From The Bull Pen
(John W. Brown Writes to His Wife.)
(Published by courtesy of Mrs. John W. Brown.)
Pratt, W. Va., March 9, 1913
My Dear Eva:
The boys are all tucked away in their blankets and not feeling sleepy myself I thought I would drop you a line. I have had but one letter from you since you were up here, in which you stated you had an ill spell due to your long wait in the cold the last time you were up. I sincerely hope you have fully recovered by this time. You must not take any chances that will impair your health at this time, there is too much pending, and too great a responsibility resting upon you. At times I feel grieved and angry with myself for having forced such responsibilities upon you, and my only consolation rests in the fact that you, at least, are cognizant of the motive back of my every act. The big clumsy old world has never yet understood the motives that prompt men to deeds of high resolve. Our Christian (?) civilization is based upon the assumption that we should bear each other’s burdens, yet, at every epoch in human history when a man appears who is big enough and man enough to attempt to lift those burdens from off the backs of those who can no longer bear them, society raises its murderous quietus “Crucify Him,” and thus as Lowell sang:
“Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne;
Yet that scaffold sways the future;
And behind the dim unknown
Standeth God, within the shadow,
Keeping watch above his own.”
With a due allowance of each man’s conception of “God” the sentiment quoted above expresses a great historical truth. As you have undoubtedly seen by the papers, Boswell, Batley, Parsons, “Mother” Jones, Paulson and myself have refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Military Court, and therefore are not putting up any defence. You, perhaps, with others, do not see at this time the wisdom in such tactics, seeing that we are wholly at the mercy of this tribunal, but time will tell and justify the positions we take. If it was only myself personally that was concerned I would, for the sake of gaining my liberty and being free to go to you and the children, go before this court and defend myself. Nor have I the least doubt in my mind that I would come clear. But my dear, there are principles involved in this case infinitely deeper than the fate of any one citizen, if the capitalist class get away with this then constitutional government is dead; liberty is dead; and justice for the working class is a thing of the past. Already have they scuttled the ship of state; they have strangled Justice; they have cut the throat of liberty; they have stolen the jewel of liberty from the crown of manhood and reduced the victims of the burglary to slavery and to prison, and I repeat, if we let them get away with it, then in the future, whenever and wherever the interests of the working class and the capitalist class reaches an acute stage out will come the militia, the courts will be set aside and the leaders railroaded to the military bull pens and thence to the penitentiaries.
Here lies the great danger. This case can not now be settled until it has reached the bar of the Nation’s conscience. In order to do this this sleepy old public must have another victim. We boys have made up our minds to go to the pen, this will give the lawyers a ground to test the case before the Supreme Court and we will trust to our comrades to keep up the agitation. The history of this case must go to the common people. It must be told o’er and o’er again until the deafest ear will hear, and the numbest brain will act.
The American people must see Holly Grove and Hansford as I saw them on February 8, 9, and 10. They must not only see, but they must hear the moaning of the broken hearts and the wailing of the funeral dirge; they must see the hot tears of orphans and widows falling on the glassy eyes and bullet mingled faces of dead husbands and fathers; they must see these tented dwellings in the dead of winter and the poor wretches that occupy them. Aye; they must not only see but they must know the cause.
Pardon me, my dear, if I let my sentiment get away with me, it is one of my failings I know, but there is a good reason. On the 8th, I went into the undertaker’s office at Hansford. I reviewed the body of Estep who was shot the night before by the hired assassins who, under the orders of Sheriff Hill, passed through the village of Holly Grove the night before on the “Bull Moose” and who deliberately shot the town to pieces. The next morning I went into a vacant store. It was litterally full of women and children and little babies. You know my soft spot. Well this got it. One poor little mother was trying to nurse a pair of twins and my mind brought back many of those fancy stunts we used to pull off when you were nursing the twins. But O, my God, what a contrast. I couldn’t stand for it, I ran out, but I couldn’t run away from my conscience and from deep down in the farthermost remote regions of thought there sprang up an unanswerable question. Do what I would I could not get away from the accusation, and ever anon the still small voice would say, “Is this your handiwork?” “Is this what you give back to the sires who bled and died to make you free?” “Is this poor mother, plundered, profaned and disinherited, the Goddess of Liberty, the Mother of the Race, the Queen of the home? Is this poor creature, defiled and degraded man’s moral uplifter and spiritual illuminator? Oh, God! Oh, God!”
Why is it that such men as Markham go to a piece of inanimate canvas for inspiration? Why do they the theologians shout about the hell in the hereafter while the whole forest of humanity is on fire? Here the question raised in Markham’s “Man with the Hoe” is real flesh and blood and the question raised, “Is this the thing the Lord God made and gave, to have dominion over sea and land, to trace the stars and search the heavens for power?
To feel the passions of eternity.
Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And pillared the blue firmament with light?
Down all the stretch of hell to its last gulf
There is no shore more terrible than this;
More tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed
More filled with signs and portents for the soul,
More fraught with menace to the universe!”
You will pardon these interrogatives, and if I have wandered too far away from my big old homely self forgive me for this time. You see it is so long since we had a talk together, and besides, my dear, we are on the brink of a precipice. No nation as yet has ever risen above the status of its womanhood. What woman is to man, man is to himself, and visa versa. This you and I understand but the great mass of the American people do not yet know that when a nation degrades and defiles its womanhood, and her children inherit her degradation and defilement, then, that nation is corrupt. Aside from the legal points and Constitutional rights, to say nothing of the economical right of the coal miner, here is a great moral side to this controversy which embraces the whole, but there, I will conclude for the present, if you are not ill yourself, and can get around to it, I wish you would send me by parcels post a change of underwear. Much as I would like to see you I would rather you would not come up here. I do not relish the thought of you having to wait in that tireless “Bull Pen” before the Military authorities condescend to allow you to see me.
Give my love to the children and kiss them all for me.
Lovingly and sincerely yours,
J. W. BROWN.
[Photograph, paragraph breaks and emphasis added.]
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