Hellraisers Journal: International Socialist Review: The Challenge to West Virginia’s Socialist Party by L. H. Marcy, Part I

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Quote Ralph Chaplin, WV Miners Longing for the Spring, Leaves, Paint Creek Miner, ISR p736, Apr 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 4, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – Governor Hatfield Vows to Jail or Deport Socialists

From the International Socialist Review of June 1913:

Hatfield’s Challenge to the Socialist Party

By Leslie H. Marcy

[Part I of III]

SPA Emblem, ISR p881, June 1913

Governor Hatfield has declared that every active Socialist in West Virginia shall be jailed or deported. Wholesale arrests of Socialists without warrants have already been made; trials by jury denied; our papers confiscated; presses wrecked and Editors jailed. Shall we stand for our comrades being absolutely within the power of this tool of the Coal Trust and the tin soldiers whom he commands?

AFTER a reign of terror and absolute lawlessness on the part of the mine owners and some of the constituted authorities in West Virginia for many months, the United Mine Workers of America have signed a truce with Governor Hatfield.

The representatives of the miners on Paint and Cabin Creeks and Coal River, after a stormy session, acceded to the Governor’s recommendation as a basis for a settlement of the strike.

Lawrence Peggy Dwyer, ISR p881, June 1913

The convention roll was made up of ninety-three delegates, of which eighty-five were native West Virginians. At no time until the fourth day could those who favored the Governor’s recommendation have secured a majority vote. In fact, many of the delegates came to the convention instructed to vote against the recommendation. On the final ballot a number of the delegates requested to be recorded as having voted against adoption, despite the fact that the sixteen representatives of the United Mine Workers, both state and national, with the exception of two, exerted their influence in favor of the recommendation, as did the attorneys of the organization. They yielded to the Governor’s demands with great reluctance.

In accepting the proposition of the Governor, the miners called his attention to the fact that each of the promises made by him, with the exception of the nine-hour day and semi-monthly payday, to which the operators acceded, are statutory rights granted the miners by law.

The Governor promised that the guard system should be abolished under his administration.

The recommendations were as follows:
Rights of miners to select check weighman.
Nine-hour day, at same scale of wages as now paid.
No discrimination.
Prices at commissary stores same as elsewhere.
Semi-monthly payday.

There are many who do not believe the Governor will carry out his promises, but in the meantime the miners have gone back to work.

War on the Socialist Party.

Socialists in West Virginia write that nearly all of the imprisoned striking miners, who are not active in the Socialist Party, have been released. Mother Jones also has been set at liberty.

In writing Senator Kern, she says:

I do not yet know that I am free, but I am inclined to think it was none of his (the Governor’s) good wishes.

In the meantime Governor Hatfield has waged a relentless war against all active Socialists. No other one has been released. The Governor has sworn to DRIVE SOCIALISM from the state.

John F. Parsons, A. D. Lavender, E. B. Vickers, Tom Miskel, Charles Kenney, Cleave Vickers, John Sachrist, G. W. Lavender, Nelson Treadway, John Brown, National Committeeman of the S. P ., Charles H. Boswell, editor of the Labor Argus, all Socialists, are still held incommunicado.

Fred Merrick, editor of the Pittsburgh Justice, who was filling Boswell’s place on the Argus, was seized, thrown into prison by the Governor’s orders and the paper confiscated.

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: Photos of Mother Jones, Found with Frank Hayes at Military Bastile

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Quote Mother Jones fr Military Bastile, Cant Shut Me Up, AtR p1, May 10, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 3, 1913
Pratt, West Virginia – Photo of Mother Jones with Frank Hayes at Military Bastile

From the International Socialist Review of June 1913:

Mother Jones, ISR Cv, June 1913—–Mother Jones w Frank Hayes, Military Bastile, ISR p887, June 1913—–Mother Jones Night Meeting of Miners WV, ISR p887, June 1913

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Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones, “The Angel of the Mines” by Nora Gillespie-“The Old She-Devil” to Owners and Operators

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Quote Mother Jones, WV Court Martial, No Plea to Make, Ptt Pst p3, Mar 8, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 2, 1913
Mother Jones, “The Very Incarnation of Aggressive and Fighting Labor”

From the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star of May 30, 1913:

The Angel of The Mines.
———-

By NORA GILLESPIE.

Mother Jones, Cora Older, at Military Bastile WV, Colliers p26, Apr 1913

Seventy-three years ago there fled from Ireland a political refugee, with a little girl of eight, taking refuge in the land of freedom. Thus the spirit of rebellion and revolt is the heritage of the most noted and talked-of woman in the U. S. today. Mother Jones has stood for so many years as the very incarnation of aggressive and fighting labor, that it is very hard to picture her as a school teacher, and as a busy wife and mother fulfilling her domestic duty in the home. Yet she was all of these. She had a good education and taught school for several years before she married a worker, a staunch union man, and she, soon began organizing other workingmen’s wives into an auxiliary realizing even at that early stage the value of organization for the workers whether they be men or women.

Four children were born to her in rapid succession, and the wives of workingmen will understand what her life was for six years, when the great tragedy took place, which changed her from the mother of four to the mother of the working class.

An epidemic [of yellow fever] broke out in the town [Memphis, 1867] where she lived and in the space of seven days she saw death take from her one after another, her husband and four children. It was overwhelming and the average woman would have succumbed utterly. But not Mother Jones of the great heart and rebellious spirit. All the love, devotion and self-sacrifice she would have bestowed upon her own dear ones became transmuted into a declaration for the cause of labor. Here is heroism for you in comparison with which DYING for a cause seems insignificant. To determine to LIVE for a cause, when your own life is shattered and your whole being pleads-that is the very flower of heroism.

Since that time the story of Mother Jones has been the story of the labor war that goes on and must go on in every country where workers are exploited to make profit for shirkers, and always has she taken her place on the firing line. Neither the bullpen nor the jail have held any terrors for her and she [has] known the inside of both.

“The Angel of the Mines” has other names, one of which is “the old she-devil,” which the owners of the earth and the fullness thereof apply to her. This is a good example of the difference in classes.

[Photograph, paragraph breaks and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From The Socialist and Labor Star: Debs, Berger and Germer Investigate Conditions in West Virginia

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Quote Mother Jones, WV on Trial re Military Court Martial, Speech NYC Carnegie Hall, NYCl p, May 28, 1913, per Foner—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 1, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – Socialists Committee Investigates Industrial Conditions 

From the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star of May 30, 1913:

HdLn re SPA NEC WV Investigation, EVD Berger Germer, Htg Sc Lbr Str p1, May 30, 1913

From The Coming Nation of May 24, 1913:

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