Tag: John Potlar

Hellraisers Journal: Coal Companies Paid Westmoreland County Sheriff to Employ Private Army of Deputized Gunthugs

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote fr Westmoreland Strike by James Cole, ab Aug1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 7, 1911
Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania – Sheriff Paid to Recruit  Private Army

From the Appeal to Reason of February 4, 1911:

A PRIVATE ARMY.
———-

PA Miners Strike, Family of J Potlar, ISR p142, Sept 1910

Investigations at Greensburg, Pa., showed that the coal companies paid Sheriff Shields $143,147.42 for deputy service during the coal strike. Deputies were paid from $3 to $15 a day each. While the constitution says that no private army shall be maintained, these coal companies hired a private army and gave it official sanction by hiring it through the sheriff. The deputies were all thugs from the outside, hired like Hessians, used as Hessians, and they acted like Hessians.

Had the coal miners wisdom enough to elect a Socialist sheriff, that sheriff would have protected the property of the mines, yes-but he would have hired every striking miner, paying them three dollars a day each, armed them, and kept them so long as the strike lasted. The miners, getting three dollars a day could have waited a long time for the strike to end-as long as the operators. But the working people votes for the capitalist sheriff and judges, and they get just what they vote for.

How long, O Lord, how long will you workers vote to be the beasts of burden for corporation. Socialism will give you freedom, will give you a living that free men deserve, will make you masters instead of wage slaves. Wake up. 

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Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: Class War in Irwin Coal Field by Thomas F. Kennedy, Part II

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Brutal Ruling Class, Cnc Pst p7, May 31, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 23, 1910
Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania – Cossacks Terrorize Irwin Coalfield Strike

From the International Socialist Review of September 1910:

PA Miners Strike, HdLn Class War by TF Kennedy, ISR p141, Sept 1910

Cossacks vs. “Black Hundreds.”

Brutal as the state constabulary have shown themselves on numerous occasions the testimony on all sides is overwhelming that compared with the thugs and bums engaged as deputies by the coal companies the State Police are gentlemen.

One of the odd developments is the cordial dislike of the State Police for the deputies. The State Police are not backward about declaring that practically all of the rioting and killing has been caused by the deputies. You must understand that economic interests are at the bottom of this feeling of these two forces for each other. The rank and file of the Police get $60.00 a month and board, no matter what is doing. When all is quiet they get their pay for patroling some country road on a well groomed saddle horse. If there must be a strike they would much rather see a nice quiet orderly one where there are no riots.

But the deputies are in a different boat. If all were quiet they would have no occupation. So to make their jobs secure they must keep something doing all the time. They explode a charge of dynamite under the corner of an unoccupied house, fire a lot of shots some night or when they meet an unarmed striker on the highway slug him or arrest him. When there is any real duty to perform, when there is a batch of strike breakers expected who must be prevented from talking to the strikers the first thing they do is fill up with whiskey. At one hotel where a bunch of them stopped, six drinks of whiskey in their stomachs and a half pint in their pockets was the regular ration, before going out on any special duty.

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Hellraisers Journal: From International Socialist Review: Class War in Irwin Coal Field by Thomas F. Kennedy, Part I

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Brutal Ruling Class, Cnc Pst p7, May 31, 1910———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 22, 1910
Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania – Class War Continues in Irwin Coal Field

From the International Socialist Review of September 1910:

PA Miners Strike, Class War by TF Kennedy, ISR p141, Sept 1910

[Part I of II.]

Letter T, ISR p828, Mar 1910

HE Strike” are the words most appropriate to designate an article dealing with the situation in the Irwin coal field, because it is the strike of the year if not of the decade. There was nothing out of the ordinary about any of the other strikes that have occurred so far this year. The biggest strike in point of numbers and duration is that of the Illinois miners. It has been since its inception strictly orthodox, including the conflict of authority between the district organizations and the National Board and President Lewis. In Illinois both sides were, and had for years, been organized. All of the arts of diplomacy and bargaining were exhausted before the strike was declared. It is warm, pulsing stomachs against steel safes full of gold. 

The Irwin strike is rashly unorthodox. Excepting the formal declaration it has all of the characteristics of a violent revolution.

More persons have been killed, injured and taken prisoners than in many of the bloody uprisings in the Balkans or South America which are so regularly exploited on the front pages of the “Joinals.”

Fifteen persons, two of them women, have met violent bloody deaths. Some of these were killed in open conflict, others in skirmishes, but most of them were brutal, cold-blooded murder of men who dared to tell a prospective scab that there was a strike on.

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