—————
Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 21, 1913
Kanawha County, West Virginia – Mother Jones Arrested; Class War Rages
From The Wheeling Majority of February 20, 1913:
Tag: Mother Mary Harris Jones
Hellraisers Journal: W. V. Strike Leaders, Mother Jones and Other Military Prisoners, Are Subjects of Habeas Corpus Writs
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 19, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – Strike Leaders Seek Civilian Trials
From the Pittsburg Gazette Times of February 18, 1913:
Paint Creek Strike Heads Seek Release
———-“Mother” Jones and Other Military Prisoners
Subjects of Habeas Corpus Writs.
———-THEY WANT CIVIL TRIALS
———-(SPECIAL TELEGRAM TO GAZETTE TIMES.)
CHARLESTON, W. VA., Feb. 17.-On account of the issuance of writs of habeas corpus, returnable forthwith, against Gov. William K. Glasscock, Adjt. Gen. Charles D. Elliott, Maj. James I. Pratt, president, and the four other members of the military commission appointed to try cases in the martial law district, the military commission has been stopped in the trial of persons under arrest as members of the commission must appear in court tomorrow to argue the writs.
“Mother” Jones, Paul J. Paulson [Paulsen], Charles Boswell and Charles Batley, for whom the writs of habeas corpus were asked today, have not been brought to Charleston and will not likely be brought here unless the court tomorrow insists on their presence while the question of whether the prisoners shall be turned over to the civil authorities is being argued. This action compels the military authorities to produce what evidence they have against the prisoners for the court to determine whether the military commission has jurisdiction. The right of the governor to declare martial law and cause a military commission to be appointed to try all cases, is also to be determined.
The question of the governor’s right to declare martial law was decided in the affirmative in the Charles Vance case, but the right of the military commission to try persons arrested outside of martial law territory has not been determined. Attorneys for the accused believe the court will hold that the military commission has no authority in such cases and that the accused must be tried by the civil authorities, although the alleged offense was committed in what is now a martial law district, previous to the declaration of martial law.
The provost marshal, Capt. John C. Bond, reports no disturbances in the district today. It is known, however, that the militia is searching for persons wanted in connection with some of the recent disturbances.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones, C. H. Boswell and Others, Held at Pratt, to Be Tried by West Virginia Military Commission
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 18, 1913
Pratt, West Virginia – Mother Jones, Editor Boswell Held Under Martial Law
From the Akron Beacon Journal of February 17, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Arrested; Holly Grove Captured and All the Men of the Town Taken into Custody by Militia
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 17, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – Mother Jones, Editor Boswell, and Organizers Arrested
From The Pittsburgh Post of February 14, 1913:
“MOTHER” JONES ARRESTED;
MINE TOWN CAPTURED
———-
Socialists Charged With Inciting Rioting;
Militia Surrounds Miners’ Village.
———-RIOT CALL AT CAPITOL
———-(SPECIAL TO THE POST.)
CHARLESTON, W. Va., Feb. 13.-The arrest of “Mother” Jones, famous agitator; C. H. Boswell, editor of a Socialist paper in this city; Paul J. Paulson [Paulsen], of the international organization of the United Mine Workers of America; Frank Bartley [Charles Batley], a Socialist leader, and others here today, brought rapid developments in the Paint Creek strike situation.
“Mother” Jones and her associates are charged with conspiracy and as accessories before the fact in the death of Fred Bobbett, bookkeeper of the Paint Creek Colliery Company in Mucklow. “Mother” Jones, in a speech in Boomer last night is alleged to have urged the miners to come to Charleston today and “take” the capital. She was arrested this afternoon on one of a number of warrants issued, and with her associates will be taken before the military commission.
“Mother Jones” is reported as having said:
Buy guns, and buy good ones; have them where you can lay your hands on them at any minute. I will tell you when and where to use them.
Mother Jones, it is reported, held a meeting in Longacre, two miles below Boomer, at 10 o’clock this morning, and urged striking union miners to refuse to heed orders of the union president to return to work.
A rumor that miners were coming here to take the State capitol caused a sensation. When some miners and citizens began to gather a riot call was sent in from the capitol building, and the local police under Chief Albert Guill rushed to the State house. The streets about the building were crowded with people, most of whom, however, were drawn there by the riot call.
CAPTURE WHOLE VILLAGE.
Detachments from the troops stationed in the strike zone this morning surrounded the village of Holly Grove, which has been the hotbed of trouble makers since the strike broke out, and captured 68 men. With the men a large quantity of arms and ammunition was also taken. Every man in the little town, which is composed of tents and huts, was taken into custody. The women and children were not disturbed.
According to the military officials commanding in the strike zone, all the rioting and attacks made on troops and workmen have had their inception in Holly Grove. It was from this rendezvous that the strikers were wont to sally forth in parties and fire on the guards and others, in the Paint Creek valley. At the time the raid and arrests were made the population of Holly Grove was far below normal. Ordinarily there are several hundred strikers in the little town.
The 68 men arrested were taken to Paint Creek Junction and placed under a strong guard. With the 60 men who had been arrested previously and taken to Paint Creek Junction, today’s arrests swell the number in custody of the militia officials at that point to 128 men.
EXPECT TO CONVICT RIOTERS.
The militia admit they may not be able to prove that all the prisoners were implicated in the disorders in the Paint Creek region, but that they will be able to connect many of the suspects with the outrages, they say they have no doubt.
According to the civil authorities, who were in charge in Mucklow during the battle fought at that point last Monday night, the men implicated came from Holly Grove, and after the trouble had quieted down, returned to the little village and hid their arms.
The military authorities have not been able to get a copy of the proclamation issued by the miners in the Smithers Creek district, which declared they would “tear the heart of the sheriff, kill the governor and wipe the militia off the map,” although it is said that copies of these proclamations were posted in many conspicuous places throughout the district. Especially were copies of the notice freely distributed throughout the district where the foreign population is in the majority.
Four additional companies of militia were ordered to the strike district to-night by Governor Glasscock. Two are from Parkersburg, and one each from Morgantown and Sutton. Six companies are now in the field.
SAYS DEATH LIST IS 28.
HUNTINGTON, W. Va., Feb. 13.-That the death list in the Cabin Creek riot will total 26 instead of 16, is the statement of W. O. Robbett [Bobbitt], a mine superintendent, who brought his brother, Bob Robbett [Fred Bobbitt] who was killed in the riot, to this city for burial. Mr. Robbett [Bobbitt] made the positive statement that there were 24 miners and two mine guards, one of whom was his brother, a volunteer, killed.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1903, Part III: Speaks at Meeting of Indianapolis Central Labor Union Against Stag Banquets
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 16, 1903
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1903, Part III
-Speaks at Meeting of Indianapolis Central Labor Union
From The Los Angeles Record of January 27, 1903:
“MOTHER JONES” TO THE MINERS
Mother Jones, the woman champion of the United Mine Workers, stirred their convention in Indianapolis by a speech denouncing the use of the pistol in labor disputes. She said:
You old gray beards are going to see a new epoch. You have been crying that we are in a country without liberty, but you have not gone out and fought to get it. That you are going to do and you won’t use pistol to get it either. We will shoot such men as Judge Jackson off the bench, and it won’t be with a gun.
Good for “Mother Jones.”
She is talking Americanism straight from the shoulder. No one can charge this white-haired old woman with incendiarism when she sticks to the ballot box.
The pistol is a relic of barbarism-a barbarism from which the Anglo-Saxon has not yet emerged.
Capital is shrewd. Sometimes it employes “private detectives,” not so much to guard property, as to provoke violence. The strikers oppose pistol to pistol. They lose public sympathy and the strike.
“Mother Jones” knows this and the miners are coming to know it, as is attested by their applause at the utterance.
Two so-called gospels have distinguished the last decade or so, each diametrically opposed to the other:
Nietache’s gospel is the gospel of brute force.
Tolstoi’s gospel is comprehended in “Resist not evil.”So long as men and women are as they are either of these doctrines run to its legitimate extreme is absurd.
We must resist evil, not by brute force, but by education, agitation and finally, and forcefully, at the ballot box.
That is civilization.
That is the evolution of society.
[Photograph added.]
From The Indianapolis Journal of January 27, 1903:
CENTRAL LABOR UNION
———-RESOLUTION FAVORING SUNDAY
BASEBALL ADOPTED.
———-
Women Object to Being Excluded
from the Banquet to Miners
To-Morrow Night.
———-The Central Labor Union at a meeting held last night, adopted a resolution favoring the passage of the bill now before the Legislature legalizing Sunday baseball. The resolution was introduced by John L. Feltman, who spoke briefly in explanation of it.
President George A. Custer was absent last night and the chair was occupied by Vice President Edgar A. Perkins.
[…..]
The report of the committee, which arranged the miners’ banquet to be given Thursday night, by William F. Ewald precipitated a storm. The report described the programme of entertainment and furnished the names of the men who will serve on the committees to entertain the miners and operators. It concluded with the statement that the banquet was to be for the men delegates only, and the women delegates to the body, as well as the women in the Label League, would be entertained subsequently in a little affair to be planned for them. Delegates immediately objected to this and declared that women ought to be admitted and they could see no reason for their exclusion. After a long discussion of the merits and demerits of the last banquet and the possibility of a recurrence of several unpleasant features, “Mother” Jones, who was a guest of the evening, made a talk which smoothed over the obstacles to peace, and the report of the committee was concurred in. The women were still unsatisfied, however, and several of them voiced their disapproval by saying that they thought it was a shame that they could not go to the banquet.
“Mother” Jones was given a chance to speak during the meeting, and quickly drifted into socialism……
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1903, Part II: Speaks at Convention of United Mine Workers, Meets with Socialists
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 15, 1903
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1903, Part II
-Speaks at Miners’ Convention, Meets with Socialists
From The Indianapolis Journal of January 22, 1903:
TRIP LIGHT FANTASTIC
———-MINERS’ DELEGATES ATTEND BALL
AT TOMLINSON HALL.
———-
Early Adjournment of the Convention
in Order that the Auditorium
Could Be Cleared.
———-MOTHER JONES MAKES SPEECH
———-[…..]
The dance of the Indianapolis garment workers in Tomlinson Hall last night interfered with the session of the mine workers’ convention that was to have been held during the afternoon. In order that the Janitors might prepare the floor of the hall for the dance the convention adjourned at noon until 9 o’clock this morning, after a motion to omit the afternoon session had carried.
The morning session was a busy one during the earlier hours, but toward noon had resolved itself into speech-making. Mother Jones, the woman friend of the miners, who was enjoined by Judge Jackson’s order prohibiting inflammatory speeches in the coal-mining district, was called on for an address. Her speech was typical of the woman and socialistic in tone. Her recommendation to the miners was that they use their votes as citizens to change conditions In the trade. Mother Jones was pessimistic in her views on the possibility of friendly relations between capital and labor. She thinks there is such a gulf between the two classes that it can never be bridged except by a change in government. The miners could adjust the conditions by their vote, she said, if they voted right. Now miners in America are existing as miserably as the serfs in Russia, and will continue so until all of the changes are made in the government which she suggests, she insinuated in her speech…..
[Photograph added.]
From The Indianapolis News of January 22, 1903:
SOCIALISM’S VOICE IN MINERS CONVENTION
———-EXPRESSION ON GOVERNMENT
OWNERSHIP WANTED.
———-INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM
———-
Miners Voted Unanimously Not to
Incorporate Their Organization
-Question of Co-Operative Stores
———-At the opening of the United Workers’ convention this morning, there was the first clash of the year between the conservatives and the Socialistic factions. It originated in a resolution from an obscure local union, favoring an expression of Government ownership of coal mines and railroads.
A motion on the part of the conservatives to table it brought on a long discussion, and many leaders of the two factions were heard.
The socialistic faction based its arguments on the anthracite strike and the combination of coal companies and railroads and that a tendency not to treat with miners “according to the laws of man or God” made it necessary for the Government to take some such action.
Delegate Walker, of Illinois, in a long speech, said that the coal companies and railroads were now in a combination injurious to the interests of the people, and were holding back coal to boost prices.
Delegate Lusk, of West Virginia, also charged heartless attitude of coal operators and railroads not only to the miners, but to the people.
The controversy was finally ended for the time, on a motion of Chris Evans, of Ohio, to refer the matter back to the committee.
[…..]
William R. Fairley, executive committeeman for the Alabama district, in a speech of some length, laid before the convention a grievance of the Alabama miners on the speech made yesterday by Mother Jones, in which, he claimed, she held them responsible for the appalling child labor conditions in Alabama. Mother Jones made a reply in which she said she did not hold the miners responsible only in so far as they cast votes for and elected members of agricultural classes to the Legislature, who permitted the infants to be worked and murdered by mill and mine owners. She ripped the State of Alabama up and down. At the close of the discussion Patrick Dolan, president of the Pittsburg district, moved that Fairley and Mother Jones kiss and make up. There was a great deal of laughter but no vote was taken…..
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for January 1903, Part I: Arrives in Indianapolis for Convention of United Mine Workers
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday February 14, 1903
Mother Jones News Round-Up for January 1903, Part I
-Arrives in Indianapolis for Convention of United Mine Workers
From The Clarksburg Telegram (West Virginia) of January 2, 1903:
“MOTHER” JONES VISITS CLARKSBURG
“Mother” Jones was in her usual splendid health and was quite talkative and courteous.
While in the city she was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. D. W. McGeorge in Glen Elk.
[Photograph added.]
From the Appeal to Reason of January 3, 1903:
From the Kingwood West Virginia Argus of January 8, 1903:
The election of Samuel B. Montgomery to the office of Mayor of Tunnelton for another term, is quite a compliment to this rising young orator who is called the “Patrick Henry of West Virginia,” by Mother Jones. Mayor Montgomery has a good strong ticket with him composed of the leading men of the Coal Center.
From the Bisbee Daily Review of January 9, 1903:
LABOR IS CAPITAL; CAPITAL IS LABOR
By “Mother” JONES. Friend of Striking Miners
WE are in a battle of class against class. Pierpont Morgan can go abroad-to Germany, to Russia, to England-and when he arrives he is entertained by his class, his own class, though you sometimes forget it in America-the class that oppressed you in Europe and that is growing more and more powerful and oppressive here. CAPITAL AND LABOR ARE THE SAME THING. LABOR IS CAPITAL, AND CAPITAL IS LABOR. WHAT WE’RE FIGHTING IS NOT CAPITAL, BUT CAPITALISTS. When the fight is won, this third element will be missing, and capital and labor will be joined without separation.
In the last 160 years there has been an economic revolution. What would you have thought years ago if some one had told you that all these coalfields would be held and operated by one combination. That sort of thing is what you must defend yourself against.
THERE IS A TREMENDOUS CHANGE GOING ON; AND YOU MUST CHANGE TO MEET IT.
Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks at Funeral of Frances Estep Who Was Shot Down by Gunthugs During Sneak Attack Upon Holly Grove from Bull Moose Special
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 13, 1913
Holly Grove, West Virginia – Mother Jones Speaks at Funeral of Francis Estep
From The Washington Times of February 11, 1913:
Cesco Estep, striker…was buried yesterday [February 10th near Holly Grove, West Virginia]. At his funeral, “Mother” Jones made an appeal to the men to get their guns and “Shoot them to hell,” meaning the mine watchmen and others who will not join their ranks.
[Emphasis added.
Note: Initial reports, in newspapers across the nation, claim that a striking miner, “Robert Estep,” was killed during rioting at Mucklow. In fact the striking miner killed was Francis Estep, member of the United Mine Workers of America. He was murdered at Holly Grove by gunthugs firing upon men women and children from a train-car called the “Bull Moose Special.” The attack was perpetrated against the small village at about 10 p. m. Residents scrambled for shelter and few miners were able to respond to the attack in an attempt to defend their families.
From the Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia) of February 9, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: The Coming Nation: Carnegie’s Bloody Philanthropic Libraries, “His Pedestal of Fame” by Art Young
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 9, 1913
Carnegie’s Bloody “Pedestal of Fame” by Art Young
From The Coming Nation of February 8, 1913:
Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for December 1902, Part II: Found Organizing for the United Mine Workers of America in West Virginia
—————
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 24, 1903
Mother Jones News Round-Up for December 1902, Part II
Found Organizing in West Virginia for the United Mine Workers
From the Clarksburg Daily Telegram (West Virginia) of December 27, 1902:
“MOTHER” JONES VISITS CLARKSBURG
———-
Upon Her Return From the New River District
-On Her Way to Tunnelton
to Make an Address to Miners.
———-Talked Freely of Strike Conditions
in Other Sections of the State
-Compliments Jackson but Has no Flattery for Goff.
“Mother” Jones, the noted strike and labor agitator, arrived in the city Friday evening on No. 12 from the New River district. She reports conditions in that field unsettled and the strike unended. Many miners are residing in camps and there is considerable suffering. She paid her compliments to both Judge John J. Jackson and Judge Nathan Goff. She thinks Judge Jackson has a tender spot in his heart but entertains a different opinion of Judge Goff. Her remarks about the latter were not at all flattering. She left Saturday morning for Tunnelton to address a mass meeting of miners there Saturday night.
She believes the Roosevelt commission’s work will be of much benefit to the miners’cause, especially in the way of moulding public opinion. She also thinks that some beneficial legislation will result from the investigation of the commission. She expressed herself as gratified with what she termed a more liberal spirit on the part of the press toward the miners.
She reviewed briefly prevalent conditions in some sections of the southern part of this state. She says the miners are allowed the regulation weight and the short ton and they have the privilege of buying at the pluck-me store as she terms it or elsewhere. There is nothing compulsory about it. She thought under those circumstances that the strike had been beneficial to the miners.
Inquiry was made by her as to what was doing around here. She made no comment when informed that all was quiet and we were running along in the even tenor of our ways.
“Mother” Jones was in her usual splendid health and was quite talkative and courteous.
While in the city she was the guest of Mr. and Mrs. D. W. McGeorge in Glen Elk.
[Photograph added.]