Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 14, 1920 Mingo County, West Virginia – Report from Miners’ Tent Colonies
From The Nation of December 8, 1920:
Labor’s Valley Forge
By NEIL BURKINSHAW
DRIVEN from their homes at the point of a gun for the crime of joining the union , more than four hundred miners and their families are camping in tents on the snow-covered mountains in Mingo County, West Virginia. To add to their difficulties federal troops have been summoned to play the ancient game of keeping “law and order.” But it will take more than the cold clutch of winter and the presence of soldiers to make the miners surrender in their fight for recognition of their right to unionize.
Across the Tug River, a narrow stream dividing Mingo County from Kentucky, is the union workers’ “No Man’s Land” held by the gunmen of the Kentucky coal operators who waylay, beat, and sometimes kill anyone even suspected of union affiliations. The same condition obtains in McDowell County of West Virginia just south of Mingo. The region was settled in pre-Revolutionary days by pioneers who crossed the mountains from Virginia and North Carolina, a hardy stock of Welsh, English, and Scotch from whom the miners are descended. One rarely encounters a foreigner there so that the industrial war now raging can not be ascribed-as is the convenient practice-to the agitation of the foreign element .
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 24, 1920
-Mother Jones News for June 1920, Part I
Found Speaking in Williamson, Mingo County, West Virginia
From the Baltimore Evening Sun of June 10, 1920:
REPORTS COMPANIES TERRORIZE MINERS
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Lawyers Sent To Pike County, Kentucky, By Union,
Tells Of Brutalities Perpetrated.
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FEARFUL DEPUTIES WILL BRING ON GREAT TRAGEDY
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Tells Of Man’s Hands Shot Off And Of Others
Chained Together On Long March.
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(Special Dispatch to the Evening Sun.)
Charleston, W. Va., June 10.- Conditions in Pike county, Kentucky, are described in a written report to headquarters of the United Mine Worker here by Thomas West, attorney, of Williamson, W. Va., who visited the scene of the trouble. Pike county is opposite Matewan, across Tug river, in which section mine workers are organizing, miners being evicted from their homes by coal companies after joining the union. Frank Keeney, miner’ district president, asked West to go into Pike county, which he did. He reported:
The miners were chained together and, with a mounted armed guard, were walked through to Pike, 25 or 30 miles away, in a pouring rain. Mud was almost knee deep. Pike county deputies shot a man’s bands off on the Kentucky side at Borderland. About 30 of them are terrorizing both aides of the river. The miners came to Williamson and asked for assistance. I would not be surprised to hear any minute of a tragedy which would make the Matewan difficulty look like 30 cents. Pike county deputies were all drunk. In my opinion they constituted one of the most dangerous gangs of men I have ever come in contact with. I would not go back into Pike county for any amount of money.
The Borderland Coal Company and the Pond Creek Coal Company have employed the detectives. Fred Mooney, miners secretary, requested Attorney General Palmer to take some action. Governor Morrow, of Kentucky, was also asked by Mooney to help. It is feared that miners of Matewan will secure arms and cross the Kentucky Border to help their fellow miners. Mother Jones is here and will go to Pike county.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 16, 1920
Southern West Virginia – Union Organizing Campaign Continues Despite Gunthugs
From United Mine Workers Journal of July 15, 1920:
Organization Campaign in West Virginia Continues
to Spread in Spite of Gunmen and Other Obstacles
(Special to the Journal)
Charleston, W. Va., July 8—The situation in Mingo county is firm. The county is tied up tight. Before Fred L. Feick, of Indiana, and L. R. Thomas, of Pittsburgh, mediators for the Department of Labor, came to Williamson a letter arrived from Joseph P. Tumulty, secretary to President Wilson, conveying news of a conference between the President and Secretary Wilson and conveying the hope of the President for a peaceful and harmonious settlement of the differences.
The operators of the Williamson coalfields refused to recognize the union or have anything to do with the United Mine Workers of America. The strike is continuing peacefully.
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
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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.
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.
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:
EVICTED MINERS IN CHAINS
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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
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Protest Against Continued Use-
Demand That U. S. Senate
Make Investigation.
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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.
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———-[There follows a long account of the Battle of Matewan.]
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