Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 23, 1920
Williamson, West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting, Part II
Williamson, West Virginia – Sunday Evening June 20, 1920
-Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting in Front of Courthouse.
SPEECH OF MOTHER JONES at WILLIAMSON, PART II.
[Mother Jones on Agitators.]
The West Virginian June 22, 1920
I went to a meeting and the secretary of the steel workers went with me. He got up to speak. They took him. The next fellow got up; they took him. I got up. They arrested me. I wouldn’t walk. They had to ride me. A big old Irish buck of a policeman said, “You will have to walk.” “No, I can’t.” “Can you walk?” “No, I can’t.” “We will take you down to jail and lock you up behind the bars.”
After a few minutes the chief came along.
“Mother Jones?”
“Yes, sir.”
“There is some of the steel managers here want to speak to you.”
“All right, let the gentlemen come in. I am sorry gentlemen, I haven’t got chairs to give you.” (Laughter.)
One good fellow says, “Now, Mother Jones, this agitation is dangerous. You know these are foreigners, mostly.” “Well, that is the reason I want to talk to them. I want to organize them into the United States as a Union so as to show them what the institution stands for.”
“They don’t understand English,” he says.
I said, “I want to teach them English. We want them into the Union so they will understand.”
“But you can’t do that. This agitation won’t do. Your radicalism has got to go.”
I said, “Wait a minute, sir. You are one of the managers of the steel industry here?”
“Yes.”
“Wasn’t the first emigrant that landed on our shore an agitator?”
“Who was he?”
“Columbus. Didn’t he agitate to get the money from the people of Spain? Didn’t he agitate to get the crew, and crossed the ocean and discovered America for you and I?
“Wasn’t Washington an agitator? Didn’t the Mayflower bring over a ship-full of agitators? Didn’t we build a monument to them down there in Massachusetts. I want to ask you a question. Right today in and around the City of Pittsburgh I believe there has assembled as many as three hundred thousand people [bowing the knee to Jesus during Easter season.] Jesus was an agitator, Mr. Manager. What in hell did you hang him for if he didn’t hurt your pockets?” He never made a reply. He went away.
He was the manager of the steel works; he was the banker; he was the mayor; he was the judge; he was the chairman of the city council. Just think of that in America—and he had a stomach on him four miles long and two miles wide. (Laughter.) And when you looked at that fellow and compared him with people of toil it nauseated you.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 22, 1920
Williamson, West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting, Part I
From the Tuscaloosa News of June 21, 1920:
THE GRAND JURY IS INVESTIGATING
THE MATEWAN SHOOTING
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“Mother Jones” in West Virginia Coal Fields
Making Speeches to Excite Miners
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(By Associated” Press)
WILLIAMSON, W. Va., June 21.-Investigation of the fight between Baldwin-Felts detectives and citizens at Matewan, May 19, in which ten persons were killed, was commenced here today by a special grand jury. Deliberations of the jury will be behind closed doors, and nothing be known of its work until its report is made to the court.
Fifty men of the state constabulary were on duty here following a meeting last night in front of the court house at which “Mother” Jones was the principal speaker. Announcement was made that she would speak tonight at Matewan.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
Williamson, West Virginia – Sunday Evening June 20, 1920
-Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting in Front of Courthouse.
[SPEECH OF MOTHER JONES at WILLIAMSON, PART I.]
[The Pagan Agitator]
The old condition is passing away. The new dawn of another civilized nation is breaking into the lives of the human race.
Away back, eighteen hundred years ago, two hundred years after the world’s savior was hung there arose an agitation.The Roman lords got uneasy about it, and they said, “We have got to stop this agitation and this education. If we don’t they will get the best of us. That won’t do.” They sent down and brought up all those they could get together to come in a hurry to Rome. They either sold them into slavery or held them, and among those that was brought in was a young man. When he came into the Roman court to get his decision the Judge said, “Who are you?”
“I am a man, and a member of the human family.”
“Then why do you carry on this agitation?”
“Because I belong to a class that all down the ages have been robbed, murdered, maligned, crucified, deluded, and because I belong to that class I think it is my duty to be with that class and to put a stop to these crimes.”
I wish I could convey that same spirit that possessed this pagan slave eighteen hundred years ago to every working man in my hearing today. If he possessed that spirit of manhood the other fellow would come and ask us for the right to eat instead of asking him for the right to eat. But we haven’t come to that spirit yet, because all down the ages the system has been going on to enslave us. This pagan slave was not a Christian. By no means. He was a pagan in those days, but he was teaching real Christianity. He was teaching Christ’s Christianity, that an injury to one working man is an injury to all. But they called him a pagan.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 15, 1920
Logan County, West Virginia – Bastion of Industrial Feudalism
From The Nation of June 12, 1920:
Company-Owned Americans
By ARTHUR GLEASON
Montani semper liberi
(Motto of West Virginia)
Harrisburg Telegraph October 16, 1919
THE attorney of the Mine Workers has filed suits against the coal companies who have evicted miners. Each suit is for $10,000 damages for unlawful eviction. This touches the heart of the West Virginia trouble. In the non-union counties, houses are owned by the coal companies. Justice is administered by the coal companies. Constitutional rights are interpreted by the coal companies. Food and clothing are sold (though not exclusively) in company stores. The miners worship in a company church, are preached at by a company pastor; play pool in the company Y. M. C. A.; gain education in a company school; receive treatment from a company doctor and hospital; die on company land. From the cradle to the grave, they draw breath by the grace of the sometimes absentee coal owner, one of whose visible representatives is the deputy sheriff, a public official in the pay of the coal owner. As a worker under similar conditions once said: “We work in his plant. We live in his house. Our children go to his school. On Sunday we go to hear his preacher. And when we die we are buried in his cemetery.”
The employees live in company houses. Everything belongs to the mine owners, and home ownership is not permitted. The lease of the Logan Mining Company reads that when the miner’s employment ceases, “either for cause or without cause the right of said employee and his family to use and occupy premises shall simultaneously end and terminate.” The miners generally pay $8 a month for a four room house, a dollar for coal, 50 cents to a dollar for lights. Fulton Mitchell, deputy sheriff, states:
My understanding is that most of the companies have a form of lease, and when they lease to miners they reserve the right to object to any person other than employees coming on their possessions.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 8, 1920
Matewan, West Virginia – Miners and Citizens Battle Company Gunthugs
From the United Mine Workers Journal of June 1, 1920:
Ten or twelve men were killed in a battle between Baldwin-Felts gunmen and citizens of the town of Matewan, W. Va., on May 19. The exact number of deaths has not been learned, because it is said that one or more bodies were lost in the Tug river when some of the men attempted to swim across. The battle was the result of activities of the gunmen who were in the employ of the Stone Mountain Coal Company. It has been impossible also to obtain a correct list of the names of the dead.
Matewan is in the very heart of the Tug river field, one of the most notorious hotbeds of nonunionism in West Virginia. Coal operators in that field have for years resisted with all of their power the efforts of the miners to organize and join the United Mine Workers of America. They have employed all of the bloody tactics that have prevailed in such fields for many years, including the use of gunmen and thugs, the blackjack and other methods of repression.
A short time ago the miners employed at a mine owned by the Stone Mountain Company undertook to form an organization. The company immediately applied the usual remedy. It discharged the men from its employ. Then the company decided to evict the men and their families from the houses in which they lived and which were owned by the company. It was the thought of the company that this would help to break up the movement for the organization of a local union.
A large force of “detectives” was hired from the Baldwin-Felts agency at Bluefield, W. Va., and sent to Matewan to evict the miners and their families. An Associated Press dispatch from Matewan told the story of the battle as follows:
The shooting, in which Baldwin-Felts detectives clashed with citizens and the police, followed the eviction of a number of miners from Stone Mountain Coal Company houses yesterday, according to the authorities. Two mines were closed recently when it became known that an effort was being made to unionize them. The miners claim that the detectives were sent to dispossess families of workers who had been discharged.
A shot, said by the authorities to have been fired from the coat pocket of Albert Felts, a detective, and which ended the life of Mayor Cabell Testerman, started the battle. An instant later Felts, according to authorities, was killed by “Sid” Hatfield, chief of police. The shooting then became general, and when the battle ended seven detectives, the mayor, and four miners were dead and three other persons badly wounded. Felts, it is said, had a warrant for the arrest of Chief Hatfield on a charge that he had taken a prisoner from detectives some time ago. The mayor was reading the warrant when he was killed.
It was said that the gunmen wore badges as deputy sheriff’s of Harlan county, Ky., and that they had been imported from there to Matewan.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday May 31, 1920
Logan County, West Virginia – Coal Operators Own Public Officials, Part II
From The Nation of May 29, 1920:
Private Ownership Of Public Officials
By ARTHUR GLEASON
[Part II of II.]
Wheeling Intelligencer October 1, 1919
There is only one incorporated town in Logan County, and that is the town of Logan, with a population of 3,500. Unidentified strangers are not wanted in Logan. The train that carries you the three hours from the city of Huntington into Guyan Valley is used by men who make it their business to find out yours. Deputies meet the train, as you pull into Logan—Dow Butcher, Buck White, Squire White, and Pat Murphy. You are sized up. This affectionate interest is directed for one purpose—to detect organizers and to invite them to go home. Commercial travelers, social workers, business and professional men pass in and out. Order is well kept; all the decencies are observed. Logan is a prosperous, busy little city. I stayed over night, received a welcome, and met a group of excellent sincere local folks, nurses, teachers, health experts, coal magnates. They are busy in every good work. They draw the line in this one matter alone: Logan County is not to be unionized. This led to an amusing mistake some time previous to my own visit. Mr. J. L. Heizer told me of it; it was his own experience in Logan. Mr. Heizer is chief clerk of the Department of Mines for the State of West Virginia. He is also Grand Chancellor of the Knights of Pythias for the State. He went to Logan to induct certain brethren. Mr. Heizer said on the train to Mr. Wayne Chafin that he had heard a lot about Don Chafin, and wanted to meet him. In the middle of the night, Mr. Heizer said,
When I went to the hotel room, two men were standing at the door, and one of them stepped forward and said: “I understand you want to meet Don Chafin?”
I said “Yes.”
He said, “By God, you’ve met him now.”
A young man with me, E. R. Dalton of Huntington, tried to pacify Mr. Chafin, who stuck a gun into the stomach of Mr. Dalton and said, “Young man, you get to bed, and get there quick. I can kill both of you in this room.”
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 30, 1920
Logan County, West Virginia – Coal Operators Own Public Officials, Part I
From The Nation of May 29, 1920:
Private Ownership Of Public Officials
By ARTHUR GLEASON
[Part I of II.]
Harrisburg Telegraph October 16, 1919
WEST VIRGINIA has started in again on the organized killing which every few years breaks loose in the mining districts. On May 19, eleven men were shot to death in the town of Matewan, Mingo County. Seven of them were detectives, three were miners and one was an official. This skirmish is the first in the 1920 war between the coal operators of the State and the United Mine Workers of America. Mingo is one of the counties in the southwest of the State which have been held against organized labor by detectives, armed guards, and deputy sheriffs.
With the beginning of May, the miners formed local unions, and brought in 2,000 members. As fast as the miners join the union, the coal companies are evicting them from the company-owned houses. I saw the typewritten notice of the Stone Mountain Coal Company on the window of the company-owned grocery store. It stated that the houses of the miners were owned by the company, and that the miners must leave the premises at once if they join the union. Ezra Frye, the local organizer, acting for the United Mine Workers, had leased land, and was erecting tents for the evicted families. He had ordered 300 tents on the first allotment. Matewan lies on the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River. It is run politically by the Hatfield clan, who for generations have had a feud with the McCoy clan. The economic struggle is making a new alignment across the old feudist divisions. No stranger is safe just now in these unorganized counties. We had a spy who trailed us from Charleston to Matewan. In the town, we were kept under constant guard.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 4, 1920
Ralph Chaplin on the Truth Behind the Centralia Conspiracy
From The One Big Union Monthly of May 1920:
THE BACKGROUND OF CENTRALIA
By RALPH CHAPLIN
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IN ORDER to get the truth of the Centralia conspiracy it is necessary to understand the circumstances leading up to the tragedy on Armistice Day, 1919. There are two distinct viewpoints from which this unfortunate affair may be observed: That of the lumber interests, which is to isolate the incident from its anteceeding circumstances and make it a “plain murder case”; and that of working people of the Northwest generally to consider all the facts in the case in order to find out, not only how the tragedy occurred, but what brought it about as well.
It is well to state here that the lumber interests, with the aid of the trial judge, the prosecuting attorneys and the press, succeeded in keeping from the consideration of the jury, all but the actual happenings on November 11th. The long and unbroken chain of threats, raids, deportations and murders perpetrated against the I. W. W. boys before they made a last stand for their lives in their union hall, was objected to by the lumber trust’s attorneys and ruled out by the lumber trust’s lackey on the judicial bench. In this manner men who were simply defending their lives and property from a mob were shown to be deliberate and wanton assassins, while their tormentors were held up to the world as splendid examples of unquestioned and persecuted patriotism.
The efforts of the defense to prove the existence of a conspiracy on the part of the lumber interests to raid and demolish union halls and to murder their occupants were painstakingly ignored by the press.
Sept 15, 1913 – Trinidad, Colorado
Convention of District 15 of the United Mine Workers of America
The delegates opened their convention by singing The Battle Cry of Union:
We will win the fight today, boys,
We’ll win the fight today,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union;
We will rally from the coal mines,
We’ll fight them to the end,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union.
The Union forever, hurrah boys, hurrah!
Down with the Baldwins and up with the law;
For we’re coming, Colorado, we’re coming all the way,
Shouting the Battle Cry of Union.
The miners faced the grim prospect of going out on strike against the powerful southern coalfield companies, chief among them, John D Rockefeller’s Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. The coal operators had steadfastly refused to recognize the Union and had ignored all attempts at negotiation.
The miners had had their fill of dangerous working conditions, crooked checkweighmen, long hours, and low pay. They lived in peonage in company towns, were paid in company scrip, and were forced to shop for their daily needs in high-priced company stores which kept them always in debt. But, mostly they hated the notorious company guard system. Every attempt to organize had been met with brutality on the part of the coal operators.
Mother Jones addressed the convention for over an hour, urging the men to:
Rise up and strike! …Strike and stay with it as we did in West Virginia. We are going to stay here in Southern Colorado until the banner of industrial freedom floats over every coal mine. We are going to stand together and never surrender…
Pledge to yourselves in this convention to stand as one solid army against the foes of human labor. Think of the thousands who are killed every year and there is no redress for it. We will fight until the mines are made secure and human life valued more than props. Look things in the face. Don’t fear a governor; don’t fear anybody…You are the biggest part of the population in the state. You create its wealth, so I say, “Let the fight go on; if nobody else will keep on, I will.”
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