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 – 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.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday October 23, 1912 Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1912, Part III Speaks at Charleston, West Virginia: “Oppression of the People Must Go!”
September 21, 1912, Charleston, West Virginia -Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting Following Parade of Strikers’ Children:
I want to say to those children, they will be free; they will not be serfs. We have entered West Virginia-I have-and a hundred thousand miners have pledged their support to me, “If you need us, Mother, we will be there.” Five thousand men last Sunday night said, “We are ready, Mother, when you call on us.”
The revolution is here. We can tie up every wheel, every railroad in the State, when we want to do it. Tyranny, robbery and oppression of the people must go. The children must be educated. The childhood will rise to grander woman and grander man in happy homes and happy families-then we will need no saloons. We will need no saloons, nor any of your prohibition. As long as you rob us, of course we drink. The poison food you give us needs some other narcotic to knock the poison out of it. They charge you $2.40 for a bushel of potatoes at the “pluck-me” store. Ten pounds of slate in 9700 pounds of coal and you are docked-then they go and “give for Jesus.” “How charming Mr. Cabell is, he gives us $500.00.”
Let us, my friends, stand up like men. I have worked for the best interests of the working people for seventy-five years. I don’t need any one to protect me. I protect myself. I don’t break the law. Nobody molests me, except John Laing. John is the only dog in West Virginia that attacks a woman. He is the only fellow that would do that. I am not afraid of John Laing. I would give him a punch in the stomach and knock him over the railroad. I don’t know who punched him-he lost his pistol. I put my hand on him and told him to go home to his mother. I gave him a punch in the stomach, and he fell over the railroad track and lost his pistol. He didn’t know he lost it until he reached home.
He said, “You are disturbing my miners.” My slaves! Scabs! Dogs!
[…..]
Shame! Forever shame! on the men and women in the State of West Virginia that stand for such a picture as we have here today-[Referring to the children of the coal camps who marched in the parade]-Shame! When the history is written, what will it be, my friends, when the history of this crime, starvation and murder of the innocents, so they can fill the operators’ pockets, and build dog kennels for the workers. Is it right? Will it ever be right?
Now, I understand Mr. White is going to speak at the court house. He will have something to tell you.
This strike ain’t going to end until we get a check-weighman on the tipple. That is the law. It is on the statute books-that your coal will be weighed….
You miners here have stood for it, you have starved your children, starved yourselves, you have lived in dog-kennels-they wouldn’t build one for their dogs as bad as yours. You have lived in them and permitted them to rob you, and then got the militia for the robbers. You can get all the militia in the state, we will fight it to the finish-if the men don’t fight the women will. They won’t stand for it.
Be good, boys, don’t drink. Subscribe for the Labor Argus. If I was sentenced to sixteen months to jail, and these guys found it out I would be in jail longer. I don’t worry about it. I am down at the Fleetwood when ever they want to put me in jail for violation of the law, come along for me, come. There is coming a day when I will take the whole bunch of you and put you in jail. (Applause.)
[Photograph added.]
From the Baltimore Sun of September 22, 1912:
LABOR CONFERENCE VAIN ———- Refusal To Take Up Kanawha Coal Troubles Keeps Union Men Away. ———-
Charleston, W. Va., Sept 21.-The representatives of the commercial and civic bodies of West Virginia called by Governor Glasscock to consider the labor situation adjourned this afternoon after an exciting session without having accomplished anything.
International President John P. White, of the United Mine Workers of America, with Vice-President Hayes, announced early in the day that they would have nothing to do with the conference because they had learned that it was not the purpose of those in charge of the meeting to permit a discussion of the strike situation in the Kanawha coal field, where 1,200 West Virginia militiamen are maintaining martial law……
Hayes Addresses Strikers.
Vice-President Hayes addressed a large audience of striking miners and their sympathizers, and Mother Jones talked to another audience almost within the shadow of the State Capitol…..
Children Parade Streets.
One of the striking features of the day was the appearance on the streets of 100 children of striking miners, brought down from the mountains by “Mother” Jones.
They paraded the streets to the music of a band and bearing banners with these legends,
We are the babes that sleep in the woods.
We want to go to school and not to the mines.
The children, miners’ leaders say, were among those compelled to live much in the open since martial law was declared.
Hellraisers Journal –Thursday October 17, 1912 “This Is War and War Is Hell” by John W. Brown, Part III
From The Coming Nation of October 12, 1912:
[Part III of III]
Killing Unborn Babes
The most heart rending testimony was that given by Mrs. Taney Sevillis [Gianiana Seville, Mrs. Tony Seville] who told how her baby was born dead after the brutal mine guards fired bullets through her house. This poor mother terrified, fled for safety to the home of Mrs. Waters, the wife of the mine foreman. Mrs. Waters, in testifying before the commission, said: “She was as white as a ghost when she ran into my house. She fell on her knees before me and made the sign of the cross. ‘Oh save me, save me, my baby, my baby, my poor baby,’ she cried, and I took her in and a month later the baby was born dead. The doctor said it had been dead several weeks.”
Mrs. Charles Fish, the wife of a miner, testified to how she and sixty-three others, men and women and children, had hid from the guards in a cellar for twenty-four hours after they had been driven from their homes by the fiendish guards, and how at length they fled over the hills, hungry, dirty, unkempt and sick from their long fast in the dark cellar. She told how she was beaten and choked by the guards when she informed the strike-breakers at the railway station that there was a strike on at that place to which they were being shipped.
The prices charged the miners at the “Pluck-me-stores” which are owned by the coal barons and the difference between these prices and the price of the same article in Charleston furnish another chapter in the evidence being taken. Potatoes which sell in Charleston for 85 cents per bushel are sold to the miners for $2.60. Arbuckle Coffee which can be bought anywhere for 25 cents per pound costs the miner 40 cents. Flour, sugar, bacon, beans and everything else which goes to make up a miner’s diet is sold on the same basis.
When one stops to consider that the miners on Paint Creek and Cabin Creek are mining coal for 19 cents per ton less than the miners get in union fields; that in union fields 2,000 pounds constitutes a ton while in the non-union fields the coal barons exact 2,240 pounds for a ton, and not only that, but in the non-union fields they do not even weigh the coal; on the contrary, the miner has to load a car which is supposed to hold 2,240 pounds, but which in fact holds anywhere from 2,500 to 3,000 pounds, the wonder is not that the miners have revolted against such inhuman conditions; the wonder is that they have stood it as long as they have. However, the revolt is on and not only the miners but the people as a whole are aroused.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday October 12, 1902 Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1902, Part III Found in Hiteman, Iowa, Supporting John P. Reese for Congress
From the Ottumwa Semi-Weekly Courier of September 30, 1902:
SHE ASKS FOR REESE VOTES ———- ”Mother” Jones Tells Miners to Elect One of Their Number to Congress. ———-
HER IMPASSIONED SPEECH AT HITEMAN ———-
SHE APPEALS TO THE TOILERS TO AWAKEN AND SHOW THE WORLD THAT THEY ARE ABOUT TO “ASSERT THEIR RIGHTS TO A FAIR SHARE OF EARTH’S RICHES.” ———-
In an impassioned address in which she sought to show the evils of the injunction, Mother Jones, the woman trades unionist and socialist, appealed to the miners and citizens of Hiteman Saturday afternoon to elect John P. Reese to congress, in order that he might introduce a bill taking from the federal courts the right to issue the injunction.She cited the effect the “one-man instrument,” as she called it, has had upon the strikers in the West Virginia coal fields, and stated that the strike would not have lasted more than two weeks if it had not been for the injunction. A short address was made by John P. Reese, who was chairman of the meeting, prior to Mother Jones’ speech.
In introducing Mother Jones to the audience Mr. Reese took occasion to thank the people of Hiteman and the members of the local miners’ union especially for the support they have given him during his term as president of the district miners’ organization, from which he is about to retire in order to commence his fight against Hon. John F. Lacey for the election to congress to represent the sixth district of Iowa.
Mother Jones is an avowed socialist. She points to the great day which she says is surely approaching, when the laboring millions shall rise in their might and claim a just share of the riches which they have produced and turned over to their employers. She says that conditions are leading up to a great climax. Her speech, which had much to do with the evils which she claimed were caused by the injunction, ended with a long appeal for support for Mr. Reese in his candidacy.
Mr. Reese Talks.
The meeting was to have been a part of the picnic planned by the people of Hiteman, to take the place of a Labor Day celebration, but owing to the inclement weather the big event was declared off. However, the people were not to be cheated out of an address by Mother Jones, and consequently they held a meeting at the opera house in Hiteman in the afternoon. The first address was by John P. White, of Oskaloosa, secretary-treasurer of the district organization of the United Mine Workers. During his speech Mr. Reese and Mother Jones arrived.
James Baxter, of Hiteman, was temporary chairman of the meeting, and at the completion of Mr. White’s speech he introduced John P. Reese as the permanent chairman. Mr. Reese took charge of the meeting, [and addressed] his former associates, the residents of the town where he resided as a coal miner a few years ago; and from which he went to take his position as president of the district miners’ union…..
[Mr. Reese said, in part:]
I will say that whatever the future may hold in store for me, I assure the miners of Hiteman and the citizens of this town that you will find that I will continue to be one of you in reality, and that I will continue to hold my membership in your union as long as I am eligible.
Now I want to introduce to you the only miner who wears skirts; the only miner who is allowed to belong to every local in the country at one time; the only miner who does not wear a pit cap; a woman who has the respect and love of every miner in America; a woman who, before she has finished her speech, will convince you that the mission of labor is a holy one; that the labor organizations have accomplished more progress during their existence than has any other similar organization during the same length of time during the history of the world. Ladies and gentlemen, I take great pleasure in introducing to you “Our” Mother Jones.
Mother Jones’ Address.
A round of enthusiastic applause greeted Mother Jones as Mr. Reese closed his speech, and she bowed in acknowledgement. After a selection by the band, she advanced to the front of the stage. Her hearers were interested because of her statements, although the speech in itself is not connected throughout. She said:
Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Toilers: —This is my first visit among you. It is not my first nor my last visit among workers. Away back among the ages we find that from the time the human race left the cradle and began to learn to talk there was planted in the bosom of mankind a desire to advance, to march forward; a desire for greater, nobler things. That desire has followed us down the stairway of time and has each day pressed on until the toilers are awaking now in such a way as the world never knew. Today we are confronted with conditions never known before.
Class Separation.
The people are being separated. Events are bringing to the mind the deep thinker of today the realization that there is a great evolution, a great revolution, going on in the world. Society is divided. The lines are closely drawn. On one side is a handful of human beings with all the wealth the human race has created in ages in their hands. On the other side is a multitude of people, robbed, oppressed, downcast, but pleading for the time when the human race shall possess its own. We look back into history and as we realize what the conditions were, and we thank Providence for the light that is beginning to dawn upon civilization…..
[Mother Jones on Trial in West Virginia]
As soon as I entered the court room I told my comrades [fellow U. M. W. organizers] that we were all convicted and that we might as well stand up and be sentenced…
The judge [John J. Jackson] asked me what right I had to come among the miners of West Virginia and disturb them. I answered him that I was a citizen of the United States and as such that I had a right to go anywhere in the country that I pleased. That judge was cornered and he asked me nothing more. But in the closing argument of the prosecuting attorney the most dangerous statement was made. It meant more than he, or anyone else but myself, probably, realized.
Points Out Danger.
He said in his argument to the court: “Owing to the fact that this is the most dangerous woman in the United States today, and owing to the fact that she can go among the miners and commence a disturbance at any time, if she will consent to leave the state of West Virginia and stay away, I would suggest that the court should have mercy on her.” Leave the state never to return! Mind you what that meant. Think of a public official making a statement of that kind…..
Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 30, 1912 Charleston, West Virginia – President White Issues Statement
From The Farmer and Mechanic (Raleigh, N. C.) of September 24, 1912:
MEETING TO PLAN PACIFIC OUTCOME MET WITH REBUFF ———- Mine-Workers’ Organization Officials Refused to Participate In It ———-
CONFERENCE IS POSTPONED ———- Excitement Attended Gathering to Settle Mine Labor Dispute in West Virginia ———-
STATEMENT TO GOVERNOR
(By the Associated Press.)
Lake County Times Hammond, Indiana September 26, 1912
Charleston, W. Va., Sept 21.-Excitement attended the meeting here today of representatives of the commercial and civic bodies of West Virginia, called by Gov. Glasscock, to consider the labor situation.
International President John P. White, of the United Mine-workers of America, with Vice-President Hayes, announced early in the day that they would have nothing to do with the conference because they had learned that it was not the purpose of those in charge of the meeting to permit a discussion of the strike situation in the Kanawha coal field, where 2,200 West Virginia militiamen are maintaining martial law.
Why It Was Twice Postponed.
The meeting was postponed in an effort to bring the leaders of the miners and the operators together, and later in the day it was postponed again, but when it finally convened there was nothing to indicate that an agreement had been reached by which a discussion of existing labor difficulties might be taken up.
President White’s Statement.
President White prepared a statement for presentation to the governor in which he said:
We were led to believe that the conference called by the governor was for the purpose of discussing the present strike, and to find some method by which it might be amicably adjusted, but in a preliminary conference in the governor’s office which brought to our attention by the parties who appealed to the governor to call the conference, that its purpose was solely for the discussion of an industrial dispute act to be submitted to the next legislature and it was not contemplated in any way to enter into a discussion of the real problem of the problem of the present hour, an honorable solution of the difference existing at this time between miners and operators. We are much disappointed that this conference does not contemplate such discussion and in view of this fact we have nothing to discuss at this time.
Hayes Addresses Strikers.
This statement did not change the situation so far as White was concerned and while efforts were being made to outline a course of action for the conference, Vice-President Hayes addressed a large number of striking miners and their sympathizers and Mother Jones talked to another audience almost with the shadow of the state capitol.
Belated Conference Short One.
When the governor called the conference to order late in the afternoon the house of delegates in the capitol building was crowded. The governor stated that the conference would consider the question of a minimum wage, high cost of living and settlement of future labor troubles by arbitration but the miners strike on Paint and Cabin Creeks would not be discussed.
Adjourned in Confusion.
C. Burgess Taylor of Wheeling, was introduced as chairman and the question of who had a right to sit in the meeting arose, it having been given out that only West Virginians could take part. A statement presented by coal operators of the State that their “presence in this conference is not to be taken as recognition of the United Mine Workers of America,” finally created such confusion that a motion to adjourn was put and carried.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 23, 1912 Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting
From the Baltimore Sun of September 22, 1912:
LABOR CONFERENCE VAIN ———- Refusal To Take Up Kanawha Coal Troubles Keeps Union Men Away. ———-
Charleston, W. Va., Sept 21.-The representatives of the commercial and civic bodies of West Virginia called by Governor Glasscock to consider the labor situation adjourned this afternoon after an exciting session without having accomplished anything.
International President John P. White, of the United Mine Workers of America, with Vice-President Hayes, announced early in the day that they would have nothing to do with the conference because they had learned that it was not the purpose of those in charge of the meeting to permit a discussion of the strike situation in the Kanawha coal field, where 1,200 West Virginia militiamen are maintaining martial law……
Hayes Addresses Strikers.
Vice-President Hayes addressed a large audience of striking miners and their sympathizers, and Mother Jones talked to another audience almost within the shadow of the State Capitol…..
Children Parade Streets.
One of the striking features of the day was the appearance on the streets of 100 children of striking miners, brought down from the mountains by “Mother” Jones.
They paraded the streets to the music of a band and bearing banners with these legends,
We are the babes that sleep in the woods.
We want to go to school and not to the mines.
The children, miners’ leaders say, were among those compelled to live much in the open since martial law was declared.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
September 21, 1912, Charleston, West Virginia -Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting Following Parade of Strikers’ Children:
I want to say to those children, they will be free; they will not be serfs. We have entered West Virginia-I have-and a hundred thousand miners have pledged their support to me, “If you need us, Mother, we will be there.” Five thousand men last Sunday night said, “We are ready, Mother, when you call on us.”
The revolution is here. We can tie up every wheel, every railroad in the State, when we want to do it. Tyranny, robbery and oppression of the people must go. The children must be educated. The childhood will rise to grander woman and grander man in happy homes and happy families-then we will need no saloons. We will need no saloons, nor any of your prohibition. As long as you rob us, of course we drink. The poison food you give us needs some other narcotic to knock the poison out of it. They charge you $2.40 for a bushel of potatoes at the “pluck-me” store. Ten pounds of slate in 9700 pounds of coal and you are docked-then they go and “give for Jesus.” “How charming Mr. Cabell is, he gives us $500.00.”
Let us, my friends, stand up like men. I have worked for the best interests of the working people for seventy-five years. I don’t need any one to protect me. I protect myself. I don’t break the law. Nobody molests me, except John Laing. John is the only dog in West Virginia that attacks a woman. He is the only fellow that would do that. I am not afraid of John Laing. I would give him a punch in the stomach and knock him over the railroad. I don’t know who punched him-he lost his pistol. I put my hand on him and told him to go home to his mother. I gave him a punch in the stomach, and he fell over the railroad track and lost his pistol. He didn’t know he lost it until he reached home.
He said, “You are disturbing my miners.” My slaves! Scabs! Dogs!
Boys, I want to say here, don’t go near the saloon today. You need the money to buy bread. When we win this fight then we will make pure liquor. We will go to Washington-we will go to see Taft, because Wilson and the Bull Moose will be out of business. We will make Congress take over the liquor question, and make them make pure liquor. It will be like the postage stamps. We will need it for our stomachs. These fellows that are howling to make it “dry”-we will make it devilish wet-we are going to hand it all over to Uncle Sam. We won’t put the brewers out of business, we will make Uncle Sam put them all to work, and reduce the hours of labor to six. The operators said, “God Almighty, what are you talking about? Six hours!” Then we will go home to the children, and nurse and feed them. We will take the children out in the sunshine-(Cries of: “We will own the land”)-and bring happiness into our homes. And then you will not want to drink. We will have a violin and music in every home, and the children will dance. Shame! Forever shame! on the men and women in the State of West Virginia that stand for such a picture as we have here today-[Referring to the children of the coal camps who marched in the parade]-Shame! When the history is written, what will it be, my friends, when the history of this crime, starvation and murder of the innocents, so they can fill the operators’ pockets, and build dog kennels for the workers. Is it right? Will it ever be right?
—————
————–
—————
—————
—————
—————
—————
—————