Tag: Mingo County WV

Hellraisers Journal: 6,000 Miners Strike for Union Recognition in Newly Organized Williamson Field, Tug River District

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones, Doomed, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel, p213———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 3, 1920
Coal Strike Affects 5,000 Miners in Mingo County and 1,000 in Pike County

From The Charleston Daily Mail of June 30, 1920:

WILLIAMSON DISTRICT MINERS
TO QUIT TONIGHT
—–

Mingo Strike Effective at Midnight, Cton Dly Ml p1, June 30, 1920

About 5,000 mine workers of Mingo county W. Va., and 1,000 in Pike county, Ky., will be affected by a strike order issued from the Summers street headquarters of District 17, United Mine Workers to take effect at midnight tonight, according to officials of that organization, who that virtually all the miners of Mingo county and those employed on Kentucky side of the Tug river, and along Pond creek in Pike county, will strike.

Williamson Conv crpd, Mother Jones, UMWJ p7, July 1, 1920
United Mine Workers Journal of June 1, 1920
Note Mother Jones at center front.
—–

Many of the Kentucky mine workers, it is said, live in Mingo county and only recently joined the miners’ union. The recent affiliation with the union of the men affected by the strike order, it is said, is the cause of the present situation.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: 6,000 Miners Strike for Union Recognition in Newly Organized Williamson Field, Tug River District” →

Hellraisers Journal: Gunthugs Cross Tug River from Mingo County to Inflict Reign of Terror on Pike County Miners

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones, Doomed, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel, p213———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday June 26, 1920
Pike County, Kentucky – Miners Marched in Chains by Company Gunthugs

From The Buffalo Labor Journal of June 24, 1920:

Pike Co KY Terrorized by Gunthugs, Ellsworth Co Ldr KS p1, June 24, 1920

EVICTED MINERS IN CHAINS
—–

Charleston, W. Va.-When Pike county (Ky.) miners joined the union they were evicted from company houses, chained together and marched in mud and rain 30 miles by armed guards.

This is one of the sensational statements made in a report to President Keeney, district No. 17, United Mine Workers’ union, by Thomas West, attorney, who investigated Pike county mining troubles. Pike county is opposite Matewan, where several persons were recently killed by Baldwin-Feltz detectives.

[Said the investigator:]

The miners were chained together and were walked in a pouring rain to Pike, 25 or 30 miles away. Mud was almost knee deep. Pike county deputies shot a man’s hands off on the Kentucky side of Borderland. About 30 of them were terrorizing both sides of the river. The Pike county deputies were all drunk. In my opinion they constitute one of the most dangerous gangs of men I ever came in contact with.

[Newsclip added from Ellsworth County Leader of Kansas of June 24, 1920.]

From the Duluth Labor World of June 26, 1920:

MINERS HAVE NO TIME FOR
W. VA. PRIVATE POLICE
—–
Protest Against Continued Use-
Demand That U. S. Senate
Make Investigation.
—–

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind., June 25.— Every possible effort is being made by the United Mine Workers of America to bring about a full and thorough investigation of conditions in West Virginia under which coal miners are employed. The recent battle between coal miners and coal company gun­men at Matewan, W. Va., in which 10 men were killed, has caused the officials of the union to redouble their efforts to induce congress to make a sweeping probe of the situation.

Operating under the guise of private detectives, hundreds of gunmen and thugs, nearly all with criminal records, are employed by coal operators of some fields of West Virginia, and these men enforce a reign of terror among the miners and their families. Miners are beaten, slugged and shot. They are arrested and thrown in prison on no valid pretext whatever.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Gunthugs Cross Tug River from Mingo County to Inflict Reign of Terror on Pike County Miners” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting in Front of Court House at Williamson, West Virginia, Part II

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones, Every Damned Robber, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel p222———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday June 23, 1920
Williamson, West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting, Part II

Williamson, West Virginia – Sunday Evening June 20, 1920
-Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting in Front of Courthouse.

SPEECH OF MOTHER JONES at WILLIAMSON, PART II.

[Mother Jones on Agitators.]

Matewan, re Grand Jury, WVgn p1, June 22, 1920
The West Virginian
June 22, 1920

I went to a meeting and the secretary of the steel workers went with me. He got up to speak. They took him. The next fellow got up; they took him. I got up. They arrested me. I wouldn’t walk. They had to ride me. A big old Irish buck of a policeman said, “You will have to walk.” “No, I can’t.” “Can you walk?” “No, I can’t.” “We will take you down to jail and lock you up behind the bars.”

After a few minutes the chief came along.
“Mother Jones?”
“Yes, sir.”

“There is some of the steel managers here want to speak to you.”
“All right, let the gentlemen come in. I am sorry gentlemen, I haven’t got chairs to give you.” (Laughter.)

One good fellow says, “Now, Mother Jones, this agitation is dangerous. You know these are foreigners, mostly.”
“Well, that is the reason I want to talk to them. I want to organize them into the United States as a Union so as to show them what the institution stands for.”

“They don’t understand English,” he says.
I said, “I want to teach them English. We want them into the Union so they will understand.”
“But you can’t do that. This agitation won’t do. Your radicalism has got to go.”
I said, “Wait a minute, sir. You are one of the managers of the steel industry here?”
“Yes.”
“Wasn’t the first emigrant that landed on our shore an agitator?”
“Who was he?”
“Columbus. Didn’t he agitate to get the money from the people of Spain? Didn’t he agitate to get the crew, and crossed the ocean and discovered America for you and I?

“Wasn’t Washington an agitator? Didn’t the Mayflower bring over a ship-full of agitators? Didn’t we build a monument to them down there in Massachusetts. I want to ask you a question. Right today in and around the City of Pittsburgh I believe there has assembled as many as three hundred thousand people [bowing the knee to Jesus during Easter season.] Jesus was an agitator, Mr. Manager. What in hell did you hang him for if he didn’t hurt your pockets?” He never made a reply. He went away.

He was the manager of the steel works; he was the banker; he was the mayor; he was the judge; he was the chairman of the city council. Just think of that in America—and he had a stomach on him four miles long and two miles wide. (Laughter.) And when you looked at that fellow and compared him with people of toil it nauseated you.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting in Front of Court House at Williamson, West Virginia, Part II” →

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting in Front of Court House at Williamson, West Virginia, Part I

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel, p213———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday June 22, 1920
Williamson, West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting, Part I

From the Tuscaloosa News of June 21, 1920:

THE GRAND JURY IS INVESTIGATING
THE MATEWAN SHOOTING
—–
“Mother Jones” in West Virginia Coal Fields
Making Speeches to Excite Miners
—–

(By Associated” Press)

Mother Jones, NYC Dly Ns p12, May 7, 1920

WILLIAMSON, W. Va., June 21.-Investigation of the fight between Baldwin-Felts detectives and citizens at Matewan, May 19, in which ten persons were killed, was commenced here today by a special grand jury. Deliberations of the jury will be behind closed doors, and nothing be known of its work until its report is made to the court.

Fifty men of the state constabulary were on duty here following a meeting last night in front of the court house at which “Mother” Jones was the principal speaker. Announcement was made that she would speak tonight at Matewan.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

Williamson, West Virginia – Sunday Evening June 20, 1920
-Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting in Front of Courthouse.

[SPEECH OF MOTHER JONES at WILLIAMSON, PART I.]

[The Pagan Agitator]

The old condition is passing away. The new dawn of another civilized nation is breaking into the lives of the human race.

Away back, eighteen hundred years ago, two hundred years after the world’s savior was hung there arose an agitation. The Roman lords got uneasy about it, and they said, “We have got to stop this agitation and this education. If we don’t they will get the best of us. That won’t do.” They sent down and brought up all those they could get together to come in a hurry to Rome. They either sold them into slavery or held them, and among those that was brought in was a young man. When he came into the Roman court to get his decision the Judge said, “Who are you?”

“I am a man, and a member of the human family.”

“Then why do you carry on this agitation?”

“Because I belong to a class that all down the ages have been robbed, murdered, maligned, crucified, deluded, and because I belong to that class I think it is my duty to be with that class and to put a stop to these crimes.”

I wish I could convey that same spirit that possessed this pagan slave eighteen hundred years ago to every working man in my hearing today. If he possessed that spirit of manhood the other fellow would come and ask us for the right to eat instead of asking him for the right to eat. But we haven’t come to that spirit yet, because all down the ages the system has been going on to enslave us. This pagan slave was not a Christian. By no means. He was a pagan in those days, but he was teaching real Christianity. He was teaching Christ’s Christianity, that an injury to one working man is an injury to all. But they called him a pagan.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Public Meeting in Front of Court House at Williamson, West Virginia, Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: From the United Mine Workers Journal: Deadly Battle Fought by Company Gunmen and Miners at Matewan

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III———-

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:

Matewan v Gunthugs, HdLn UMWJ p5, 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.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the United Mine Workers Journal: Deadly Battle Fought by Company Gunmen and Miners at Matewan” →

Hellraisers Journal: Arthur Gleason on Logan County, West Virginia: “Private Ownership of Public Officials” -Part I

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III———-

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.]

WV UMW D17 50 Orgzrs v Don Chafin Logan Co, Hbrg PA Tph p7, Oct 16, 1919
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.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Arthur Gleason on Logan County, West Virginia: “Private Ownership of Public Officials” -Part I” →

Hellraisers Journal: Sid Hatfield and Nine Others Arrested at Matewan, Taken to Williamson, and Charged with Murder

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 26, 1920
Matewan, West Virginia – Chief of Police Sid Hatfield Arrested

From The Wheeling Intelligencer of May 25, 1920:

Sid Hatfield Plus Arrested, Whlg Int p1, 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.

———-

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Sid Hatfield and Nine Others Arrested at Matewan, Taken to Williamson, and Charged with Murder” →

Hellraisers Journal: Yellow Dog to Blame for Battle with Company Gunthugs at Matewan, Mingo County, West Virginia

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 25, 1920
Matewan, West Virginia – Correspondent Russ Simonton on “Yaller Dog”

From the Harrisburg Evening News of May 24, 1920:

Matewan, Yaller Dog by R Simonton, Hbrg PA Eve Ns p17, May 24, 1920—–

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.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Yellow Dog to Blame for Battle with Company Gunthugs at Matewan, Mingo County, West Virginia” →