Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 25, 1913
Cleve Woodrum, Martyred Union Miner by Cabin Creek Striker
From the Shawnee County Socialist of August 23, 1913:
CLEVE WOODRUM AN HUMBLE MARTYR
TO THE CAUSE OF LABOR.
———-
The Washington Herald July 26, 1913
There are some who would wish us to believe that the West Virginia outrages have ceased since the Senate Committee and the Socialist Party Committee have made their report, but they still go on.
Cleve Woodrum was picking berries for his sick wife, but had with him his rifle, when two hired murderers of the mine owners attacked him. Woodrum killed both of them, and was himself wounded.The other hired assassins, finding the two did not return from their murder, hunted and found one of the guards mortally wounded and the other dead.The wounded guard, Don Slater, they sent to the Hospital where he died, but, [finding] Woodrum, these [gunthugs] tortured the wounded man and then mutilated his body and left it in the bush where it was afterward found by his friends.
This was a cowardly assassination and then a brutal savagery of which only [gunthugs] are capable, and yet no paper but a few labor papers will mention it.
Read this letter from a Cabin Creek striker and remember that the mine owners, whose money hires these [gunthugs] are mostly pious church members, and they pay some of this blood money to the preachers to preach as they the mine owners demand.
This may be Christianity, but it has nothing to do with the gentle and loving Jesus.
Our Comrade, Cleve Woodrum. Eskdale, West Virginia.
Cleve Woodrum, the martyr to the cause of human liberty, born October 12, 1884, killed July 24, 1913, entered the coal mines at the early age of 11, denied an education by the same class that hired the gunman to kill him. The departed comrade leaves a father, mother and eight brothers and sisters, an invalid wife with six little children, the eldest being eight years old and Mrs. Woodrum soon to become a mother. Cleve met his death while just out of hearing from home and was picking berries for his sick wife who had just returned from the hospital after undergoing surgical treatment. A plot between the coal operators and the military thugs to put Slater out of the way as Slater knew too much about the dirty work, murders and sluggings the coal operators had ordered and which had been carried out to the letter and the operators taking the advantage of the jealousy existing between the old line of Baldwins and the military Baldwins and Slater was ambushed by his own crowd.
Comrade Woodrum immortalized this great fight for the cause of justice and the freedom of his class from wage slavery, as much so as the John Brown martyrdom immortalized the scaffold for his opposition to chattel slavery.
I knew the deceased when he was a little trapper boy in the mines years ago. Standing in water cold as ice up to his knees while the young bones were trying to develop and powder smoke so thick you could hardly see. Long weary hours of toil, and food that was kept in a dinner pail closed in tight for several hours which was not nutritious or fit to eat. Even at that Cleve was manly, honest, upright, square, hard working man.
He had been in the Socialist movement about two years when he saw the light, his honest heart just responded to the working class’s philosophy of reason that the worker should receive the full product of his labor just like the rose to a spring shower.
This was his creed, this was his religion. He professed the religion of humanity, the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man and to attain that end he had the highest of motives first taught by a union carpenter and Social Revolutionist by the name of Jesus, put to death by the ruling class for his radical teachings and would not recant one iota.
The union miners of this field should place suitable shaft over his tomb and ae well provide for his widow and little helpless children. Why not? The capitalist class pension their uniformed hired murderers for shooting down their own class and calling them heroes. So it is to the Socialist and union miners to provide for these widows and keep the grave green of working class heroes, as the coal barons forgot Slater as soon as the last breath went out.
A CABIN CREEK STRIKER.
This is the class war. Comrade Woodrum’s tortured and mutilated body is the dumb witness to the class war, and should rouse us slaves to class consciousness.
We should resolve over the mutilated body of this humble and faithful comrade to unite, organize and resolve that this class war shall end in the coming Co-Operative Commonwealth.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 12, 1913
Comrade Thompson Responds to Debs Regarding Socialists’ Report on West Virginia
From the International Socialist Review of August 1913:
A Reply to Debs
[-by W. H. Thompson Editor of Huntington Socialist and Labor Star]
Editor of the Call:
In your issue of June 28 appears an article by Comrade Eugene V. Debs, headed “Debs Denounces Vilifiers of West Virginia Committee Report.” As one of the parties referred to as “vilifiers,” I would like to answer a few of the points made in the article.
The Socialist and Labor Star bitterly condemned the committee’s report; it did not publish it, but it did give an explanation for suppressing it, in the following words: “We have never, and will never, devote any of our space to whitewashing a cheap political tool of the capitalist class, not even when the whitewash is mixed by a committee representing our own party.”
From Comrade Debs’ own words I will endeavor to prove that our condemnation of the report was justified. Our charges against the report were that it was a “weak mass of misstatements and a sickening eulogy of Dictator Hatfield.” The truth of the last clause of the charge is plainly apparent to everyone who has read the report. The truth of the first clause is well known to all who have taken the trouble to inform themselves regarding the trouble in this state.
Comrade Debs says that when the committee arrived in West Virginia more than sixty of our comrades were in jail and two of our papers were suppressed. All true. Now pay particular attention to dates. The committee arrived in West Virginia on May 17. Hatfield was inaugurated governor on March 4, something over two months previous. These comrades had been held in-or put in-jail at Hatfield’s orders, and the papers had been suppressed at his command. Mother Jones, Editor Boswell, National Committeeman Brown, and forty-six other Socialists were placed on trial before a military drumhead court-martial on March 7. On March 9, the Circuit Court of Kanawha County issued a writ forbidding the trial of these prisoners by the militia. The sheriff went into the military zone to serve this writ, only to be met by the Provost Marshal, who, acting under orders from Hatfield, forcibly prevented the serving of the papers, and the drumhead trial proceeded in defiance of the civil courts.
The report of our committee says: “It was under the administration of Glasscock, and not Hatfield, that Mother Jones, C. H. Boswell and John Brown were court-martialed and convicted.”
On April 25, the Charleston Labor Argus was confiscated, suppressed, and those suspected of being connected with it were thrown into jail. On May 9 the Socialist and Labor Star was confiscated, its plant destroyed and five of its owners jailed by order of Governor Hatfield.
Our committee’s report referring to these outrages says: “In this connection it, is but fair to say that the governor and his friends disavow knowledge of these outrages!”
According to Comrade Debs’ article, it did not take him long to discover “that a certain element was hostile to the United Mine Workers.” Apparently, however, he failed to discover that there were numerous elements hostile to Socialism. There was an element hostile to the United Mine Workers’ officials who had just leagued themselves with Hatfield and agreed upon a “settlement” of the strike, which was odious to the strikers and which they have since totally repudiated. Comrade Debs uses this “element” that was hostile to the United Mine Workers as a shield to hide behind when we attack him for whitewashing Hatfield. Then he pours out this vial of wrath upon us:
The whole trouble is that some Chicago I. W. W .-ites, in spirit, at least, are seeking to disrupt and drive out the United Mine Workers to make room for the I. W. W . and its program of sabotage.
Speaking for myself, I will say that I have never seen a real live I. W. W.-ite. If there is or has ever been such an animal in West Virginia I am blissfully unaware of the fact.However, I have heard considerable of this new species from the capitalistic press and I note that the capitalists are very hostile toward it. I consider that a good recommendation for a labor organization and will certainly not speak slightingly of it or condemn it as long as the parasites fear it, but as for the I. W. W. being responsible for the attack on the Mine Workers’ officials, who deliberately attempted to betray the Kanawha strikers, I think Comrade Debs’ fear was father to the thought.
Then Debs dramatically points to Mother Jones and John Brown as evidence that the Mine Workers’ officials are straightforward and honest, or these two class-conscious comrades would not work for them. And I come right back with the assertion that both Mother Jones and Brown have worked, not for these officials whom he so vigorously defends, but for the rank and file of the workers.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday August 11, 1913
Debs Denounces Critics of Socialist Party’s Report on West Virginia Situation
From the International Socialist Review of August 1913:
Debs Denounces Critics
From the N. Y. Call
Terre Haute, Ind., June 27.-The National Committee of the Socialist party in its regular session in May appointed a committee of three to investigate conditions in West Virginia. That committee, of which the writer was a member, was instructed to work in harmony with the United Mine Workers.
Having completed its investigation the committee has submitted its report, and it is in reference to this report, which has been widely published, that I now have something to say in answer to those who have assailed it.
First of all I want to say that I shall make no defense of the report. It does not need defense. It will answer for itself. But I do want to show the true animus of its critics and assailants, which they have been careful not to reveal in what they have written against it.
Two or three Socialist papers have bitterly condemned the report.Not one of them published it. Each of them suppressed it. They evidently did not want their readers to see it. It was sufficient for them to condemn it.
These Socialist papers have in this instance adopted the method of the capitalist papers with which I have had so much experience. A thousand times a speech of mine has been denounced by a capitalist paper while not a line of the speech was permitted to appear. That is precisely what these Socialist papers have done with our report, and if this is fair to themselves and their readers, I am willing to let it pass.
When our committee was appointed, more than sixty of our comrades were in the bullpen, martial law was in full force, two Socialist papers had been suppressed and there was a terrible state of affairs generally. Within four days after our committee arrived upon the ground every prisoner was released, martial law was practically declared off, the suppressed papers were given to understand that they could resume at their pleasure, and the governor of the state gave his unqualified assurance that free speech, free assemblage and the right to organize should prevail and that every other constitutional right should be respected so far as lay in his power.
[Here Debs neglects to say that when the two papers were “suppressed” equipment was destroyed, for which the papers were never compensated.]
It may be that our committee had nothing to do with bringing about these changes. As to this I have nothing to say. I simply state the facts.
Soon after our arrival it became evident that a certain element was hostile to the United Mine Workers and determined to thwart the efforts of that organization to organize the miners. This is the real source of opposition to our action and to our report.
Let me say frankly here that I do not hide behind the instruction of the National Committee that we work in harmony with the United Mine Workers. I would have done this under existing circumstances without instruction.
In our report to the party, we made a true transcript of the facts as we found them. We told the truth as we saw it.
And yet we have been charged by the element in question with having whitewashed Governor Hatfield and betrayed the party.
The truth is that we opposed Governor Hatfield where he was wrong and upheld him where he was right. But Hatfield is not the reason, but only the excuse in this instance. The intense prejudice prevailing against him has been taken advantage of to discredit our report as a means of striking a blow at the United Mine Workers.
[Here Debs ignores the hardships of Hatfield’s bullpen, where his comrades were held for several months, and the court martial they faced with possible death sentences hanging over their heads. All of which may have been a source of the “prejudice prevailing against him.”]
Had we, instead of doing plain justice to Governor Hatfield, as to everyone else, painted him black as a fiend, our report would have provoked the same bitter attack from the same source unless we had denounced the officials of the United Mine Workers, without exception, as crooks and grafters and in conspiracy to keep the miners in slavish subjection.
That would have satisfied those who are now so violently assailing us. Nothing less would.
For this reason and no other we are being vilified by sabotagers and anti-political actionists, and by those who are for just enough political action to mask their anarchism.
I am an industrial unionist, but not an industrial bummereyite, and those who are among the miners of West Virginia magnifying every petty complaint against the United Mine Workers and arousing suspicion against every one connected with it, are the real enemies of industrial unionism and of the working class.
[“Bummereyite” is an insult directed against the I. W. W., who are, at this time, facing prosecutions and long prison sentences in Ipswich, Paterson, and Little Falls, not to mention fellow workers who have lost their lives in those struggles.]
I am quite well aware that there are weak and crooked officials in the United Mine Workers, but to charge that they are all traitors without exception is outrageously false and slanderous.
The whole trouble is that some Chicago I. W. W.-ites, in spirit at least, are seeking to disrupt and drive out the United Mine Workers to make room for the I. W. W. and its program of sabotage and “strike at the ballot box with an ax.”
[This charge is simply not true. The I. W W. is engaged in its own struggles at this time and in no way attempted to destroy the U. M. W. A., only offering support to those oppressed under the rule of Hatfield’s pro-operator military dictatorship. Rather than listen to local leaders, on the ground in West Virginia, Debs makes a boogeyman of I. W. W., much like the capitalist press.]
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday August 10, 1913
W. H. Thompson Opines on Strike Settlements in West Virginia
From the International Socialist Review of August 1913:
Strike “Settlements” in West Virginia
By W. H. Thompson
[Editor of Huntington Socialist and Labor Star]
IN an article in the July REVIEW I detailed at some length the manner in which the odious Hatfield-Haggerty “settlement” of the Kanawha strike was ”put over” on the workers by the coercion of Hatfield and the trickery of the United Mine Workers’ officials. I have received numerous letters from persons prominent in the Socialist party and in the mine workers organization severely criticizing my statements and intimating in very forceful language that I knew not of what I wrote. In justice to these writers I will say that in every instance they were citizens of other states, and, with few exceptions, have never been in West Virginia.
As proof of the accuracy of my statements made in that article I wish to chronicle the happenings in the affected zone since it was written.
The coal miners of Paint Creek and Cabin Creek have unanimously repudiated the agreement entered into for them by Hatfield-Haggerty & Co., and are again on strike. Furthermore, they have compelled Haggerty and the other compromising officials of the U. M. W. of A. to retreat from their former position as absolute dictators, and to grant to their strike a tardy official recognition.
These leaders were placed in a rather peculiar position in thus being compelled to endorse a strike against the agreement they themselves had forced upon the miners, and to “save their face” they loudly proclaimed that the coal barons had violated the provisions of the holy Hatfield Proposition and thus justified the strike.
This brought forth a hot reply from the coal operators’ association, which proved another assertion of mine, to the effect that there was nothing in the Hatfield proposition demanding any changes in their attitude toward the miners. They said in part:
“There was never any promise or agreement on our part to take back strikers or to surrender our rights of hiring or discharging men as we saw fit. We entered into no agreement with the United Mine Workers. We promised the Governor that we would do certain things toward ending the violence on Paint and Cabin Creeks. We have kept this promise in the strictest good faith and there is no foundation for any statement to the contrary.”
In regard to this Dean Haggerty made a public statement in which he said:
“Owing to my absence from the city on important business I have as yet been unable to prepare a detailed reply to the statement of the operators’ association. But I shall do so shortly and show that the Governor’s proposition has been grossly violated.”
The Dean made this promise of a “detailed statement” on June 22, but as yet he has failed to make the statement or show wherein the operators had grossly violated the Hatfield proposition. No one knows better than Haggerty that there was nothing in the proposition that the operators would have any call to violate.
In the meantime the strike in the Paint and Cabin Creek district grows in intensity, and conditions are rapidly approaching the guerilla warfare stage. The criminal mine guards are again in evidence and are using the same old tactics to stir up violence. Already one battle has taken place. This called forth from Governor Hatfield a long open letter to Sheriff Bonner Hill, he, of “armored train” fame, in which he declared that if the civil authorities could not preserve peace in the strike zone they should resign. He also intimated that he might summarily remove such officials as were lax in their duties. When it is remembered that Hatfield tried to “preserve peace” up there with the entire state army and failed, and that he has not as yet resigned his office, his advice appears a little premature, to say the least.
The New River “Settlement”
It would seem to the casual observer that Haggerty & Co. would have learned a few things from their failure to “put over” the now infamous Kanawha Settlement, but, alas, they belong to that specie of old line craft union leaders who never learn and never change. At the very time the Kanawha miners were repudiating the agreement entered into for them by these gentlemen, Haggerty, Hatfield and the New River operators were concocting another settlement prescription to be used upon the restless and dissatisfied New River miners.
This proposition, which was agreed upon by the gentlemen who drew it up, was meant for no other purpose than to chloroform the growing spirit of unrest among the miners in this field and to keep them producing coal to fill the contracts of the Kanawha operators whose mines are closed by the strike there.
The New River agreement is a replica of the infamous Hatfield proposition to settle the Kanawha strike. The workers realize absolutely nothing from its acceptance. And to effectually prevent the miners from ever gaining any concessions under it the following clause is appended:
“Sixth-All matters of dispute, with reference to the above proposition, as between the individual operator and miners in each mine in the New River and Virginia districts, to be referred to a commission of four, two of whom are to be selected by the operators and two by the miners neither of whom are to be interested in mines or mining, either directly or indirectly, and that where a controversy arises, both operator and miner may appear before the said board, and the board, after hearing the evidence from both sides, shall render a decision, and any decision signed by any three of said board shall be final and binding on both operators and miners. Should said board be unable to reach a majority decision, then they shall take the matter to the governor of the state, who shall act as umpire and whose decision shall be final and binding on both operators and miners, and there shall be no appeal therefrom.”
See any chance for the real interested parties, the coal miners, having any say in matters of dispute?
Bear in mind, please, that this agreement, contract, settlement or whatever it is, was never submitted to the miners for their acceptance or rejection. It was accepted for them by the wise Christian leaders whom God and the United Mine Workers of America sent here to act for them. And their interests are further protected Umpire Hatfield from whose decision no appeal can be taken.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday July 8, 1913 Socialist Editor Fred Merrick on the Betrayal of the West Virginia Miners, Part II
From the International Socialist Review of July 1913:
[Part II of II]
The National officials of the union called a convention April 22, 1913, at Charleston, of delegates from Paint and Cabin Creeks and Coal River strike zones. When this convention was convened it was found that more than 90 per cent of the delegates and two officials of the union were bitterly opposed to the governor’s proposition, which was simply the bare ultimatum of the operators. These delegates for days arose and rehearsed the year of bitter suffering as conclusive argument why they should not go, back on such a basis of compromise.
Day after day the officials argued and coaxed and threatened. The “pay-roll” worked the streets and hotel lobbies at night like ward heeling politicians, recalcitrant delegates were doped in saloons and every dirty trick known to labor union politics was attempted. On Wednesday evening Harold W. Houston, at that time Secretary of the Socia]ist party of West Virginia and attorney for the U. M. W. of A. made a radical Socialist speech which was applauded vigorously by the miners. He won their confidence.
But Friday, April 25th, rolled around and the “God damn red necks couldn’t be controlled,” a prominent official put it. The miners wouldn’t accept the compromise. Hatfield became impatient over the inability of Haggerty, Vasey & Company to deliver the goods, and he issued his ultimatum of April 25. With this as a club the officials tried to scare the “red necks,” but men who had fought Baldwin guards and faced machine guns and dum-dum bullets weren’t much afraid of the threats of a Hatfield.
So the last trick was pulled from the stacked cards of craft union politics. Harold Houston was approached. He was made to believe that it was the best thing for the miners to go back. He was then told that he was the only one the miners had confidence enough in to listen to and that if he would advocate their acceptance of the proposition the delegates would accede. Houston weakened and agreed that on condition that a communication be sent the governor interpreting “discrimination” to mean that no striker should be refused employment he would advise acceptance.This was done and the miners reluctantly followed the advice of their trusted lawyer “leader” and adjourned April 26th with the distinct understanding that the national officials would stand by them against any discrimination-that “all or none must return to work.”
But the operators saw that the miners had begun to weaken and they gave Hatfield to distinctly understand that the “agitators” would not be taken back. And despite the months of persecution and the imprisonment of many Socialists, there were scores more on the creeks. Hatfield, true to his capitalist interests, immediately issued his now famous 24-hour ultimatum of April 27ththreatening deportation to all miners and sympathizers unless every miner in the strike zone was at work Monday morning, April 28th, and in this, distinctly said regarding the re-employment of all the strikers, “It would be presumptuous for me to tell employers whom they should employ.” Everyone understood immediately that the “agitators” would not get back. Hundreds refused to apply for work as being a violation of the action of the convention of April 22nd, and the solemn pledges of the national officials that they would stand by the men and support them in a continuance of the strike if they did not all get back.
Despite the governor’s outrageous and unconstitutional conduct which was in addition a violation of his own flowery promises, Joe Vasey, who had been conveniently left in charge of the situation by Haggerty, issued a statement to the press which was published Monday morning as follows: “At 9:30 p. m. Governor Hatfield called up the President at Clarksburg.” Yet with the villain responsible for these outrages present, Vice President Hayes, whose “Socialism” has been used as a bait for the radical miners for years, introduced Hatfield to the miners in a disgustingly laudatory fashion and the governor then proceeded to make a speech characteristic of the finished politician, in which he said he was the laboring man’s governor and that “By God the interests don’t control me.”
Following this was the advent of the Socialist National Investigating Committee. This committee’s report should be reviewed at length, but that is impossible here. Harsh terms must be used in dealing with it, but ample proof can be adduced for every charge including personal witnesses if necessary.
The writer charges that when Debs says that the conduct of the committee was received with rejoicing and enthusiasm he either ignorantly or intentionally misrepresents the facts as scores of witnesses can be produced to prove the contrary.
The writer further brands as absolute falsehood the statement that the court martialing of “Mother” Jones, Brown, Boswell, Parsons and others occurred under Glasscock. Hatfield was inaugurated on March 4th. The Governor had full control of martial law and under Hatfield’s administration the drumhead court martial sat on March 7th and placed on trial 51 persons. The sessions of this court continued until March 12th. More than this, it can be proven that the committee’s attention was called to this error before they left Charleston and yet they deliberately returned to Chicago and sent broadcast to the country a statement they had been informed was unqualifiedly false. Witnesses can be produced to prove this also.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 7, 1913
Socialist Editor Fred Merrick on the Betrayal of the West Virginia Miners, Part I
From the International Socialist Review of July 1913:
[Part I of II]
IT WILL be hopelessly impossible within the narrow confines of this brief article to give the reader more than a skeleton of the real “inside” story of the great strike raging in West Virginia, which the greed of coal operators, subserviency of political officials, especially the courts and sheriffs, brutality of heartless degenerates known as “Baldwins” or “mine guards,” drum-head court martial of the militia, duplicity of their own attorneys, misrepresentation by newspapers, treachery of many officials of their own union and the crowning act of all, the betrayal or misrepresentation of their cause to the Socialists of America by a committee elected by the National Committee to investigate conditions in West Virginia-all have utterly failed to break.
To all the horrors which a strike of a year’s duration in tents on the bleak winter mountains of “Little Switzerland” means, was added the base conduct of those labor and so-called “Socialist” parasites who today make their living as advisors of the toilers without themselves undergoing the privations incident to toil and revolution. Volumes could and undoubtedly will yet be written on this phase of the West Virginia struggle which is far more vital than the spectacular battles which have been described again and again.
It is not unfair to say that the facts merely suggested here will never find publicity through the orthodox labor or Socialist press, but if the reader has his class conscious curiosity sufficiently aroused by this brief resume to thoroughly investigate the sordid tale of the betrayal of the West Virginia “red necks” as many of the officials and organizers of the U. M. W. of A. contemptuously refer to the West Virginia miners, the purpose of this story will have been accomplished. Before passing judgment on the harshness of some of the terms used in this article examine each statement of fact carefully and see if such conduct should not be described in terms calculated to arouse the militant toilers of America, whether the object be our formerly “beloved ‘Gene,” who seems to have fallen by the wayside, or our genial friend from Milwaukee.
The West Virginia strike may roughly be divided into three distinct stages:
1. The unorganized strike stage when the miners aided by the local Socialists made their valiant fight at a time when the officials of the U. M. W. of A. did absolutely nothing to help. Towards the latter part of this period “Mother” Jones appeared and helped her “boys” to “fight like hell.” The method of breaking the strike employed during this time was confined entirely to the physical brutality of Baldwin mine guards and the less efficient National guard or militia. The miners were able to handle this sort of “suppression” with some first-class “direct action.” During this period the miners scored a decisive victory.
[Correction: The orphan child of Cesco Estep was a son, not a daughter. ]
2. Immediately following election in November different tactics were employed. Certain treacherous officials of the union deliberately asked for martial law. Following this they attempted to compromise the strike which the militia was unable to break alone. The climax of this period dominated by the officials of the U. M. W. of A; came with Hatfield’s notorious deportation ultimatum of April 27th, which was endorsed and supported enthusiastically by the officials of the U. M. W. of A. from President White down through Frank Hayes, Thomas Haggerty and Joe Vasey. However, the tactics employed of attempting to break the strike with the machine of the U. M. W. of A. failed miserably and another trick was employed.
3. This period is marked by the advent of the Socialist National Investigating Committee which endorsed the conduct of Governor Hatfield for the most part thereby giving a clean bill of health to the officials of the U. M. W. of A. who had accepted Hatfield’s “settlement,” thereby becoming the agents through whom the operators hoped to accomplish a “settlement” which police brutality, the diplomacy of Hatfield and the treachery of U. M. W. of A. officials had failed to accomplish.Due to the splendid common sense education on Socialism the miners had received for two years through the columns of the Charleston Labor Argus, edited by fearless Charles H. Boswell, the miners and local Socialists received the committee not as heroes, but as ordinary human beings. They refused to accept the “settlement” because its sponsor had been whitewashed by the committee, just as before.
The first periodhas been adequately dealt with by the capitalist magazines where it received more attention than was ever given it by the Socialist press, who seemed afraid of it for some reason.
The second period is marked by successive steps of compromise which are a disgrace even to the black record of the U. M. W. of A., who have so often betrayed the West Virginia miners that it has become an old story. Let us get a birds-eye view of how the machine of this organization pulled the sting out of the demands of the miners so gradually that the miners themselves did not realize that it was being done.
1. In the early Spring of 1912, a convention of miners was called at Charleston, here it was understood the demands of the miners would be the same as elsewhere in the United States and were to include an EIGHT-HOUR DAY. As West Virginia coal is mined cheaper per ton than any other coal there is less reason for working more than eight hours than there is in other states.
2. Another convention of miners was held in Charleston in April, 1912. In the interim the Cleveland scale had been adopted and at this convention the local officials, with the acquiescence of the national organization, persuaded the miners to modify their demands to ONE-HALF the Cleveland scale and, from an EIGHTHOUR to a NINE-HOUR DAY.Following the strike, the miners kept up such a hot fight that the union officials were apparently afraid to attempt any more compromises until following the court martialing of “Mother” Jones, Brown, Boswell and other Socialists.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 6, 1913
West Virginia Coal Miners’ Victory Turned into “Settlement”-Part III
From the International Socialist Review of July 1913:
How a Victory Was Turned Into
a ”Settlement” in West Virginia
-by W. H.Thompson, Editor Huntington Socialist and Labor Star
[Part III of III]
The miners have been forced to return to work under the old hellish condition of virtual peonage; the precedent of military drum-head trials and convictions of agitators has been firmly established, in fact the right of Mammon to rule, to rob, to crush and kill has been more firmly enthroned than ever before, and more securely guarded.
As a fitting reward for faithful service in helping to bring about the pleasing “settlement,” today’s papers carry the cheering intelligence that the U. M. W. of A., including its principal officials, has been indicted in the Federal court here, charged with being a conspiracy in restraint of trade and a buster of the sacred Sherman Anti-Trust law.
All those working class comrades who see clearly the situation in this state are pessimistic in their utterances. Personally, I know of but one thing that could possibly turn the miners’ defeat into victory and that is to initiate these mountaineers into the mysteries of Twentieth century fighting tactics, including a thorough working knowledge of that powerful weapon-industrial unionism-One Big Union, in which the rank and file decide all questions for themselves.
Note.-Last reports say that Thomas Haggerty, U. M. W. of A. official, is suing Comrade Boswell for exposures of his methods in handling the strike, alleged libel. Comrade Boswell is back on the Labor Argus to stay, and to tell the truth no matter who gets hit.
—————
The latest telegraph dispatches state that the miners in the Paint and Cabin Creek districts have repudiated the settlement and are demanding their officials to call a general strike.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 5, 1913
West Virginia Coal Miners’ Victory Turned into “Settlement”-Part II
From the International Socialist Review of July 1913:
How a Victory Was Turned Into
a ”Settlement” in West Virginia
-by W. H.Thompson, Editor Huntington Socialist and Labor Star
[Part II of III]
Realizing that laudatory speech-making and persuasion were not going to induce these hard-headed delegates to sell the blessing of victory for a mess of burned pottage, they were compelled to resort to downright trickery and deceit.
A committee was appointed from among the delegates to draw up a counter-proposition, setting forth the terms upon which they would be willing to return to work, this to be submitted to the governor in answer to his proposal. The committee drew up the proposition which was presented to and endorsed by the convention. It was then turned over to the officials with instructions that they present it to His Highness.
The following day the convention was given to understand that Hatfield had accepted their proposal as an amendment to his proposition. The two documents were then read and a vote was taken upon what the delegates afterwards, and now, claim they believed was the acceptance of their own proposal. However, the two propositions had been juggled in such a manner, by those who are adepts in such arts, that the miners-necessarily untrained in the gentle ways of parliamentary legerdemain, had in reality voted for and accepted the original odious Hatfield offer, their own proposition having been promptly turned down by that gentleman with the remark that he “could not force the mine owners to comply with it.”
These things were not made public, of course, until after the convention had adjourned. You can imagine the surprise and chagrin of the miners upon being informed by the daily papers that they had tamely submitted to the dictator’s demands after he had spurned their own offer of a basis of settlement.
This information was followed by orders from headquarters at Charleston to the effect that the miners return to work at once. This they refused to do. Then the officials, escorted by detachments of the governor’s hated yellow-legs, visited the tented villages in the mountains and bluntly informed the rebellious strikers that their relief would be cut off at once and the tents burned over their heads if they did not submit to the settlement and return to work.
Under these circumstances there was nothing to do but obey and the strikers began to apply for work at the mines. All those known to have been most active during the strike were refused employment. These to the number of 400 are still idle, for the good and simple reason that they are very effectively black-listed at every coal mine in the valley. All others are working under the same, or worse conditions than existed before the strike began.
Of course it was thoroughly realized by the powers that be that there was one remaining obstruction in the way of a complete establishment of their neatly planned “settlement.” That was the Socialist press.
Editor C. H. Boswell, of the Charleston Labor Argus, had been approached some months before and it was insinuated that a “settlement” might be arranged. He promptly and forcefully informed the “approachers” that The Argus was fighting for victory for the rank and file and that if any crooked work was attempted something would drop. Boswell was arrested a few days later and safely planted in the bull pen. The Argus, however, had continued, and the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star had also begun to show an inquisitive interest in the happenings affecting the strikers. These two agencies must be silenced, temporarily at least; decided the three-armed combination most interested in the success of the settlement. No sooner said than done. Martial law was in effect in the coal field, so the commander-in-chief simply dispatched a detail of yellow-legs to Charleston to confiscate The Labor Argus and “jug” Fred Merrick, who was suspected of being editor pro tem. The same gentle methods of suppression were used on the Huntington Star.
With all those who would doubtless make an effective protest against the deal being put over on the fighting miners by the unholy trinity, safely “jugged,” the settlement proceeded apace. The coal operators, the prostituted press and the U. M. W. of A. officials all joined in singing hosannas of praise for the highly satisfactory manner in which His Highness, Hatfield, had settled the strike.
But the last act of despotism on the part of the trinity, the confiscation of the Socialist papers, brought on unexpected complications. The Socialist and labor papers, and hundreds of the capitalist papers throughout the country severely condemned this blundering attack upon the rights of a free press. The National Socialist organization was at last shocked into action and decided to send a committee into West Virginia to find out if we really were having a fight down here. The committee arrived, established headquarters at the most expensive hotel in the capitol city and immediately went into conference with the leaders of the U. M. W. of A.
From conferences with this branch of the triumvirate the committee naturally drifted into conferences with the other branches, Hatfield, the local politicians and the coal barons.
After a week devoted exclusively to these secretive but doubtless instructing conferences, and before they had visited the mining camps or talked with the local Socialists, members of the committee began talking-to the capitalist papers.
The sayings attributed to them had a familiar sound. They were practically the same sentences that the U. M. W. of A. officials had used, and that the newspapers themselves had used, and that Hatfield himself had used, to justify existing conditions and official anarchy.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 4, 1913 West Virginia Coal Miners’ Victory Turned into “Settlement”-Part I
From the International Socialist Review of July 1913:
[Part I of III]
To those who have been actively engaged in the epochal struggle of the coal miners in this state the present status of affairs is anything but optimistic.
The miners after having put up a fight that won the admiration of the entire working class the country over, have lost their strike and are being driven sullenly back to the Coal Trust’s subterrean hells to produce coal for their brutal masters under the same conditions which have prevailed in the West Virginia coal fields for years, and against which these miners revolted over a year ago.
It is not my intention to give a recapitulation of the stirring events of the Paint Creek strike, but rather a hurried sketch of the manner in which a well earned victory was turned into an empty and meaningless settlement, by a combination of forces against which the miners found themselves helpless.
The coal diggers of the Kanawha valley have proven themselves to be as brave and loyal a set of men as ever established a picket line. They have stoically and uncomplainingly borne the barbaric and inhuman treatment to which they were subjected by the Coal Trust and its political creature-the state government. They had by the sheer force of solidarity, and in spite of the weakness of the antiquated tactics taught them by the officials of the United Mine Workers of America, brought the coal barons to their knees. The state government, too, had exhausted its ingenuity and failed to break the strike. There remained but one hope for the masters of the mines. That was to enlist in their behalf the United Mine Workers of America.
When in the course of these remarks I use the expression ”U. M. W. of A.,” it is meant to apply, not to the men who actually dig coal, but rather to the official oligarchy known as the National Executive Board, members of which were handling the strike in this state.
Overtures were evidently made to these representatives by Governor H. D. Hatfield, acting for the coal autocracy. An agreement was reached, and the three organizations, viz: the Coal Trust, the State government and the U. M. W. of A., acting co-operatively, played the last card which won for the mine owners that which they would have never gained unaided by their last ally.
Everything being “understood” and agreed upon, Hatfield made public what he termed a “proposal for the settlement of the Kanawha strike.”
The proposalmade no mention of the three cardinal demands of the miners the elimination of the hated guard system, the right to belong to a union and the payment of the “Kanawha Scale” of wages. In fact it offered absolutely nothing in the way of concessions from the operators-merely insisting-when sheared of its luxuriant verbosity-that the miners return to work under the same conditions that existed before they struck-if the mine owners would let them.
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