Hellraisers Journal: Attorney Thomas West on Ruthless Acts of State Police in Raid Upon Miners’ Tent Colony at Lick Creek

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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————–

Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 20, 1921
Lick Creek Tent Colony, Mingo County – Attorney West Describes Raid

From The Wheeling Intelligencer of June 18, 1921:

MINE WORKERS’ LAWYER MAKES
ALLEGATIONS OF RUTHLESS ACTS
AT THE MINERS’ TENT COLONY
———-
Declares State Police and Volunteers
Were Disorderly and Destructive
When They Raided the Homes
of Union Miners
———-

Lick Creek Tents Slashed June 14, 1921 crpd, Current Hx NYT p963, Mar 1922
Lick Creek Tent Colony after Raid of June 14, 1921

Special to The Intelligencer.

Charleston, Va., June 17-Secretary-treasurer Fred Mooney, of District Seventeen, United Mine Workers of America, tonight made public the following report just received from the union’s lawyer, Thomas West, who was detailed to make an investigation of the activities of the state police in raiding tent colonies of union coal miners in Mingo county:

Williamson, W. Va., June 16.

H. W. Houston, Charleston, W. Va.

Dear Sir-On yesterday morning I visited the Lick Creek tent colony for the purpose of taking some statements regarding the outrage perpetrated there on the day before [June 14]. I found that the state police and their volunteer confederates [company gunthugs] had ripped up twenty or more tents. Some of them had probably a hundred slits up them, averaging about six feet each, and had knocked the legs out from under their cooking stoves and the stove pipes down, and where they found anything cooking on the stove they swiped it off into the coal box, as a rule found just back of the stove. They found some tables set for dinner and they turned these with the legs up and the dishes and food left on the under side.

They broke open every trunk and rifled every drawer. They dumped all the clothes they found out into the middle of the floor and kicked them all over the place. They dumped an organ out of one man’s tent over the hill and hit a phonograph with an axe or some other heavy tool.

They poured kerosene oil into a churn of milk found in one of the tents and in others they found such oil and poured it into the meal and flour. In one tent they found a considerable quantity of canned fruit and they put this on the bed clothes after turning them upside down on the bed and broke it up. They put the mattresses on the floor and ripped them open and put the springs on top of them.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Attorney Thomas West on Ruthless Acts of State Police in Raid Upon Miners’ Tent Colony at Lick Creek”

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1901, Part II: Found Organizing Servant Girls of Pennsylvania and Miners of West Virginia

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Quote Mother Jones, re Servant Girls Organizing, Kvl TN Sntl p5, May 23, 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 12, 1901
Mother Jones News Round-Up for May 1901, Part II
Found Organizing in Pennsylvania and West Virginia

From The Muncie Daily Times of May 16, 1901:

SERVANT GIRLS’ UNION. 
———-
Mother Jones’ Rules For Kitchen
and Nursery Work.

Mother Jones, Drawing, SDH p4, Mar 9, 1901

“Mother” Jones is preparing to organize a servant girls’ union at Wilkes-barre, Pa., as well as in Scranton and has drawn up these rules, says the New York World, which the union will enforce at each, “place:”

Ten hours’ work a day and no more.

An increase in wages according to the the size of the house and the work required.

No one shall work for less than $3 a week.

Cooks shall not act as ladies maids or take care of babies.

Nursegirls shall not be required to act as cooks.

It shall not be necessary to stay in nights while the mistress goes out.

If more than ten hours work a day shall be required, a double shift must be employed.

An amusement room shall be furnished for the girls so that they shall not be required to sit in the kitchen all the time.

Visitors shall be allowed to call upon them any night they are off duty.

Wages must be paid every week.

They shall have the privilege of putting their clothes in the family wash.

Their meals shall be the same as those of the family.

Bedchambers shall be large, airy and well heated.

—————

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for May 1901, Part II: Found Organizing Servant Girls of Pennsylvania and Miners of West Virginia”

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for October & November 1920: Veteran Organizer Found in West Virginia and Washington D. C.

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Quote Mother Jones, Doomed, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel, p213———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 11, 1920
Mother Jones News for October & November 1920
“Veteran Organizer” Found in West Virginia and Washington D. C.

From The Charleston Daily Mail of October 2, 1920:

COAL COMPANIES AFTER
RESTRAINT ON MINERS
———-
Petition Federal Court for Injunction
to Prevent Officials Organizing.
———-

Mother Jones, UMWJ p11, July 15, 1920The United Mine Workers have made defendants in two injunction suits brought in the southern district federal court by the Red Jacket Coal company of Red Jacket, Mingo County, and the Pond Creek Colliery to restrain them from  interfering with employes of the two companies in efforts to unionize the mines operated by the coal concerns. Notices were reported as served yesterday evening from the United States marshal’s office, and arguments will be heard October 11, at Huntington.

John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America; William Green, secretary and treasurer of the United Mine Workers; C. F. [Frank] Keeney, president of district No, 17, United Mine Workers; Fred Mooney, secretary and treasurer of the district; Harold W. Houston, attorney; Mary Harris, (“Mother Jones“), J. A. Baumgardner, president of Local Union, No. 4804, at Williamson; C. L. McShan, secretary of the local union; Dock Wolford, president of Local Union No. 4181 and Bud Auzier, secretary of the union, and a score of others are named in the petition.

Petitions in both cases are said to be based on the allegation that activities of agents and organizers of the mine workers interfere with contracts which the companies have made with the miners and would prevent the delivery of coal to customers. The further charge is made that the purpose of the United Mine Workers in organizing is illegal.

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for October & November 1920: Veteran Organizer Found in West Virginia and Washington D. C.”

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for August 1920, Part I: Found Speaking at Princeton, West Virginia, Near Baldwin-Felts HQ

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Quote Mother Jones Princeton WV Speech Aug 15, 1920, Steel Speeches, p230———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 25, 1920
-Mother Jones News for August 1920, Part I
Found in Princeton, West Virginia, Speaking Near Baldwin-Felts HQ

From The Richmond Daily Register of August 6, 1920:

Mother Jones w Workman, Hatfield n Fry, UMWJ p11, July 15, 1920

“Mother” Jones has reached the West Virginia mines and is said to be responsible for much of the recent trouble started there.

August 15, 1920 – Princeton, West Virginia
-Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting:

[Part I]

Mother Jones, UMWJ p11, July 15, 1920

My friends, in all the ages of man the human race has trod, it has looked forward to that mighty power where men could enjoy the right to live as nature intended that they should.

We have not made millionaires, but we have made billionaires on both sides of the house. We have built up the greatest oligarchy that the world has ever known in history.

On the other side, we have the greatest slaves the world has ever known. There is no getting away from that.

I am not going to abuse the operators nor the bosses for their system. The mine owners and the steel robbers are all a product of the system of industry. It is just like an ulcer, and we have got to clean the ulcer.

(Hissing from the audience.)

God—they make me sick. They are worse than an old bunch of cats yelling for their mother.

Today, the world has turned over. The average man don’t see it. The ministers don’t see it and they don’t see what is wrong. They cannot see it. But the man who sits in the tower and his fortune of clouds clash, knows there is a cause for those clouds clashing before the clap of thunder comes. All over the world is the clashing of clouds. In the office, the doctor don’t pay attention to it. The man who watches the clouds don’t understand it. People want to watch the battle.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for August 1920, Part I: Found Speaking at Princeton, West Virginia, Near Baldwin-Felts HQ”

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Princeton, W. V.-Near Headquarters of Baldwin-Felts Gunthugs, Part I

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Quote Mother Jones Princeton WV Speech Aug 15, 1920, Steel Speeches, p226 ———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday August 17, 1920
West Virginia – Mother Jones Fights for Miners, Causes Trouble for Mine Operators

From The Richmond Daily Register of August 6, 1920:

Mother Jones w Workman, Hatfield n Fry, UMWJ p11, July 15, 1920

“Mother” Jones has reached the West Virginia mines and is said to be responsible for much of the recent trouble started there.

[Photograph added.]

August 15, 1920 – Princeton, West Virginia
-Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting, Part I of III:

My friends, in all the ages of man the human race has trod, it has looked forward to that mighty power where men could enjoy the right to live as nature intended that they should.

We have not made millionaires, but we have made billionaires on both sides of the house. We have built up the greatest oligarchy that the world has ever known in history.

On the other side, we have the greatest slaves the world has ever known. There is no getting away from that.

I am not going to abuse the operators nor the bosses for their system. The mine owners and the steel robbers are all a product of the system of industry. It is just like an ulcer, and we have got to clean the ulcer.

(Hissing from the audience.)

God—they make me sick. They are worse than an old bunch of cats yelling for their mother.

Today, the world has turned over. The average man don’t see it. The ministers don’t see it and they don’t see what is wrong. They cannot see it. But the man who sits in the tower and his fortune of clouds clash, knows there is a cause for those clouds clashing before the clap of thunder comes. All over the world is the clashing of clouds. In the office, the doctor don’t pay attention to it. The man who watches the clouds don’t understand it. People want to watch the battle.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Princeton, W. V.-Near Headquarters of Baldwin-Felts Gunthugs, Part I”