Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 9, 1922 Charles Town, West Virginia – Powerful Forces Work to Covict Union Miners
From The Bottle Maker of October 1922:
Charles Town Spirit of Jefferson October 3, 1922
Charlestown, W. Va., Sept. 5.—Industrial feudalism, allied with and enthroned upon a local aristocracy, and exploiting the naivette of guileless farmers and and unsuspecting rural population, is moving mercilessly and relentlessly in the ancient court house of this town to defeat and destroy organized labor in West Virginia, drive labor unions from the borders of the State, and take a new lease upon control and domination of government in West Virginia.
In this undertaking, industrial oppression and vengence is masquerading behind the law and the prosecuting power of the State, utilizing the executive machinery of the State, and subsidizing newspapers and news dispatches, to accomplish the end sought.
Walter Allen, a young official of the United Mine Workers in West Virginia, is on trial in Charles Town on a charge of treason against the State. Allen is one of twenty-three officials of this union who were indicted in the coal-tainted courts of Logan county last year on the charge of treason. More than 500 others are indicted on charges of conspiracy or murder. These indictments were found after the union miners of Kanawha, Fayette, and Raleigh counties rebelling against the venal industrial conditions of Logan and Mingo counties, and finding that gunmen of the coal operators prevented peaceful union organization, had attempted to right their wrongs by an invasion of those counties directed against company gunmen.
William Blizzard, president of sub-district No. 2 of this union, was another of the twenty-three. Blizzard was acquitted last May after a trial of five weeks, but no such fortune seems to be in prospect for Allen. Every resource at the command of a great and entrenched industrial feudalism in West Virginia-a feudalism that makes governors, elects legislatures, and controls political parties and newspapers—is being brought to bear to convict Allen and all of his associates, and through their confinement in the State prison, break up the miners’ union, and drive unionism as a whole from the State.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday October 3, 1912 “The Battling Miners of West Virginia” by Edward H. Kintzer, Part II
From the International Socialist Review of October 1912:
The Battling Miners of West Virginia
By EDWARD H. KINTZER Socialist Candidate for State Auditor of West Virginia.
[Part II of II]
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Send the Politicians Here.
In this situation the pure and simple politicians could learn a lesson in tactics. It is one of the unusual conditions in America’s industrial wars, in which are engaged men who understand the importance of political action, but who feel how hopelessly lost they would be to depend solely upon this in the present crisis. Many of these strikers are members of the Socialist party. To suggest to them that sabotage or other than political acts or taking a timely vacation from work would exclude them from the sacred circle where politics is crowned king, would cause them to question your sanity.
Nor are the miners alone in this fight. There is a bond of sympathy between workers in the region that is worthy of note. It is an example of the class consciousness that is permeating industry all over the world.
The railroaders who haul the mine guards understand that they (the mine guards) are not spying upon them; that it is the miners who are being hounded, but their hatred for the guards has precipitated several fatalities.
Dead bodies of two guards were found under a structural steel bridge, apparently having fallen while walking the ties. Yet it is the boast of train crews that they loathe these human bloodhounds. Numerous such circumstances have come to light.
The favorite position of the guards while traveling the coal region is to perch themselves on the pilot of the engine. On one occasion three guards boarded the pilot. The engineer of the freight train was particularly hostile to them. He opened wide the throttle and went at a speed that none of his crew knew the train to make before. But they understood. Anything that could happen was welcome. Sharp curves had no terrors for the engineer. What this mad race meant might only be guessed at. Whether or not what happened was by design or accident, all the miners and most of the railroaders considered it more than just. Rounding a curve, with the complacency of the guards taxed to the utmost, the strain upon the crew being unusual, a cow attempted to cross the track. The guards say there was plenty of time to slow down and allow her to cross. The engineer declared that it was impossible unless he unbuckled his train. Result: Before the bovine could wink her tranquil eye she was unrecognizable, with quantities of her blood, hair and what-not covering the three guardsmen, who were otherwise unharmed. A hasty bath in a nearby creek restored the appearance of the guards, and with knowing winks among the crew, the train moved on.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday September 8, 1912 Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones and Harold Houston Speak
September 6, 1912, Charleston, West Virginia -Speech of Mother Jones at Mass Meeting Held in Courthouse Square:
[Operators Get a Hearing, Miners Don’t]
Wheeling Intelligencer September 7, 1912
This great gathering that is here tonight signals there is a disease in the State that must be wiped out. The people have suffered from that disease patiently; they have borne insults, oppression, outrages; they appealed to their chief executive, they appealed to the courts, they appealed to the attorney general, and in every case they were turned down. They were ignored. The people must not be listened to, the corporations must get a hearing.
When we were on the Capitol grounds the last time you came here, you had a petition to the Governor for a peaceful remedy and solution of this condition. The mine owners, the bankers, the plunderers of the State went in on the side door and got a hearing, and you didn’t. (Loud applause.)
Now, then, they offer to get a commission, suggested by the mine owners. The miners submitted a list of names to be selected from, and the mine owners said, “We will have no commission.” Then when they found out that Congress, the Federal Government was going to come down and examine your damnable peonage system, then they were ready for the commission. (Applause.)
Then they got together—the cunning brains of the operators got together. What kind of a commission have they got? A bishop, a sky pilot working for Jesus; a lawyer, and a member of the State Militia, from Fayette City. In the name of God, what do any of those men know about your troubles up on Cabin Creek, and Paint Creek? Do you see the direct insult offered by your officials to your intelligence? They look upon you as a lot of enemies instead of those who do the work. If they wanted to be fair they would have selected three miners, three operators and two citizens. (Cries of: “Right, right.”) And would have said, “Now, go to work and bring in an impartial decision.” But they went up on Cabin Creek-I wouldn’t have made those fellows walk in the water, but they made me. Because they knew I have something to tell you, and all Hell and all the governors on the earth couldn’t keep me from telling it. (Loud applause.)
I want to put it up to the citizens, up to every honest man in this audience-let me ask you here, have your public officials any thought for the citizens of this State, or their condition?
(Cries of: “No, no, no.”)
Now, then, go with me up those creeks, and see the blood-hounds of the mine owners, approved of by your public officials. See them insulting women, see them coming up the track. I went up there and they followed me like hounds. But some day I will follow them. When I see them go to Hell, I will get the coal and pile it up on them. (Loud applause.)
I look at the little children born under such a horrible condition. I look at the little children that were thrown out here.
(At this moment an automobile came down Kanawha Street and turned around and went back, but in turning made considerable noise which attracted some attention and interrupted the speaker, who said, “Don’t bother about that automobile.”)
[“Howling Anarchy”]
Now then, let me ask you. When the miners-a miner that they have robbed him of one leg in the mines and never paid him a penny for it–when he entered a protest, they went into his house not quite a week ago, and threw out his whole earthly belongings, and he and his wife and six children slept on the roadside all night. Now, you can’t contradict that. Suppose we had taken a mine owner and his wife and children and threw them out on the road and made them sleep all night, the papers would be howling “anarchy.”
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 28, 1912 Socialist Party Organizing in West Virginia by Harold Houston
From the International Socialist Review of April 1912:
The Socialist Outlook in West Virginia
[-by Harold W. Houston, State Secretary]
It is impossible to write of the political situation in this state without enthusiasm. The apathy of recent years has given place to a marvelous awakening among all classes of voters. The seed sown by the early agitators has taken deep root in our soil and is bearing abundant fruit. The dues paying membership of the Socialist party is about one thousand.We have ninety-three locals in good standing. Our party press is a development of the last two years, and we now have the following papers:The Labor Argus, Charleston, edited by C. H. Boswell; the Clarksburg Socialist, Clarksburg, edited by E. H. Kintzer; the Wheeling Majority and the West Virginia Socialist, both of Wheeling and edited by Walter B. Hilton; the Plain-Dealer, Cameron, edited by William E. Lang. A movement is now on to start several other papers during the coming campaign.
Several towns in the state have elected Socialist mayors and other officials. Star City, Hendricks, Adamston, Miama and other towns have been swept into the Socialist ranks. All indications point to our carrying at least five counties in the coming election. Our state government is located at Charleston, Kanawha county, and the political piracy that always characterizes the doings of the politicians that infest the seat of government has polluted that community beyond description. The voters there are in revolt. The generals of the old parties find themselves without an army. The Socialists have set themselves the task of electing the entire ticket in that county, especially the legislative ticket. Our enemies freely admit that we have a splendid fighting chance. At Clarksburg, Harrison county, the situation is intensely interesting. It has attracted the attention of all of the lyceum lecturers. The industrial workers of that section are intelligent and progressive, and during the last two years they have been coming into the Socialist movement in battalions. This is another county that is almost certain to land a full Socialist ticket.
At Wheeling there is the same widespread response to the call of Socialism. The voters are organizing the entire county, and there is little doubt but that we will secure at least a portion of the ticket in that county. One of the most gratifying things about the West Virginia movement is the utter absence of factional strifes and disruptive tactics. Some slight differences do indeed exist as to minor matters, but there is no bitter or serious breaches in the organization. On the whole complete harmony reigns. The personnel of the movement is exceptionally high, and the movement is revolutionary to the core.
This is a war-born state, and it has a population that illy wears the collar of industrial servitude. When it seceded from Old Virginia it placed upon its coat of arms the motto: “Montani Semper Liberi” (Mountaineers are always free), and the sweep of the Socialist movement over the mountains and valleys indicates that we are going to translate those words into a reality. We send greetings to our comrades of other states, and we say to them that the coming election will show that we have been in the thick of the battle.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 26, 1922
Charles Town, West Virginia – Miners Resent Treason Charge
From the Baltimore Sun of April 25, 1922:
(From a Staff Correspondent.)
Charles Town, W. Va., April 24.-Attacking directly the indictment charging treason, attorneys for the defense in the big industrial trials which opened here this morning began their fight to clear more than 100 men, mostly members of the United Mine Workers of America, of charges growing out of the armed march from Marmet, Kanawha county, to Logan county last August and September.
Entering a demurrer to the treason indictment, which covers 23 defendants, had been expected, and from the legal point of view is regarded as purely a routine move. From the moral point of view, however, and particularly , considering the effect it may have on public pinion, the outcome of the maneuver is regarded by the defense as of paramount importance.
Treason Charge Resented.
Indictments for murder and conspiracy were more or less expected in the circumstances by the United Mine Workers, but the indictment for treason always rankled. It is their contention that they are as patriotic citizens as anybody, and that they never for an instant contemplated war on the constituted authorities of the United States or West Virginia.
The arguments today, therefore, were followed with more interest than was usual at such a stage an ordinary trial, and many of those accused betrayed not a little tenseness as the attorneys held forth.
The arguments on which the demurrer was based were largely technical, fault being found in one instance with the language of the indictment, and in another with the alleged general character of the offenses charged. The tediousness of the arguments, however, never for an instant acted to break attention with which the case was followed by the crowd in the courtroom.
Judge J. M. Woods, of Martinsburg, who is presiding, reserved his decision on the demurrer until the morning, and court adjourned about 3.30 this afternoon.
Crowd Has Holiday Air.
The crowd in front of the Courthouse this morning, far from presenting the grim aspect you might expect from men about to go on trial for their lives, were rather a holiday air. The defendants had been provided with ribbons reading “U. M. W. A. – Defendant,” which made them look more like a lot of delegates to a fraternal order convention than men accused of the most serious crimes on the statute books.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday April 25, 1922
Charles Town, West Virginia – Stage Set for Trial of Miners
From the Baltimore Sun of April 24, 1922:
(From a Staff Correspondent.)
Charles Town, W. Va., April 23.-Excited, nervous, confident here, depressed there, a small army of defendants, witnesses, attorneys and newspaper men has taken possession of Charles Town on the eve of the trials of more than 200 men on charges including treason, murder and conspiracy, growing out of the “armed march” from Marmet on Logan county last summer.
It is estimated that fully 1,000 persons are in the little county seat of Jefferson county in connection with the trials.
Trials Are Sole Topic.
All over town, in the lobbies of the hotels, on street corners, gathered in knots here and there, they are discussing one thing-the trials. They have been arriving since Friday. A grim incident this morning was the arrival of nine men in handcuffs from Logan county. They were those who are unable to get bail after being indicted in Logan last year. They were escorted to the Charles Town jail.
Central figures in the whole West Virginia industrial controversy already are in town and others are expected tomorrow and on succeeding days. There is C. Frank Keeney, president of District No. 17, United Mine Workers, and the man, who, it is believed, will be the target for the heaviest artillery of the prosecution. He faces a charge of treason and is alleged to have instigated and aided the alleged insurrection. With him are Mrs. Keeney and their son. He is at one of the hotels, smiling and high-spirited as usual.
There is Fred Mooney, secretary of District No. 17, also charged with treason. He is a bit more self-contained than Keeney, yet you would scarcely know he was to be tried on a charge that might bring his neck into a noose.
Scores Of Notables Present.
There is H. W. Houston, chief counsel for the defense, often called the “brains of the United Mine Workers in West Virginia.” There is William Blizzard, accused of being the “generalissimo of the insurrection.” There are a half-dozen special lawyers engaged by the prosecution, famous in the annals of West Virginia criminal procedure. There are scores of others of lesser prominence, though all are well enough known in their localities.
Before the week is out, Gov. E. F. Morgan will be here, having been subpoenaed by both sides. William M. Wiley, of Sharples, picturesque figure among the operators, around whose mines the fighting raged last summer, will be called. John L. Lewis, international president of the United Mine Workers, will be here Tuesday.
One big, outstanding figure, however, from all that can be learned, will not be here. He is not here tonight and it is reported he will not come. That is Don Chafin, Sheriff of Logan county. Chafin has been for years the bete noir of the United Mine Workers. He has worked against them, resisted two armed marches, and in general earned for himself the undying hatred of many connected with the big mine union…..
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[Emphasis added.]
From the Baltimore Sun of April 23, 1922:
In the center is C. Frank Keeney, president of District 17, United Mine Workers of America, and active leader of the union forces of Southern West Virginia. Mr. Keeney has been indicted in Logan county for treason and conspiracy. He has also been indicted in Kanawha county for alleged conspiracy and in Mingo county on charges of murder. At the left is Fred Mooney, secretary-treasurer of District 17, United Mine Workers, with headquarters at Charleston. Within 10 miles of the capital the armed march on Logan county started last fall. Mr. Mooney faces charges of treason and conspiracy. At the right is William M. Wiley. He lives in Sharples, W. Va., on the Boon-Logan county line, where the battle raged over a front of 25 miles in the wilderness. He is vice-president of the Kanawha Coal Operators’ Association and vice-president of the Boone County Coal Corporation, with five large operations on the organized edge of Logan county. He employs 1,500 union miners. He will be a principal witness in the trials at Charles Town. He gave sensational testimony before the Senate Committee on Education and Labor in Washington recently, which investigated the armed march, and of which committee former Senator Kenyon was chairman.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 10, 1922 Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1921, Part III Found Speaking to Delegates at Convention of United Mine Workers
Indianapolis, Convention of the United Mine Workers of America Sixth Day, Afternoon Session, Monday September 26, 1921
“I can fight…”
Indiana Daily Times September 27, 1921
Vice-President Murray: I understand that Mother Jones has just arrived in the convention and I am going to request Brother David Fowler to escort her to the platform. It isn’t necessary that I should introduce Mother Jones to you at this time; it isn’t necessary that I should eulogize the work she has performed for the coal diggers of America, and I will simply present to the convention at this time our good friend, Mother Jones.
ADDRESS OF MOTHER JONES
Mr. Chairman and Delegates: I have been watching you from a distance, and you have been wasting a whole lot of time and money. I want you to stop it.
All along the ages, away back in the dusty past, the miners started their revolt. It didn’t come in this century, it came along in the cradle of the race when they were ground by superstition and wrong. Out of that they have moved onward and upward all the ages against all the courts, against all the guns, in every nation they have moved onward and upward to where they are today, and their effort has always been to get better homes for their children and for those who were to follow them.
I have just come up from West Virginia. I left Williamson last Friday and came into Charleston. I was doing a little business around there looking after things. We have never gotten down to the core of the trouble that exists there today. Newspapers have flashed it, magazines have contained articles, but they were by people who did not understand the background of the great struggle…..
I walked nine miles one night with John H. Walker in the New River field after we had organized an army of slaves who were afraid to call their souls their own. We didn’t dare sleep in a miner’s house; if we did the family would be thrown out in the morning and would have no place to go. We walked nine miles before we got shelter. When we began to organize we had to pay the men’s dues, they had no money.
At one time some of the organizers came down from Charleston, went up to New Hope and held a meeting. They had about fourteen people at the meeting. The next morning the conductor on the train told me the organizers went up on a train to Charleston. I told Walker to bill a meeting at New Hope for the next night and I would come up myself. He said we could not bill meetings unless the national told us to. I said: “I am the national now and I tell you to bill that meeting.” He did.
When we got to the meeting there was a handful of miners there and the general manager, clerks and all the pencil pushers they could get. I don’t know but there were a few organizers for Jesus there, too. We talked but said nothing about organizing. Later that night a knock came on the door where I was staying and a bunch of the boys were outside. They asked if I would organize them. I said I would. They told me they hadn’t any money. Walker said the national was not in favor of organizing, they wanted us only to agitate. I said: “John, I am running the business here, not the national; they are up in Indianapolis and I am in New Hope. I am going to organize those fellows and if the national finds any fault with you, put it on me—I can fight the national as well as I can the company if they are not doing right.”
[…..]
When we began organizing in 1903 the battle royal began. The companies began to enlist gunmen. I went up the Stanaford Mountain and held a meeting with the men. There wasn’t a more law-abiding body of men in America than those men were. While they were on strike the court issued an injunction forbidding them to go near the mines. They didn’t. I held a meeting that night, went away and next morning a deputy sheriff went up to arrest those men. He had a warrant for them. The boys said: “We have broken no law; we have violated no rules; you can not arrest us.” They notified him to get out of town and he went away. They sent for me and I went up. I asked why they didn’t let him arrest the men. They said they hadn’t done anything and I told them that was the reason they should have surrendered to the law.
That very night in 1903, the 25th day of February, those boys went to bed in their peaceful mining town. They had built their own school house and were sending their children to school. They were law-abiding citizens. While they slept in their peaceful homes bullets went through the walls and several of them were murdered in their beds. I went up next morning on an early train. The agent said they had trouble on Standifer [Stanaford] Mountain, that he heard going over the wires news that some people were hurt. I turned in my ticket, went out and called a couple of the boys. We went up the mountain on the next train and found those men dead in their homes, lying on mattresses wet with their blood and the bullet holes through the walls.
I want to clear this thing up, for it has never been cleared up. I saw there a picture that will forever be a disgrace to American institutions. There were men who had been working fourteen hours a day, who had broken no law, murdered in their peaceful homes. Nobody was punished for those murders.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 22, 1921
Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1921
Found in Washington, D. C., at Senate Hearings on Conditions in W. V. Coal Fields
From The Cincinnati Enquirer of July 15, 1921:
Unionization Back of Strife,
Senate Mingo Inquiry Shows
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SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE ENQUIRER.
Washington, July 14.-In the opening hour of its investigation to-day the select Senate committee investigating conditions in the West Virginia coal fields, elicited from spokesmen for operators and for the miners the admission that the virtual warfare there centers about unionization of the fields.
At the prompting of Senator William S. Kenyon, of Iowa, the committee Chairman, both agreed that unionization is “the issue.”
[…..]
A distinctly West Virginia atmosphere permeated the committee room.
Attorneys for both factions were powerful man, husky voiced and tanned. Others present were: Sid Hatfield, former Chief of Police of Matewan, who participated in the gun battle there; Frank Keeney, President of the district organization; Samuel B. Montgomery, state labor leader; Sheriff Jim Kirkpatrick and Mother Jones, silvery haired matriarch of labor welfare.
Secretary Mooney described general conditions in the mining region and paralleled them with the situation there in 1913 when a Senate Committee investigated.
[…..]
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[Photograph added.]
From The Scranton Times of July 16, 1921:
Sid Hatfield Describes Pistol Battle In Mingo —————
Takes Stand In Senate Committee’s Probe of Strike Trouble
-Denies He Took Credit For Killing Detectives.
Washington, July 16.-“Sid” Hatfield, ex-chief of police of Matewan, W. Va., today took the stand in the senate labor committee’s investigation of the Mingo mine war.
Word that the member of the famous West Virginia family was testifying spread through the capitol and the room soon was soon crowded.
“Mother” Jones pitched her chair closer to the witness table to catch what the man who is under indictment on charge of shooting Baldwin Felts detectives would say.
Without the slightest sign of nervousness the lanky, blonde mountain youth described the pistol battle in which he was the central figure. His suit was neatly pressed and a Masonic charm dangle from his watch chain. His quick gray eyes watched the members of the committee intently and he frequently gave a sneering laugh at questions from counsel for the operators…..
Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 30, 1921 Mother Jones Speaks at United Mine Workers Convention, Part IV
Indianapolis Convention of the United Mine Workers of America Sixth Day, September 26, 1921, Mother Jones Speaks, Part IV of IV:
The day is gone in American history when judges can assume the role of lords above us. The pulse of the world is beating, my friends, as it never beat in human history. Not alone in America is it throbbing but the world over. Editors don’t know. They sit in the oflice using a pencil and stabbing us in the back sometimes. Ministers don’t know; statesmen don’t know; professors in the universities don’t know what is going on; but the pulse of the world is throbbing for the civilization that was started back in Jerusalem two thousand years ago. You can not crush a man today; you may put him in jail; you may fill your jails, but the fight will go on. You are living in an electric age. The current is touching the human heart of man, and never again will the system of slavery that has prevailed in the past and that we are driving out now come into the world.
I want to warn that judge today that it is best to bring conciliation to bear than to drive us apart. America will live on, and we are going to march and we are going to bring back the old times of Patrick Henry and Jefferson and Lincoln. It is up to you to stop wasting time on technicalities and get down to business and save this money you are spending. You are going to need it. Put away your prejudice and let us fight. I spoke Labor Day in District 2. Then I went down into Mexico and New Mexico. I got a paper there in which I saw that President Brophy of District 2 was doing business. I wrote him a letter congratulating him. I am glad to know that District 2 has a good president, and, Brophy, I am with you. Whenever you want to raise hell with the other fellows, send for me!
I am going after this fellow (indicating Vice-President Murray) because he isn’t doing business in Pittsburgh as he ought to. That used to be the old fighting ground. Vice-President Murray, you do business there.
And now I am going to say something to the women. The destiny of nations depends upon the women. No nation had ever grown beyond its women. Whatever corruption, whatever brutal, ugly instincts the man has he hasn’t got from his mother. I have studied this for fifty years; I have studied every great man I have ever met and he has always had a great mother. Many times I walked fifteen miles to see a woman after I had met her son.
I want to say to John P. White before I close that I expressed appreciation of him for what he did for me when he was President. At no time did I go to him and explain to him what I wanted done but what he handed me money or endorsed what I had done, and we got results. I could have done a great deal more in West Virginia, but I think from all we can hear that we are going to go forward. Don’t blame the Governor of West Virginia. Don’t be so ready to knife him. There are things no statesman can override. This is a dangerous time. Presidents and Governors must move with care. There is no state in America that has better miners than West Virginia. Some of the noblest characters you have are there and you know it. They live up the creeks and the speakers who appear before them do not always use their language or appeal to them. You must know the life of those men. There isn’t another state in the Union like West Virginia, and the organizers that go out, Mr. Lewis, don’t understand the game. I have gone to Mr. White time and again and have told him to take them out because they didn’t fit into the situation. I don’t believe in giving the miners’ money to anyone who doesn’t bring results.
I asked Mr. Lewis to send a man into Mingo to handle the finance. He mentioned one or two and then said: “What do you think of Fowler?” “He is just the man,” I said, and he gave him to me and we got results. I am interested in the children and in those poor fellows who can’t be reached except by the capitalists’ papers that go in. That is all they know. You must educate them, and I want to say, Mr. Editor of the Journal, that you ought to cut out that picture “How to Dress.” We know how to dress when we get the money to dress with. What you want to tell us is how to pull that money out of the other fellow.
Up in Princeton the men were asking for years for organization. We sent a boy up to bill the meeting but didn’t tell them who was going to speak. The boy had to run away the minute he circulated the bills or he would be killed. I went up with Mr. Houston, the attorney for the miners. We were told the meeting would be in the park three miles and a half away. I said we wouldn’t hold it there, that we would start a riot out there, and then they would say: “Old Mother Jones went out in the park and started a riot.” I said: “See if the city authorities won’t give us a place in the town to meet.” We got it and seven thousand men came there, largely railroad men, machinists and farmers. Seven cars of Baldwin-Felts thugs came down, loaded with whiskey and guns. There was no prohibition men there that day. Houston got up to speak and I saw that something was being plotted. I got up and spoke, but I hadn’t talked more than ten minutes when they began to start the riot.
When I wound up my speech I said: “Mr. Baldwin-Felts guards, I am going to serve notice on you that I will take this thing up to Uncle Sam, explain the matter, and if Uncle Sam don’t protect the children of the nation Old Mother Jones will. They won’t be raised under the influence of murderers like you.” The railroad men were afraid I would be killed and asked policemen to take me away. I told them I was not afraid of being killed, that I would rather die fighting than die in my bed. I want to say to you mothers to quit buying pistols for your children. Train them to something better than a pistol and a gun. Almost every child today has a toy pistol. You began training them to use a pistol while they were in the cradles and the welfare workers never raise their voices about it. The legislature should pass a law that no mother should buy a pistol for a child.
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