militia and you know when the sewer rats are keeping guard on you day and night it is pretty hard to do as you would like to. We have had a hard fight of it here. It was the first time in history of industrial warfare in America, that we the workers, were pulled up and tried before a Military Court and it was a picture to look at. Those representatives of ancient warfare in the days of the Spanish inquisition never presented anything more brutal looking than that court did to me. It was a disgrace to America and every man in it.
There is not a man in America with any pride but what should blush with shame. Just think, a bunch of those guards dressed up as uniformed murderers, watching an old woman 80 year of age in the early dawn of the 20th century. I wonder what Victor Hugo would say if he were alive, how beautiful he would portray this great civilization. If our Socialists would act more and talk less we might get some results.
I wish you would call and see Dr. Zouck and give him my regards and tell him that I often think of him and that I have not forgotten him and never will, for he is a man, every inch of him, but I have been so rushed for the want of time that I have been unable get time to write him.
I hope some day soon to have the pleasure of seeing you in San Antonio, so good bye and believe me
Yours in the cause of Justice,
MOTHER JONES.
Per M. D.[Photograph, paragraph break and emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks in Pittsburgh, Raps Pennsylvanians, Calls West Virginia Officials “Pack of Anarchists”
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Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 20, 1913
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – Mother Jones Speaks at Lyceum Theater
From The Pittsburg Press of May 19, 1913:
“MOTHER” JONES MAKES ROUSING
ADDRESS HERE
———-
Says West Virginia Officials Form
“Pack of Anarchists.”
Takes Vigorous Rap at Pennsylvanians
———-AGED LABOR LEADER CRITICISES CONGRESS
———-
Arraigning Pennsylvanians as moral cowards for permitting the present state of affairs to exist in the West Virginia mining country; scoring the West Virginia authorities bitterly, and never dropping her high note of enthusiasm for a single instant, “Mother” Jones, the noted woman leader yesterday, in the Lyceum theater talked to a crowded house which applauded almost every sentence. She was presented with a huge bunch of flowers by the Slavonic Associated Press.
The world-renowned labor organizer, who confessed yesterday to being aged 81, made an imposing figure as, white-haired, erect, nervous and virile, she completely possessed the stage during her speech, and, incidentally her audience as well. Among other things, she said:
[The speaker declared:]
If one were to go to the West Virginia strike region and see the indescribable conditions I have seen there, he would say that America is darker than even Russia was; darker than even barbarous Mexico was. The harrowing stories I could tell as I have seen them there would paralyze the heart of the Nation-if it had a heart. But we’re so hypnotized by our ruling class.
THREATS BROUGHT DEFIANCE.
When I went to Cabin Creek last May they told me that if I went up there at an organizer I would come back on a stretcher, but I defied them.
[She almost screamed:]
You people in Pennsylvania are moral cowards. The nation never gave you so great an opportunity to show yourselves as when it gave you the story of the drum-head court by military despots such as we were brought before. And you sat idly by and did nothing! If you can get a bigger pack of anarchists than the public officials of West Virginia I want to find them!
“Mother” Jones spent her eighty-first birthday in jail. She had the locals of the miners’ union elect delegates to lay their grievances before the governor, W. E. Glasscock, of West Virginia and went with these delegates to Charleston. It was then, she says, that the governor became alarmed, fearing from her reputation as an agitator that she meant trouble. A warrant was issued for her arrest and she spent some time under guard, some of the delegates being imprisoned also.
Harold W. Houston, secretary of the Socialist party of West Virginia, closed the meeting by referring to conditions in the strike zone of his state. He urged co-operation on the part of the party here to aid in righting the wrongs which he claims have been done organized labor in the “Mountain State.”
Mother Jones made a great appeal for the protection of the home and didn’t neglect to inject a smart rap at congress occupying “a whole session talking about the navy and how much money to spend on it, but not a dollar to protect the childhood of the nation.”
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
Excerpt from The New York Times of May 19, 1913:
We’re going to organize the state of West Virginia if every one of us dies in the battle…I’m going back to West Virginia. If I can’t go on a train, I’ll walk in…[Before going into the trouble zone] one of the boys told me: “If you go up there, Mother, you’ll come back on a stretcher, no organizer can speak there!” I spoke there. I didn’t come out on a stretcher. I raised hell.
…I organized the women because the women can lick a non-union man better than you fellows here can…
Labor must stand together. You trades unions must stop wrangling with the I.W.W., and the I.W.W. must stop wrangling with the trades unions I know industrial unionism is coming, and you can’t stop it.
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “A Stirring Letter from Mother Jones”-Pratt W. Va., Military Bastile
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 11, 1913
From Pratt, West Virginia, Military Bastile: “Stirring Letter from Mother Jones”
From the Appeal to Reason of May 10, 1913:
———-
A Stirring Letter from Mother Jones
(The following letter to Appeal readers from Mother Jones was sent to Mrs. Ryan Walker who is now in New York City, and by her forwarded to us. Had the letter been addressed to the Appeal to Reason it would never have reached its destination. This letter proves that prison bars, even death itself, has no terrors for this brave heroine of more than a hundred fiercely fought battles on the industrial field. Mother Jones is your mother, and I appeal to you to help us raise such a mighty protest that the outrages against the working class in barbarous West Virginia will cease. You have helped the Appeal win many a contest with plutocracy. We are now engaged in the biggest fight of all its career-a fight the outcome of which is of vital concern, not only to our imprisoned comrades in West Virginia, but to every man, woman and child in America. Read Mother Jones, letter-read it from the housetops, in the mines, in the shops, read it aloud wherever men congregate to work.)
Pratt, W. Va., Military Bastile, April 25, 1913.-This is a very serious situation we have here and is not grasped by the outside world and God knows when it will be. I have been in here about eleven weeks. There are twelve of we poor devils, eleven men and myself, one of them the editor of the Socialist paper in Charleston, and another one of our speakers, John Brown. His wife and three children are left to perish outside. We hear the cry of these little ones for their father; we hear the groans and sobs of his beautiful wife, but the dear, well-fed people don’t care for that. I don’t care much for myself, because my career is nearly ended, but I think of my brave boys who are incarcerated in Harrison county jail in Clarksburg and not a voice of protest raised in their behalf. They have been brave and true. They are now paying the penalty for having dared to fight for right and justice; but it matters not, this fight will go on, and the workers themselves will have to take hold of the machinery and pick out the skypilots and lawyers and quit feeding them and giving them jobs. I have been fighting this machine for years with scarcely any help. I am still in the fight and the pirates can’t shut me up even if I am in jail watched by the bloodhounds.
Mother Jones.
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: “To The Rescue of Mother Jones! A Clarion Call From Debs”-Declares War
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 5, 1913
Eugene Debs: “To the Rescue of Mother Jones!”-Declares War on Coal Barons
From the Appeal to Reason of May 3, 1913:
Appeal Declares War on Coal Barons:
“To Rescue Mother Jones”
Hellraisers Journal: From the Appeal to Reason: May Day and the Proletarian Heroine, Mother Jones by Eugene Debs
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday April 28, 1913
“May Day and Mother Jones” by Eugene Victor Debs
From the Appeal to Reason of April 26, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: Eugene Debs Speaks in Rochester, N. Y.: “Some Phases of the Labor Movement; or, Socialism and Civilization.”
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 22, 1903
Rochester, New York – Eugene Debs Speaks on Socialism and the Labor Movement
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (New York) of February 9, 1903:
SOME PHASES OF LABOR MOVEMENT
———-ADDRESS OF EUGENE V. DEBS AT FITZHUGH HALL.
———-THE WORKINGMAN’S HOPE
———-
Socialistic Programme Set Forth as
the Need of the People-The Tool of Production
-Reflections on Trusts-Panic Prophesied.
———-
Eugene V. Debs, of Denver, Col., the prominent labor leader and Socialist, spoke at Fitzhugh Hall yesterday afternoon, under the auspices of the Labor Lyceum. His subject was “Some Phases of the Labor Movement; or, Socialism and Civilization.” Mr. Debs was given an enthusiastic reception, and for two hours he had the close attention of the audience. The seats on the floor of the hall were filled and but few were empty in the gallery.
Phillip Jackson presided at the meeting and made a few remarks, after which he introduced Mr. Debs. In his eloquent address, Mr. Debs said, in part:
The labor question broadly stated is the question of all humanity and upon its just solution depend the peace of society and the survival of civilization. The central and controlling fact of civilization is the evolution of industry.
A little over a century and a quarter ago, the American colonists were compelled to declare their political independence. The people were then engaged largely in agricultural pursuits, what they manufactured was produced in simple and primitive ways and they used with their hands the tools with which they did their work. The problem of making a living was a comparatively easy one. Each man could with the product of his own labor satisfy his own wants.
Long ago the too simple tool of those days was touched by the magic want of invention, until its mechanism has now become marvelously complex. In the great modern industrial evolution, the workingman has suffered, and because of his ignorance has allowed the tool of production to pass from his grasp. The cunning that was in the hand of labor has passed into the machine. As competition has become keen, handicraft has been succeeded more and more by the machine work, until skilled labor has become common labor; the struggle for existence became so hard that woman was forced into the labor market and become a factor in industrial conditions.
As the evolution of machinery has continually progressed, it has been found that many of these could be operated by the deft touch of children, until now 3 million of these have been forced into the labor market in competition with men and women. This has resulted from the system that makes profit the all-important consideration and life of little importance. There must be cheap labor in spite of its effects on the lives of human beings.
The state of Alabama once had a law against child labor. The time is coming, however, when competition will force manufacturers to operate their factories where the raw materials are produced. This has already been done by the New England manufacturers. They went to the lawmakers of Alabama and said: “We must have cheap labor if we are to compete in the markets of the world, and in order to do this, we must employ the children in our mills. You have a law against the employment of children in this state. We should like it to come here, but, if this is enforced, it will compel us to go elsewhere.” What was the result? Today there is no law against the employment of children in Alabama.
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Arrested; Holly Grove Captured and All the Men of the Town Taken into Custody by Militia
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Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 17, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones, Editor Boswell, and Organizers Arrested
From The Pittsburgh Post of February 14, 1913:
“MOTHER” JONES ARRESTED;
MINE TOWN CAPTURED
———-
Socialists Charged With Inciting Rioting;
Militia Surrounds Miners’ Village.
———-RIOT CALL AT CAPITOL
———-(SPECIAL TO THE POST.)
CHARLESTON, W. Va., Feb. 13.-The arrest of “Mother” Jones, famous agitator; C. H. Boswell, editor of a Socialist paper in this city; Paul J. Paulson [Paulsen], of the international organization of the United Mine Workers of America; Frank Bartley [Charles Batley], a Socialist leader, and others here today, brought rapid developments in the Paint Creek strike situation.
“Mother” Jones and her associates are charged with conspiracy and as accessories before the fact in the death of Fred Bobbett, bookkeeper of the Paint Creek Colliery Company in Mucklow. “Mother” Jones, in a speech in Boomer last night is alleged to have urged the miners to come to Charleston today and “take” the capital. She was arrested this afternoon on one of a number of warrants issued, and with her associates will be taken before the military commission.
“Mother Jones” is reported as having said:
Buy guns, and buy good ones; have them where you can lay your hands on them at any minute. I will tell you when and where to use them.
Mother Jones, it is reported, held a meeting in Longacre, two miles below Boomer, at 10 o’clock this morning, and urged striking union miners to refuse to heed orders of the union president to return to work.
A rumor that miners were coming here to take the State capitol caused a sensation. When some miners and citizens began to gather a riot call was sent in from the capitol building, and the local police under Chief Albert Guill rushed to the State house. The streets about the building were crowded with people, most of whom, however, were drawn there by the riot call.
CAPTURE WHOLE VILLAGE.
Detachments from the troops stationed in the strike zone this morning surrounded the village of Holly Grove, which has been the hotbed of trouble makers since the strike broke out, and captured 68 men. With the men a large quantity of arms and ammunition was also taken. Every man in the little town, which is composed of tents and huts, was taken into custody. The women and children were not disturbed.
According to the military officials commanding in the strike zone, all the rioting and attacks made on troops and workmen have had their inception in Holly Grove. It was from this rendezvous that the strikers were wont to sally forth in parties and fire on the guards and others, in the Paint Creek valley. At the time the raid and arrests were made the population of Holly Grove was far below normal. Ordinarily there are several hundred strikers in the little town.
The 68 men arrested were taken to Paint Creek Junction and placed under a strong guard. With the 60 men who had been arrested previously and taken to Paint Creek Junction, today’s arrests swell the number in custody of the militia officials at that point to 128 men.
EXPECT TO CONVICT RIOTERS.
The militia admit they may not be able to prove that all the prisoners were implicated in the disorders in the Paint Creek region, but that they will be able to connect many of the suspects with the outrages, they say they have no doubt.
According to the civil authorities, who were in charge in Mucklow during the battle fought at that point last Monday night, the men implicated came from Holly Grove, and after the trouble had quieted down, returned to the little village and hid their arms.
The military authorities have not been able to get a copy of the proclamation issued by the miners in the Smithers Creek district, which declared they would “tear the heart of the sheriff, kill the governor and wipe the militia off the map,” although it is said that copies of these proclamations were posted in many conspicuous places throughout the district. Especially were copies of the notice freely distributed throughout the district where the foreign population is in the majority.
Four additional companies of militia were ordered to the strike district to-night by Governor Glasscock. Two are from Parkersburg, and one each from Morgantown and Sutton. Six companies are now in the field.
SAYS DEATH LIST IS 28.
HUNTINGTON, W. Va., Feb. 13.-That the death list in the Cabin Creek riot will total 26 instead of 16, is the statement of W. O. Robbett [Bobbitt], a mine superintendent, who brought his brother, Bob Robbett [Fred Bobbitt] who was killed in the riot, to this city for burial. Mr. Robbett [Bobbitt] made the positive statement that there were 24 miners and two mine guards, one of whom was his brother, a volunteer, killed.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: The Coming Nation: Carnegie’s Bloody Philanthropic Libraries, “His Pedestal of Fame” by Art Young
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 9, 1913
Carnegie’s Bloody “Pedestal of Fame” by Art Young
From The Coming Nation of February 8, 1913:
