Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 16, 1921 Washington, D. C. – Frank Ingham Before Senate Investigating Committee
From the Washington Evening Star of July 15, 1921:
From Hearings before Senate Committe -Now Investigating West Virginia Coal Fields -July 14, 1921, excerpt from testimony of Frank Ingham:
Mr. INGHAM. Then they [McDowell County sheriff’s deputies] drove the car down there between Welch and Hemphill, and there they stopped and they dragged me out of the car, and they took me about 100 yards away from the car and then they began to beat me over the head and back with these iron clubs, and then when they decided that I was dead, when they decided that there was not any life in me, they drew off of me and stood and talked, and Ed Johnson, the sheriff’s deputy , he came back to me and kicked me in the face…He holds the position of deputy sheriff under Sheriff Daniels, and he come back and he kicked me in the face and he robbed my pocket…Well, I had prayed earnestly to God, and I believe that God heard me and that he answered my prayer, and I was conscious all the way. I had $25.07 in my pocketbook, and I also had a receipt from Mr. R. H. Campbell; I had borrowed $100 from him and I had a receipt from him and one from Dr. Hamburger, and my railroad ticket…Ed Johnson [took those things]….I never got anything [back].
And then they went off and they left me lying in the woods, and they went out to the road and they got in their machine and drove back toward Welch, and the automobiles ran out of my hearing. I raised my head up from off of the ground, and I stayed there until I collected strength enough to get out of the road, and then I went out to a little coaling station, I believe they call it the Farm coaling station, I believe they call it that, and an engineer was there and a fireman was there coaling up an engine, and they asked me what was the matter with me and I told them that I had been in the hands of the mob. They asked me what I had been in the hands of the mob for and I told them because I belonged to the union.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 15, 1921 Washington, D. C. – Fred Mooney Testifies on Behalf of Mingo Miners
From the Washington Evening Star of July 14, 1921:
Peace may be near in Mingo county, W. Va., where several hundred coal miners have been on strike for more than a year, it was developed today before hearing begun before a sub-committee of the Senate committee on education and labor to determine the causes of the industrial situation in Mingo county.
Members of the committee, headed by Senator Kenyon, sought to ascertain whether the Governor of West Virginia had acted upon the suggestion submitted three days ago by the miners. Questions asked by members of the committee carried a suggestion that the committee might attempt to bring the sides to the coal controversy together if it were found that a real basis had been suggested for a compromise.
Fred Mooney, secretary-treasurer of District 17, the miners’ union, representing the Mingo field, told the committee that the strikers were ready to go back to work if the operators would receive them without prejudice and would not insist upon employing only non-union labor…..
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday July 6, 1921 Ludlow, Colorado – Memorial Services Held at Ludlow Monument
From the United Mine Workers Journal of July 1, 1921:
LUDLOW, Colo., June 20.-A crowd of more than 4,000 attended the annual memorial services at Ludlow monument yesterday. Ludlow monument was erected by the United Mine Workers of America on the scene of the inhuman massacre in 1914 of eighteen men, women and children by thugs and assassins in the employ of coal companies in the murderous campaign to prevent the mine workers of Colorado from joining the union. It was the largest crowd that ever attended a memorial service in memory of these heroic, helpless victims of the gunman’s fury.
An almost perfect June day and the published announcements that the international heads of the U. M. W. of A. would be present served to create more interest than usual.
There was considerable disappointment when a telegram was read by President Jno. McLennan of Dist. 15 stating John L. Lewis and Wm. Green would not be present because they had very important business on hand early Monday morning in Denver and, in view of the disarranged train schedules, feared they could not take a chance on delay.
Instead the principal address was delegated to Philip Murray of Pittsburgh, International Vice-President. Mr. Murray was the last speaker of the program and held his audience with a talk that was a mixture of real oratory, sentiment and humor, all delivered with a very pleasing and pronounced Irish brogue…..
[Vice-President Murray] spoke directly to the women and children during part of his address, urging them to use their influence on the non-union miners to join the organization…..
Reference was made to the Mingo county mine war in West Virginia, which Murray said had cost the lives of fifty union men in the past year. He said the miners there were made of stern stuff and were prepared to defend their homes with their lives.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday June 30, 1921 Mingo County – Governor Orders Army to Enforce Martial Law on Union Miners
From The West Virginian of June 28, 1921:
CHARLESTON, June 28.-Governor E. F. Morgan by proclamation here today reaffirmed his declaration of martial law in Mingo county and commanded the assessor to enroll all persons liable under the law for military duty.
He also ordered the sheriff to draft 130 men or to accept 130 volunteers who are to be mustered into the service of the state for 60 days to enforce all orders promulgated by the Governor.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 28, 1921 Washington, District of Columbia – Senate Committee to Investigate Mingo
From the Martinsburg Journal of June 25, 1921:
Washington, June 24.—Tho Senate is to investigate the situation in the coal fields of Mingo county, and to probe the causes leading up to the shooting which broke out in that community several weeks ago. The senate resolution directing the investigation to be made by a special committee of the senate was adopted by the senate Wednesday afternoon by a viva voce vote, and without opposition. Senator King immediately moved a reconsideration of the vote and the motion to reconsider went over. But the resolution was adopted by such a substantial vote that there would seem to be no more chance for its defeat on reconsideration.
Sam B. Montgomery, former state labor commissioner of West Virginia has been here for several days insisting upon the investigation being made by the senate. Senator Hiram W. Johnson, of California, was the author of the resolution which was adopted, and he also insisted upon its passage.
Thinks It Will Help.
Mr. Montgomery, in the last two days, has called upon the president, the attorney general and George Christian, secretary to the president and impressed on each of them the views of organized labor in West Virginia, to the effect that the investigation should be made.
In the opinion of Mr. Montgomery, the investigation by the senate will end all the trouble and prevent farther shooting in Mingo county. He pointed to the good results which followed the senate’s investigation of conditions on Cabin creek, and predicted that good will follow this investigation also, both for the operators and the miners.
While the motion for reconsideration is pending, the final adoption of the resolution will be delayed, and until its adoption the personnel of the investigating committee will not be announced. But it is the intention of the senate to have the committee appointed and the investigation started at the earliest possible moment.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 27, 1921 West Virginia Federationist Demands Removal of Gunthug Army
From the Duluth Labor World of June 18, 1921:
CHARLESTON, W. Va., June 16.—In an address to business men in this city Governor Morgan said: “Thank God, the awakening is coming in Mingo county.”
To this statement the West Virginia Federationist replies:
Yes, it is coming, but through no effort of you, the coal masters or any of the state officials.
The awakening will arrive when the federal investigation committee makes public their findings and expose the vicious system of the industrial overlords who have ruled with brute force and crushed a liberty loving people under the iron heel of greed by the usurpation of the constitution and the enforcement of a law of the gun and club in the hands of their thug army, aided and abetted by the public officials whom they own and control.
Governor Morgan was absolutely right when he stated that “the people of West Virginia don’t understand the situation as it exists today.” If they did there would be a mighty roar throughout the entire state demanding that he perform his sworn duty to uphold law and order by removing the private army of coal company thugs from Mingo, Logan and McDowell counties and restore constitutional rights to the citizenship thereof.
If he wanted to acquaint the people with conditions he could have quoted an editorial from the Charleston Mail in openly advocating mob law, said: “What is needed to settle that trouble on Tug river is a few tugs by the sheriff’s assistants at a stout rope.”
In other words, the Mail advocates that the thugs and bums recruited by agents of the coal masters to break the miners’ strike should string up the citizens of Mingo county who are struggling for their American rights and more bread and butter for their families.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 21, 1921 Miners’ of Mingo County, West Virginia, Fight for Right to Organize
From The Survey of June 18, 1921:
The Conflict on the Tug
[-by Winthrop D. Lane]
Kansas City Star of June 18, 1921
THE gunfire that has been awakening echoes in West Virginia Hills as well as in the United States Senate chamber, where a resolution calling for a Senate investigation of the industrial trouble in that state has been under discussion, is neither a new nor an unexpected feature of the conflict over unionism in the coal fields there. No doubt some of the pictures recently drawn of the reign of feudism in that country have been too vividly colored; private families are not now engaged in the planned extermination of each other as they once were. But if the feud is no longer an active and malignant eruption in the life of the region, the tradition of feudism remains. The men who shot their personal enemies from ambush or in the open did not die without issue; their descendants still tramp the West Virginia and Kentucky hills in large numbers, sit at clerk’s desks in stores and village banks and even occupy the sheriff’s and county clerk’s offices.
The fact is that in the mines and mining communities of those regions there are today men who saw their fathers or grandfathers take their guns down from the wall, go a hundred yards from the house and lie in wait for prospective victims. Life is not held as dearly in such a civilization as in some others. The traditional method of settling disputes is too much by the gun; and when two men cannot agree, the courts are likely to find that the arbitrament of the law has been superseded by the arbitrament of the levelled pistol barrel.
Introduce into such a community, now, an acute modern industrial conflict. Let capital enter and bring forth coal from the hills. Let the whole country become an industrial area. Let the trade union enter and try to persuade the workers to organize. Let the owners and managers of coal mines say: “You shall not organize. We will not let you.” The methods that have been used to settle other disputes will be resorted to in settling this. The nature of the trouble is different, but the way of meeting it is the same. There are in the mines of West Virginia many men who know nothing of this tradition, who were brought up in other environments. But there are also, both in the mines and among the general population, many to whom the tradition is a keen memory. They are familiar with the use of firearms; most of them possess guns. They regard a fight between capital and labor as no different, in the tactics evoked, from any family or domestic quarrel.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday June 20, 1921 Lick Creek Tent Colony, Mingo County – Attorney West Describes Raid
From The Wheeling Intelligencer of June 18, 1921:
MINE WORKERS’ LAWYER MAKES ALLEGATIONS OF RUTHLESS ACTS AT THE MINERS’ TENT COLONY ———- Declares State Police and Volunteers Were Disorderly and Destructive When They Raided the Homes of Union Miners ———-
Lick Creek Tent Colony after Raid of June 14, 1921
Special to The Intelligencer.
Charleston, Va., June 17-Secretary-treasurer Fred Mooney, of District Seventeen, United Mine Workers of America, tonight made public the following report just received from the union’s lawyer, Thomas West, who was detailed to make an investigation of the activities of the state police in raiding tent colonies of union coal miners in Mingo county:
Williamson, W. Va., June 16.
H. W. Houston, Charleston, W. Va.
Dear Sir-On yesterday morning I visited the Lick Creek tent colony for the purpose of taking some statements regarding the outrage perpetrated there on the day before [June 14]. I found that the state police and their volunteer confederates [company gunthugs] had ripped up twenty or more tents. Some of them had probably a hundred slits up them, averaging about six feet each, and had knocked the legs out from under their cooking stoves and the stove pipes down, and where they found anything cooking on the stove they swiped it off into the coal box, as a rule found just back of the stove. They found some tables set for dinner and they turned these with the legs up and the dishes and food left on the under side.
They broke open every trunk and rifled every drawer. They dumped all the clothes they found out into the middle of the floor and kicked them all over the place. They dumped an organ out of one man’s tent over the hill and hit a phonograph with an axe or some other heavy tool.
They poured kerosene oil into a churn of milk found in one of the tents and in others they found such oil and poured it into the meal and flour. In one tent they found a considerable quantity of canned fruit and they put this on the bed clothes after turning them upside down on the bed and broke it up. They put the mattresses on the floor and ripped them open and put the springs on top of them.
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