Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 20, 1920
-Mother Jones News for May 1920, Part II
Found Described by John D. Barry and Speaking in Streator, Illinois
From The Pacific Commercial Advertiser of May 15, 1920:
AN EVENING WITH MOTHER JONES
BY JOHN D. BARRY
The News “New York’s Picture Newspaper” May 7, 1920
A few months ago I heard someone say: “I wonder where Mother Jones is now. I suppose that, like many an other she has pulled in her horns and gone into retirement.”
I thought of those words as I listened to the old lady in Los Angeles recently, on her way to San Francisco, and heard her declare in that deep, strong voice of hers, the highly developed voice of the practiced orator, that she had passed her ninetieth milestone.
“You’ve got a lot of fight in you yet,” said a man who had himself long been a fighter for good cause.
[Mother Jones announced:]
Whenever there’s a fight for labor, I want to be there. I’m still in the ring.
I wondered if those fights hadn’t been the means of keeping her so well and young. She fulfilled the law emphasized by the psychologists, that life, to be a success, must mean persistent devotion to the ideals of the mind and the spirit. Her ideals had been high. They had exacted hard service. She had lived up to them devotedly.
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She knew that a group of us had come to hear her talk and it was characteristic of her good humor to talk freely for our entertainment and enlightenment. She was evidently a born story teller. She had a dramatic quality that, under different circumstances, might have made her a great actress or a great playwright. Her memory was like a series of brilliant slides. Now she would give us one picture, now another.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 19, 1920
-Mother Jones News for May 1920, Part I
Found in Washington, D. C., Age 90 and Fit to Fight Another 40 Years
From The Washington Times of May 4, 1920:
“SISSIES”
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Mother Jones on 90th Birthday Pays Respects
to Prohibition Advocates.
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‘SUFFS” GIVE HER PAIN
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Wants to Live Forty Years More
to Fight “Wall Street Rats.”
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The Topeka Daily State Journal May 4, 1920
Mother Jones came to town today breezily announcing that she had just observed her ninetieth birthday and was fit for forty more years of battle against “them Wall Street sewer rats.”
It was suggested that she might live long enough to see a woman President of the United States.
“May God save us!” she said.
She looked sharply at the reporter.
[She said:]
Maybe you’re one of them fools who’s worrying about the women not getting the ballot. It won’t hurt the country any if they don’t. It’ll help. Colorado elected some good men until them women out there got to voting.
The women of today give me a pain. Whining for the ballot like sick cats! Do you find ’em at home rearing their babes in fine ideals. No, you find ’em at the club uplifting the nation smoking cigarettes or dancing the fol-de-rol, looking like naked hussies. Ask ’em why they don’t put their nightgowns on and they get insulted. Say ‘Hell’ before them like an honest woman and they faint with shame. And where d’ye find their babes? At the picture show.
Reminiscing, she lamented the passing of the era “when the America of Patrick Henry was still on the throne and people were clean and fine and you got pure whiskey.”
“That was seventy-five years ago,” she said. “None of them prohibition sissies running around taking nourishment out of the mouths of honest working men.”
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 – Thursday June 3, 1920
Minneapolis, Minnesota – May Day-I. W. W. and A. F. L March Together
From The One Big Union Monthly of June 1920:
[Part II of II.]
Some of those in charge attempted to turn the speaking into a “campaign rally” to boost some local aspirants for different political offices and relegate all other speakers to the rear and have the crowd tired out before any genuine working class speakers could get the platform, and they succeeded to a certain extent; but when W. F. Dunne, editor of the Butte Daily Bulletin, managed to get the floor he lost no time in explaining how the Workers’ International Labor Day had been desecrated by those who had no other desire except to get into office, no matter how, and that those who would stoop to misuse Labor’s holiday would need watching.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 2, 1920
Minneapolis, Minnesota – May Day Celebrated by 10,000 Workers
From The One Big Union Monthly of June 1920:
[Part I of II.]
On May 1st, 1919, when the workers of Minneapolis attempted to celebrate International Labor Day, their parade was broken up several times by the police and other willing tools of the money interests, but they always succeeded in reforming and managed to continue their parade until their destination had been reached. All speaking was stopped by the police, but that did not seem to dampen the spirit of the workers, as will be seen from what happened on May 1st, 1920.
Only about two thousand participated in 1919, but as a result of police opposition all unions in Minneapolis took part in one gigantic parade on May 1st, 1920, with the result that close to 10,000 workers were participants in the largest and most enthusiastic May Day celebration that Minneapolis ever had. Not a word was said in regard to this by most of the local news perverters. Only one paper had the decency to mention the affair, in spite of the fact that it was one of the most important events of the day.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 1, 1920
Atlanta Penitentiary – Eugene Debs Accepts Nomination for President
From The Atlanta Constitution of May 30, 1920:
DEBS POINTS WAY FOR SOCIALISTS
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Praises Russian Russian Revolution, and
Criticises Platform When Notified of
Presidential Nomination.
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Expression of keen but friendly criticism of the socialist platform, as adopted in New York city, and of sentiments of sympathy with the Russian revolution, which Eugene V. Debs declared the greatest achievement of all time, were the features of the unique ceremony conducted in the federal prison in Atlanta Saturday morning, when the prisoner was formally notified by a committee of his party that he had been nominated for president by the socialists.
Every possible courtesy was extended the committee and the aged convict by the prison authorities. There were some fifteen people present at the notification, some seven of them socialists, perhaps as many newspaper men, and a fellow prisoner of Debs-Joe Caldwell, of Rhode Island, a member of the communist party.
The exercises were held in a beautifully lighted room on the ground floor, with a nice view through the barred windows. Just before this took place. Debs met his friends in the hallway and kissed each one, four men and one woman-Dr. Madge Patton Stephens, from Terre Haute, his home town, and a friend of his family. Then, for half an hour, a moving picture man snapped all conceivable poses of the nominee and his committee.
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 – Wednesday May 26, 1920
Matewan, West Virginia – Chief of Police Sid Hatfield Arrested
From The Wheeling Intelligencer of May 25, 1920:
MATEWAN, W. Va., May 24.-Sid Hatfield, chief of police of Matewan, Mingo county, and nine others were arrested today and taken to Williamson, where they were arraigned before Judge James Damron of the circuit court, charged with the murder of L. C. Felts and other Baldwin-Felts detectives in the recent Matewan riots.
They waived examination and were released on bond in the sum of $3,000 each.
Among the men arrested with Hatfield were: Reese Chambers, Clare Overstreet, Charle Kiser, Douglas Mounts, [Ed] Chambers, Ezra Fry, Billy Bowmen and two others.
The men were taken to Williamson by Jackson Arnold, chief of the state department of public safety, and other members of the state constabulary.
Other arrests are expected, as fifteen warrants have been issued for miners. Warrants have also been issued for the four surviving detectives who are alleged to have participated in the battle.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 25, 1920
Matewan, West Virginia – Correspondent Russ Simonton on “Yaller Dog”
From the Harrisburg Evening News of May 24, 1920:
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MATEFAN [Matewan], W. Va., May 24.-State police patrol this coal town because Americans refused to sign away their rights as citizens.
Here is the history of the events which led a few days ago to the killing of Mayor Testerman, it is said, in cold blood, by mine private detectives [Baldwin-Felts gunthugs], and a battle between citizens and detectives that cost a total of twelve lives.
Fighting Union
Matewan miners want to affiliate with the United Mine Workers of America. Mine operators of the Tug Creek District are opposed to any labor organizations.
Organizers were sent here last April. They held street meetings. A few miners joined them, then right and left those who joined lost their jobs. These men became organizers themselves. Obviously that sort of thing could not continue long. There are 6000 miners in this district and two-thirds or more live in company houses and buy food from company stores.
“Yaller Dog” Appears
The “Yaller Dog” soon made its appearance. It is a marvelous document. In part It reads:
In consideration of my employment I agree that I will not affiliate with or give assistance to any union or labor organization without first giving you notice. Should I fall to comply with this agreement, our relations shall be terminated. I will leave your premises and will surrender without notice any house occupied by me, it being understood that such house is incident to my employ.
The “Yaller Dog” made no favorable impression with these drawling, slow-moving hill miners.
Not half a dozen signed the agreement.
Wholesale firing began and man after man was discharged and several mines boarded up their drifts and loaded the miners out.
Then Hughie Coombs, Methodist minister and one of the first men discharged for joining the union, arranged, he said, that if dispossession proceedings should be started, the sheriff [George Blankenship] of Mingoco [Mingo Co.] should serve the papers.
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