Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 18, 1904
Cripple Creek, Colorado – District Court Dismisses Case Against John M. Glover
From the Moberly Evening Democrat of February 11, 1904 Colorado Militia’s Case Against Rep. John M. Glover Dismissed:
SECOND CASE DISMISSED.
The case against John M. Glover, formerly Congressman from Missouri, for having shot at Sergeant Smith, was dismissed at Cripple Creek, Colorado, yesterday in the District Court on the ground that the accused could not be tried twice for the same offense. Glover had already been found guilty of an assault upon Sergeant Dittmore.
Before sentence in the latter case is passed Mr. Glover will appeal to the Supreme Court.
The cases of General Sherman M. Bell and General Chase, charged with unlawfully imprisoning citizens in the bull pen while martial law was in effect, were then taken up.
[Newsclip from Salt Lake Tribune of Jan. 16, 1904, added.]
[Emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 17, 1904 Trinidad, Colorado – Fairly and Mooney Recovering from Violent Attack
From The Rocky Mountain News of February 15, 1904:
From The Arizona Republican of February 15, 1904:
MINE WORKERS ATTACKED ———- A Violent Strike Episode Near Trinidad, Colorado. ———-
Trinidad, Colo., Feb. 14.-William Fairley and James Mooney, members of the national board of the United Mine Workers, from Alabama and Mississippi, respectively, were waylaid this afternoon on the road between Majestic and Bowen, dragged from their buggy and beaten by eight men with stones and six shooters and left lying in the road.
They were able later to get in the buggy and drive to Bowen. They were then brought to Trinidad. Mooney is in serious condition and had to be taken to a hospital. Fairly is able to go to his hotel. No arrests have yet been made. This is the first time since the coal strike was inaugurated that any officials of the United Mine Workers have been assaulted. It is reported that the men who attacked the miners officials are coal company guards. We have learned from the United Mine Workers’ Headquarters in Indianapolis that Mother Jones was in a wagon which was following the vehicle carrying Fairley and Mooney, but she was not harmed. Mother was recently released from the hospital in Trinidad, after surviving a serious siege of pneumonia.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 10, 1904 Coal Creek, Tennessee – Company Gunthugs Murder Four Men
From the Coffeyville Daily Journal of February 9, 1904:
A STRIKE TRAGEDY. ———- Four Men Killed and Three Wounded in Tennessee.
The New York Times February 8, 1904
Knoxville, Tenn., Feb. 9.-A bloody tragedy was enacted [Sunday, Feb. 7th] in the little mining town of Coal Creek, Tenn., forty miles northwest of Knoxville, as the result of which four lives were snuffed out and three persons wounded, one perhaps fatally. The clash was the culmination of the trouble between union and non-union labor. Three of the dead men were killed by guards employed by the Coal Creek Coal company, while the fourth victim, a deputy sheriff, was killed by a guard he had gone to arrest. The dead:
MONROE BLACK, miner, aged 24 years; married; leaves wife. W. W. TAYLOR, miner, aged 31; leaves wife and four children. JACOB SHARP, section hand; a bystander, aged 35; leaves wife and six children. DEPUTY SHERIFF ROBERT S. HARMON, killed by Cal Burton, a guard at the Briceville mine.
The wounded are:
A. R. Watts, merchant of Coal Creek, an innocent by stander, shot through both cheeks. Mote Cox, miner, shot through the left arm. Jeff Hoskins, engineer on the Southern railway; slightly wounded.
When the wage scale was signed in district 19, United Mine Workers of America, the Coal Creek company refused to comply with the demands of the men. They refused to resume work in the Fraterville and Thistle mines, and for several months these two mines were shut down. Efforts were made to resume with non-union men, but these were either induced to join the union or were chased away, presumably by union men. The aid of the courts was invoked to oust families of union miners from the houses owned by the company. Scores of arrests were made for trespassing, and ill feeling was thus engendered. Recently a dozen guards, in charge of Jud Reeder, who served as lieutenant of police in this city for many years, were employed to guard the mines and protect the men who had been induced to go to work.
Non-union men were being brought to the mines every few days and Reeder and his guards would go to the railroad station and meet them. Today the crowd of idlers around the station was increased. Reeder and twelve guards came from the mines to meet a few non-union men who were to arrive on the morning train. When the non-union men got off the train, they were seen by a number of small boys, who began yelling, “Scab.” The killing grew out of this taunt. It is hard to tell what the provocation was, but the miners must have crowded up and attempted to take away the non-union men bodily or offered some direct insult to the guards.
Reeder and another guard drew their pistols and began shooting, Reeder doing the most of it. Miners and bystanders were taken by surprise and before they could realize what had happened the guards had climbed into their wagons and driven back to the mines.
About 12 o’clock a dispute arose between Deputy Sheriff Bob Harmon and Guard Cal Burton [whom Harmon was attempting to arrest]. Burton shot Harmon twice, killing him instantly.
[Newsclip and emphasis added.]
It is interesting that the reporter’s account supplies the company guards with an excuse for opening up gunfire on unarmed protesters. Seems the reporter could not believe that company gunthugs would murder striking miners and bystanders for no other reason than that some small boys hollered “Scab.”
Note: Willful neglect of safety standards by the Coal Creek Coal Company led to deaths of 184 men and boys in the Fraterville Mine Explosion on May 19, 1902.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 9, 1904 Trinidad, Colorado – Mrs. Bertha Howell Reports from Colorado Strike Zone
From the American Labor Journal of January 28, 1904:
From the Appeal to Reason of January 30, 1904 -Mrs. Mailly’s Article Was Also Published in the Appeal Along with the Following Drawing by Lockwood and with the Following Introduction:
THE COAL MINERS’ STRIKE IN SOUTHERN COLORADO ———-
(Not much news of the strike of several thousand coal miners in Southern Colorado has reached the outside world. Mrs. Bertha Howell Mailly, wife of the National Secretary of the Socialist Party, went to that district from Omaha last week to be with Mother Jones, who was dangerously ill in Trinidad, but who is now happily recovering. While in the strike district, Mrs. Mailly will write a special series of articles for the Socialist press, the following being the first.)
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 7, 1904 Hastings, Colorado – Mother Jones Exposes Rockefeller’s “Sunday School Methods”
From the Duluth Labor World of February 6, 1904:
MOTHER JONES Says Rockefeller Oppresses the Coal Miners.
Hastings, Colo., Feb. 5.-[Mother Jones, the miners’ friend, who is now going up and down among the striking miners in Colorado, says:]
Rockefeller’s mining company cleared $39,000 [*] last year, and every dollar of it was wrung form the miners.
At some of these mining camps a miner is not even allowed to bring a pound of butter from the outside. He is compelled to buy everything at the company’s store. Every man who comes to the mines to work must be searched, and when he goes to visit a friend outside the camp an armed guard goes with him.
What would a Chicago workingman think if he had to pay 90 cents for a quart of syrup that cost at wholesale $1.25 a gallon? What would he think if his employer taxed him a dollar a month for a doctor whether he needed one or not? What would he think if he was obliged to pay his employer 50 cents a month for a preacher?
“Yetsuch are Mr. Rockefeller’s Sunday school methods of conducting his mining business in Colorado,” says Mother Jones.
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