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Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 21, 1914
Mrs. Gertrude Lee of Colorado’s Democratic Party Could Help Free Mother Jones
From The Cincinnati Post of January 20, 1914
-Write or Wire Mrs. Lee, of Colorado’s Democratic Party, to Help Free Mother Jones:
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 10, 1913
Mother Jones and the Civil War in the Kanawha County Coalfields
From The Survey of April 5, 1913:
Mother Jones
[-by Harold West]
The developments of the winter have been under the regime of a third governor, who came to the state house at season when part of the commonwealth was under martial law. In March came the trials of a number of the strikers their sympathizers-approximately fifty-by a military court on charges of inciting to riot, conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to destroy property. Among those in prison is Mother Jones, the “Stormy Petrel of Labor” who is always present in big labor disturbances, especially those of the miners and the railroad men. She has given the best part of her life to the cause of laboring men and they adore he.
This old woman, more than 80 years of age, was in the mines when I went there and I got to know her well. She passed the word along to the men that I was “all right” and reticent as they are to strangers, they told me their side of the case without reservation.
I have been with Mother Jones when she was compelled “to walk the creek,” having been forbidden to go upon the footpaths that happened to be upon the property of the companies and denied even the privilege of walking along the railroad track although hundreds of miners and others were walking on it at the time. She was compelled to keep to the county road although it was in the bed of the creek and the water was over her ankles. I protested to the chief of the guards saying that no matter what her attitude might be, no matter how much she might be hated, that she was an old woman and common humanity would dictate that she be not ill treated. I was told that she was an old “she-devil” and that she would receive no “courtesies” there, that she was responsible for all the trouble that had occurred and that she would receive no consideration from the companies.
I was with her when she was denied “the privilege” of going up the footway to the house of one of the miners in order to get a cup of tea. It was then afternoon, she had walked several miles and was faint, having had nothing to eat since an early breakfast. But that did not shut her mouth. She made the speech she had arranged to make to the men who had gathered to hear her although they had to line up on each side of the roadway to avoid “obstructing the highway,” a highway that was almost impassable to wheeled vehicle and which there was no travel. And in that speech she counseled moderation, told the men to keep strictly within the law and to protect the company’s property instead of doing anything to injure it.
I had several long talks with her. When she speaks to the miners she talks in their own vernacular and occasionally swears. She was a normal school teacher in her early days, and in her talks with me in the home of one of her friends in the “free town” of Eskdale, she used the language of the cultured woman. And this is the old woman whom nearly all the operators in the non-union fields fear, and whose coming among their workers they dread more than the coming of a pestilence. They now have her safely in jail.
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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 6, 1913
Kanawha County, West Virginia – Rights of West Virginians Must Be Restored
From The Wheeling Majority of April 3, 1913:
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Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 3, 1913
Ralph Chaplin Travels with Comrade Rumbaugh to West Virginia Strike Zone
From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:
[Part III of III.]
A brief account of a trip made by Comrade Rumbaugh, of Hurricane, W. Va., and myself to the danger zone, might be of interest to readers of the REVIEW. We rode into Charleston “on the front end” and found that city to have the appearance of a place preparing for a siege. Martial law had been declared but a short time previously and the streets were full of soldiers. Yellow-legged sentries were stationed in front of the state house and the governor’s residence. It was rumored that machine guns were mounted in the upper windows of the former building, commanding both entrances to the capitol grounds.
A sentry was also stationed in front of the office of the Labor Argus to guard Comrade W. H. Thompson, who is editing that paper while Comrade Boswell is being “detained” in the bull pen. Comrade Thompson is an ex-Kanawha county coal miner and is unblushingly ”red.” He is the editor of the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star and he has put up as staunch a fight for the cause of the miners as any man in the state. At the city jail we witnessed the interesting spectacle of a bunch of “tin horns” bringing a prisoner from the military district to the city lockup. As the great iron gates swung open to receive them, the spectators commenced hissing the soldiers, calling them “scab herders” and other expressive names. Some of the “yellow legs” glared at these people brazenly but, may they be given due credit, others of the soldiers hung their heads with shame, as if such condemnation from members of their own class was more deadly to them than bullets.
From Charleston we took the labor train that was to carry us into the martial law zone. At Cabin Creek we were almost arrested with a bunch of miners in the car who were poking fun at the grave and ludicrous antics cut by some of the would-be man-killers in khaki. At the Paint Creek junction we remained for several hours, ostensibly to visit some soldier boys of our acquaintance, but in reality to secure information and photographs for the REVIEW and the Labor Star. Comrade Rumbaugh was afterwards arrested and relieved of his camera for attempting to take photographs to illustrate this article. We spoke with dozens of the soldiers, and one of them, an ex-mine guard, admitted that the guards use dum-dum bullets against the miners. He told of two miners who had been killed with these proscribed missiles, one man who had the top of his head completely shot off and another who received a death wound in the breast large enough to “stick your fist into.”
The freight house at Paint Creek has been converted into a bull pen, and over fifty men are now incarcerated there, only three of whom are not native West Virginains. The interior of this place would make a Siberian prison pen look like a haven of refuge. The sleeping accommodations are inadequate, ventilation poor and the floors filthy beyond description. Even with two or three men sleeping in the coal-bin there is no room for the others. The only papers the prisoners are permitted to read are the reactionary local rags and the National Socialist. Mother Jones, Charles Boswell and John Brown have somewhat better quarters elsewhere in town. A sentinel is constantly measuring his paces before the door of each. Dear old Mother Jones in the bull-pen and guarded by armed mercenaries of the Mine Owners! The very thought of it makes blood boil, here in West Virginia.
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Hellraisers Journal -Monday March 24, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – State Supreme Court Upholds Martial Law
From The New York Times of March 22, 1913:
COURT AFFIRMS MARTIAL LAW
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West Virginia Judge Reject Miners’
Plea Against Gov. Hatfield.
CHARLESTON, West Va., March 21.-In an opinion handed down late to-day the Supreme Court of Appeals affirms the right of the Governor to declare martial law and appoint a military commission.
The opinion was rendered in the case of “Mother” Mary Jones, Charles H. Boswell, Paul J. Paulson [Paulsen], and Charles Bartley [Batley] against Gov. Hatfield and members of the military commission, asking for a writ of habeas corpus to compel the Governor and military authorities to turn the petitioners over to the civil authorities. The petitioners denied the right of the Governor and the military commission to try persons apprehended outside the military zone of the Kanawha County coal fields.
The opinion, which was written by Judge Poffenbarger, President of the court, holds that the Governor has the right to arrest out of military district all persons who shall give aid, support, or information to persons within the zone who break the laws. It further states that the Governor and military commission have the right to detain or imprison persons apprehended outside the martial law section. The court does not think the declaration of martial law or the creation of a military commission contravenes the Constitution of the Stale or of the United States.
Martial law will be continued indefinitely in the Kanawha coal field. Gov. Hatfield so announced to-day at the close of his personal investigation of conditions in the district.
He intimated that a rebellious spirit was being fomented by persons outside the district and threatened to arrest the agitators. He said:
“I am satisfied that by doing this I shall be well within the limits of the executive power and authority, and at the same time I will in this way obtain a further knowledge of the purpose of those who are rebellious for use in the determination of the question of the wisdom of resort to more extreme measures as a means of restoring the supremacy and due administration of civil laws…..”
Gov. Hatfield late to-day released four prisoners held by the military authorities in connection with the strike troubles. This makes a total of twenty-nine prisoners held by the military authorities who have been freed by the Executive within two days. Most of these, it is said, have never been tried, but several have important evidence against other prisoners.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
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Hellraisers Journal -Sunday March 23, 1913
From the Bull Pen at Pratt, West Virginia: J. W. Brown Writes to His Wife
From The Wheeling Majority of March 20, 1913:
From The Bull Pen
(John W. Brown Writes to His Wife.)
(Published by courtesy of Mrs. John W. Brown.)Pratt, W. Va., March 9, 1913
My Dear Eva:
The boys are all tucked away in their blankets and not feeling sleepy myself I thought I would drop you a line. I have had but one letter from you since you were up here, in which you stated you had an ill spell due to your long wait in the cold the last time you were up. I sincerely hope you have fully recovered by this time. You must not take any chances that will impair your health at this time, there is too much pending, and too great a responsibility resting upon you. At times I feel grieved and angry with myself for having forced such responsibilities upon you, and my only consolation rests in the fact that you, at least, are cognizant of the motive back of my every act. The big clumsy old world has never yet understood the motives that prompt men to deeds of high resolve. Our Christian (?) civilization is based upon the assumption that we should bear each other’s burdens, yet, at every epoch in human history when a man appears who is big enough and man enough to attempt to lift those burdens from off the backs of those who can no longer bear them, society raises its murderous quietus “Crucify Him,” and thus as Lowell sang:
“Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne;
Yet that scaffold sways the future;
And behind the dim unknown
Standeth God, within the shadow,
Keeping watch above his own.”With a due allowance of each man’s conception of “God” the sentiment quoted above expresses a great historical truth. As you have undoubtedly seen by the papers, Boswell, Batley, Parsons, “Mother” Jones, Paulson and myself have refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the Military Court, and therefore are not putting up any defence. You, perhaps, with others, do not see at this time the wisdom in such tactics, seeing that we are wholly at the mercy of this tribunal, but time will tell and justify the positions we take. If it was only myself personally that was concerned I would, for the sake of gaining my liberty and being free to go to you and the children, go before this court and defend myself. Nor have I the least doubt in my mind that I would come clear. But my dear, there are principles involved in this case infinitely deeper than the fate of any one citizen, if the capitalist class get away with this then constitutional government is dead; liberty is dead; and justice for the working class is a thing of the past. Already have they scuttled the ship of state; they have strangled Justice; they have cut the throat of liberty; they have stolen the jewel of liberty from the crown of manhood and reduced the victims of the burglary to slavery and to prison, and I repeat, if we let them get away with it, then in the future, whenever and wherever the interests of the working class and the capitalist class reaches an acute stage out will come the militia, the courts will be set aside and the leaders railroaded to the military bull pens and thence to the penitentiaries.
Here lies the great danger. This case can not now be settled until it has reached the bar of the Nation’s conscience. In order to do this this sleepy old public must have another victim. We boys have made up our minds to go to the pen, this will give the lawyers a ground to test the case before the Supreme Court and we will trust to our comrades to keep up the agitation. The history of this case must go to the common people. It must be told o’er and o’er again until the deafest ear will hear, and the numbest brain will act.
The American people must see Holly Grove and Hansford as I saw them on February 8, 9, and 10. They must not only see, but they must hear the moaning of the broken hearts and the wailing of the funeral dirge; they must see the hot tears of orphans and widows falling on the glassy eyes and bullet mingled faces of dead husbands and fathers; they must see these tented dwellings in the dead of winter and the poor wretches that occupy them. Aye; they must not only see but they must know the cause.
Pardon me, my dear, if I let my sentiment get away with me, it is one of my failings I know, but there is a good reason. On the 8th, I went into the undertaker’s office at Hansford. I reviewed the body of Estep who was shot the night before by the hired assassins who, under the orders of Sheriff Hill, passed through the village of Holly Grove the night before on the “Bull Moose” and who deliberately shot the town to pieces. The next morning I went into a vacant store. It was litterally full of women and children and little babies. You know my soft spot. Well this got it. One poor little mother was trying to nurse a pair of twins and my mind brought back many of those fancy stunts we used to pull off when you were nursing the twins. But O, my God, what a contrast. I couldn’t stand for it, I ran out, but I couldn’t run away from my conscience and from deep down in the farthermost remote regions of thought there sprang up an unanswerable question. Do what I would I could not get away from the accusation, and ever anon the still small voice would say, “Is this your handiwork?” “Is this what you give back to the sires who bled and died to make you free?” “Is this poor mother, plundered, profaned and disinherited, the Goddess of Liberty, the Mother of the Race, the Queen of the home? Is this poor creature, defiled and degraded man’s moral uplifter and spiritual illuminator? Oh, God! Oh, God!”
Why is it that such men as Markham go to a piece of inanimate canvas for inspiration? Why do they the theologians shout about the hell in the hereafter while the whole forest of humanity is on fire? Here the question raised in Markham’s “Man with the Hoe” is real flesh and blood and the question raised, “Is this the thing the Lord God made and gave, to have dominion over sea and land, to trace the stars and search the heavens for power?
To feel the passions of eternity.
Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And pillared the blue firmament with light?
Down all the stretch of hell to its last gulf
There is no shore more terrible than this;
More tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed
More filled with signs and portents for the soul,
More fraught with menace to the universe!”You will pardon these interrogatives, and if I have wandered too far away from my big old homely self forgive me for this time. You see it is so long since we had a talk together, and besides, my dear, we are on the brink of a precipice. No nation as yet has ever risen above the status of its womanhood. What woman is to man, man is to himself, and visa versa. This you and I understand but the great mass of the American people do not yet know that when a nation degrades and defiles its womanhood, and her children inherit her degradation and defilement, then, that nation is corrupt. Aside from the legal points and Constitutional rights, to say nothing of the economical right of the coal miner, here is a great moral side to this controversy which embraces the whole, but there, I will conclude for the present, if you are not ill yourself, and can get around to it, I wish you would send me by parcels post a change of underwear. Much as I would like to see you I would rather you would not come up here. I do not relish the thought of you having to wait in that tireless “Bull Pen” before the Military authorities condescend to allow you to see me.
Give my love to the children and kiss them all for me.
Lovingly and sincerely yours,
J. W. BROWN.[Photograph, paragraph breaks and emphasis added.]
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Hellraisers Journal -Saturday March 22, 1913
Mucklow, West Virginia – Striking Miner, Held in Bull Pen, Smuggles Out Letter
From The Wheeling Majority of March 20, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal, Friday November 23, 1917
Mother Jones News for October, Part II: Claude G. Bowers on Mother Jones
Claude G. Bowers, journalists, spent a few hours with Mother Jones while she was traveling from Colorado to Indianapolis sometime around October 19th (see Mother Jones News for October, part 1), and writes about that meeting for his column, “Kabbages and Kings.” Bowers notes that Mother “is not afraid of man or devil,” and as an example tells of her experiences in Colorado during the Colorado Coalfield Strike of 1913-1914. During that struggle, Mother was held for almost one month in the “Military Bastile,” a cold cellar cell which had already claimed the life of a miner held prisoner there. She counseled “her boys” not to attempt a rescue, “Maybe I can do some good in the bull pen,” she said.
Hellraisers Journal, Friday September 21, 1917
Mother Jones News for August, Part II: Plans for Labor Day
From the Evansville Press of August 29, 1917:
An advertisement indicates that Mother Jones will be the principle speaker at the Henderson, Kentucky, Labor Day Celebration on Monday September 3rd. The event is being sponsored by the Central Labor Unions of both Evansville, Indiana, and Henderson.
From the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette of August 27, 1917:
The death of Senator John Worth Kern is an opportunity to recall the role played by the good Senator in freeing Mother Jones from the grip of West Virginia’s Military Bastille during the Cabin Creek-Paint Creek Strike of 1912 & 1913.
JOHN WORTH KERN; AN APPRECIATION
Claude G. Bowers
Don’t worry, fellow-worker,
all we’re going to need from now on is guts.
-Frank Little
Hellraisers Journal, Friday August 31, 1917
Spokane, Washington – Local Leaders of I. W. W. Held by Military
From the Great Falls Daily Tribune of August 30, 1917:
Spokane, Aug. 29.-[…..]
James Rowan, district secretary of the I. W. W. for the northwestern states, who ordered a general strike, is still held as a military prisoner in the county jail with 11 other alleged I. W. W. They were arrested here by Major Wilkins August 19, the day before the strike was to have become effective.
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From the International Socialist Review of August 1917:
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General Strike of Lumber Workers
AS we go to press a telegram brings the news of a general strike of all lumber workers west of the Mississippi river. It reads as follows:
Seattle, Wash., July 17. General strike has been called by Lumber Workers’ Industrial Union No. 500 of the I. W. W. Thousands responding to call. Solidarity fine. No scabs so far. John Martin.
The lumber trust and its henchmen, the state officials, county and city officials, with the aid of the militia, are resorting to the most ruthless methods to break the strike. Halls have been closed, strikers by the hundreds arrested and thrown in jails, or herded in stockades, but still the spirits of resistance grows. The lumber jacks have made up their minds that they are tired of the rotten conditions, and the long hours, and they will simply not tolerate them any longer. They are out to win this fight, and the $500,000 defense fund raised by the Lumbermen’s Association will not stop them. If the Lumbermen’s Association can raise half a million dollars to defend their profits, then the “jacks” say that the Lumbermen’s Association can raise half a million more dollars to increase the pay of the lumber jacks. Late reports state that the authorities are backing down and the halls are being reopened. The September Labor Day edition of the REVIEW will have an illustrated article covering the strike which we hope to call—How the Lumber Jacks Won!
[Drawing by Robert Minor added to article.]
