Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: Gatling Guns for West Virginia Miners-Peonage, Bullets and Bloodshed

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Quote Mother Jones to Wayland fr WV Wind Blows Cold, AtR p4, Nov 1, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 27, 1903
West Virginia Miners Face Gatling Guns, Company Guards & Peonage

From the Duluth Labor World of May 23, 1903:

GATLING GUN FOR THE MINERS
———-

RIDDLES GREAT TREES IN FOREST
IT IS TRAINED UPON.

———-

WORKMEN HELP PRISONERS
———-
Will Resort to More Bloodshed If It Becomes
Necessary to Coerce the Miners.
———-

HdLn Strikers Murdered, Evans Reports re Stanaford, Raleigh Co WV, NY Worker p1, Mar 15, 1903

Labor conditions in West Virginia mines are not enviable. Besides reports of Gatling guns mounted on fortifications to command approaches to the mines, comes the further news that the mining camps are surrounded by armed guards ready to shoot down any of the workers who try to reach the outside world. So, between the guns and the guards, the wage workers of one of the naturally rich states of the Union cannot be said to pass very happy lives.

Though so rich in natural resources-for there are coal and iron mines and virgin forests that have never yet been touched-West Virginia is cursed by monopoly. As a result, the wage workers are not free to employ themselves, but must accept the conditions of those who control the source from which all must draw their subsistence-the land.

For no other reason do the inhabitants of that state submit. Those who are enticed into its boundaries under false pretences, as evidenced by the affidavits of the miners published in the organ of the Mine Workers’ Union; have hard work to get away. They are subdued by their poverty and fear of the armed guards.

The necessity for organizing West Virginia is so apparent that it is a wonder the American Federation of Labor does not flood the state with “agitators” for human freedom and human rights. What the wage workers there need is the knowledge that their own efforts to improve their own condition will be supplemented by the good will and financial assistance of organized labor everywhere. It is a hard proposition, to be sure, to go into territory dominated by such powerful social and political interests, but greater tasks have been accomplished, and it only needs the united power of an aroused commonwealth to bring about great and good industrial changes in that section of the country.

[Newsclip and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the Duluth Labor World: Gatling Guns for West Virginia Miners-Peonage, Bullets and Bloodshed”

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks in Toledo at Memorial Hall: Organizing for United Mine Workers in West Virginia

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Quote John Mitchell to Mother Jones re WV Fairmont Field, May 10, 1902—————

Hellraisers Journal -Friday March 27, 1903
Toledo, Ohio – Mother Jones Speaks at Memorial Hall, Part I

From The Toledo Bee of March 25, 1903:

[Mother Jones Speaks at Memorial Hall, Part I]
———-

Mother Jones , Phl Inq p24, June 22, 1902

“Mother” Jones, known throughout the country and in fact throughout the world as “The Miners’ Angel,” addressed a motley gathering of about 1,200 persons in Memorial hall last night. The lower hall was packed. The gallery was full to overflowing and some even crowded the steps leading to the building.

It was truly a motley gathering. The society woman, attracted by mere curiosity to see and hear the woman who has won such fame as the guardian spirit of the miners; the factory girl, the wealthy man and his less fortunate brothers, the black man and the white man, old and young, sat side by side and each came in for a share of criticism.

“Mother” Jones is an eloquent speaker. There is just enough of the down-east accent to her words to make it attractive and she has the faculty of framing pathetic and beautiful word pictures. Despite her sixty years and her gray hairs, she is hale and hearty; has a voice that reaches to the furthermost corner of almost any hall but it is nevertheless anything but harsh.

Her force of character was displayed with her every word spoken. She spared none. She condemned the trades unionist for casting his ballot as he does each year for that system.

Mother Jones was introduced by Chairman Charles Martin. She began deliberately and her address of an hour and a half, interrupted with frequent bursts of applause, was some of the most remarkable heard by local trades unionists in many months.

Wage Slavery.

[She began:]

Fellow workers, ’tis well for us to be here. Over a hundred years ago men gathered to discuss the vital questions and later fought together for a principle that won for us our civil liberty. Forty years ago men gathered to discuss a growing evil under the old flag and later fought side by side until chattel slavery was abolished. But, by the wiping out of this black stain upon our country another great crime—wage slavery—was fastened upon our people. I stand on this platform ashamed of the conditions existing in this country. I refused to go to England and lecture only a few days ago because I was ashamed, first of all, to make the conditions existing here known to the world and second, because my services were needed here. I have just come from a God-cursed country, known as West Virginia; from a state which has produced some of our best and brightest statesmen; a state where conditions are too awful for your imagination.

I shall tell you some things tonight that are awful to contemplate; but, perhaps, it is best that you know of them. They may arouse you from your lethargy if there is any manhood, womanhood or love of country left in you. I have just come from a state which has an injunction on every other foot of ground. Some months ago the president of the United Mine Workers asked me to take a look into the condition of the men in the mines of West Virginia. I went. I would get a gathering of miners in the darkness of the night up on the mountain side. Here I would listen to their tale of woe; here I would try to encourage them. I did not dare to sleep in one of those miner’s houses. If I did the poor man would be called to the office in the morning and would be discharged for sheltering old Mother Jones.

Oppression.

I did my best to drive into the down-trodden men a little spirit, but it was a task. They had been driven so long that they were afraid. I used to sit through the night by a stream of water. I could not go to the miners’ hovels so in the morning I would call the ferryman and he would take me across the river to a hotel not owned by the mine operators.

The men in the anthracite district finally asked for more wages. They were refused. A strike was called. I stayed in West Virginia, held meetings and one day as I stood talking to some break-boys two injunctions were served upon me. I asked the deputy if he had more. We were arrested but we were freed in the morning. I objected to the food in the jail and to my arrest. When I was called up before the judge I called him a czar and he let me go. The other fellows were afraid and they went to jail. I violated injunction after injunction but I wasn’t re-arrested. Why? The courts themselves force you to have no respect for that court.

A few days later that awful wholesale murdering in the quiet little mining camp of Stamford [Stanaford] took place. I know those people were law-abiding citizens. I had been there. And their shooting by United States deputy marshals was an atrocious and cold-blooded murder. After the crimes had been committed the marshals— the murderers—were banqueted by the operators in the swellest hotel in Pennsylvania. You have no idea of the awfulness of that wholesale murder. Before daylight broke in the morning in that quiet little mining camp deputies and special officers went into the homes, shot the men down in their beds, and all because the miners wanted to try to induce “black-legs” to leave the mines.

How It Started.

I’ll tell you how the trouble started. The deputies were bringing these strikebreakers to the mines. The men wanted to talk with them and at last stepped on ground loaded down with an injunction. There were thirty-six or seven in the party of miners. They resisted arrest. They went home finally without being arrested. One of the officials of the miners’ unions [Chris Evans] telegraphed to the men. “Don’t resist. Go to jail. We will bail you out.” A United States marshal stood in the [telegraph office?] that message was received [by the operators’ deputized gunthugs?] [Evans?] sent back word that the operators would not let them [the organizers] use the telephone to send the message to the little mining camp and that he [Chris Evans] could not get there before hours had passed. The miners’ officials secured the names of the men and gave their representatives authority to bail them out of jail the next morning. But when the next morning arrived they were murdered in cold blood.

These federal judges, who continue granting injunctions, are appointed by men who have their political standing through the votes of you labor union fellows! You get down on your knees like a lot of Yahoos when you want something. At the same time you haven’t sense enough to take peaceably what belongs to you through the ballot. You are chasing a will-o-the-wisp, you measly things, and the bullets which should be sent into your own measly, miserable, dirty carcasses, shoot down innocent men. Women are not responsible because they have no vote. You’d all better put on petticoats. If you like those bullets vote to put them into your own bodies. Don’t you think it’s about time you began to shoot ballots instead of voting for capitalistic bullets.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks in Toledo at Memorial Hall: Organizing for United Mine Workers in West Virginia”

Hellraisers Journal: Chris Evans Reports from West Virginia on Massacre of Striking Miners Near Stanaford in Raleigh County

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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday March 10, 1903
Indianapolis, Indiana – United Mine Workers Receives Report from Chris Evans

From the Baltimore Sun of March 9, 1903:

WERE MINERS KILLED IN BED?

Evans Describes Atkinsville Affair
As A Massacre By Officers.

Chris Evans 1890, Secretary of AFL
Chris Evans, 1890

INDIANAPOLIS, March 8.-The official report of Chris. E. Evans, who was sent to the West Virginia coalfields to investigate the killing of the colored miners at Atkinsville [near Stanaford City, Raleigh County] has been received at the headquarters of the United Mine Workers.

The report states that General St. Clair, attorney for the coal companies, created an agitation to have the men arrested and taken to Charleston, and that immediately afterward arrangements were made with the United States Marshal by the Mine Workers’ officials to give bond for all who were arrested. Later, on account of the agitation created by Deputy Marshal Cunningham, he says, the agreement with the Marshal was broken and Cunningham was sent to arrest the men. 

According to the report, there was a great feeling against Cunningham, and the men decided not to allow him to arrest them and he was driven away. Mr. Evans says that he, as a miners’ official, sent a telegram to the men to submit quietly, but the local coal companies, who own all the telegraph and telephone lines into the town, refused to deliver it. Before he could get any message to the men Cunningham and his deputies. Evans alleges, went to the town a second time and killed the miners in their beds at night.

Mr. Evans says that he went to the scene of the trouble the next morning and that 48 men had been arrested for conspiracy to kill Cunningham. He found in a house occupied by a colored man named “Stonewall” Jackson the dead bodies of William Dodson, William Clark and Richard Clayton, all negroes.

The report continues:

We found that the wife of Jackson and her four children, with eight negroes, were in the house, and that about daybreak all were awakened by shots, fired into the house from the outside. This shooting took place without warning, and the three colored men were found dead on the floor. Two were in their night clothes and the other one was partly dressed.

We visited another house, where Joseph Hizer lay in bed mortally wounded, having been shot as he was dressing. Hizer lived with his sister, and she made the statement at the inquest that she pleaded with those shooting not to kill her children, and in reply Cunningham said: “Women and children must take care of themselves.” In no instance could we find where these people had been asked to surrender until after the deputies had commenced shooting at the occupants of the house.

We next went to the house of Lucian Lawson, who was considered mortally wounded. I understand that after the shooting referred to this man, with others, returned the fire of the posse, and this is the only instance where any attempt of resistance was made by the miners.

During the shooting in many instances the men and women pleaded with the men outside to have mercy on them, but their cries were met with derision and curses. Our investigation proves conclusively that no effort was made to shoot or resist except in the one case mentioned, but that all would have been glad to surrender if they had been allowed the opportunity.

Mr. Evans says that the coroner’s jury has returned a verdict of felonious killing against Cunningham for the killing of William Dodson.

[Photograph, emphasis and paragraph breaks added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Chris Evans Reports from West Virginia on Massacre of Striking Miners Near Stanaford in Raleigh County”

Hellraisers Journal: Three West Virginia Strikers Killed by Deputized Gunthugs at Stanaford, Raleigh County, West Virginia

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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday March 5, 1903
Stanaford, Raleigh County, West Virginia – Deputies Gun Down Striking Miners

From The San Francisco Call of February 26, 1903:

Stanaford Mt Massacre, SF Call p3, Feb 26, 1903

CHARLESTON, W. Va., Feb. 25.-At Stanniford [Stanaford] City, in Raleigh County, at dawn this morning, a battle took place between the joint posses of Deputy United States Marshal Cunningham and Sheriff Cook on one side and rioting miners on the other, as a result of which three miners were killed, two others mortally wounded and a number of others on both sides more or less seriously hurt…..

Miners murdered by deputized gunthugs at Stanaford, Raleigh County, West Virginia, at dawn, Wednesday February 25, 1903:

William Dodson
William Clark
Richard Clayton

Miners mortally wounded:

Lucien Lawson
Joe Hizer


Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Three West Virginia Strikers Killed by Deputized Gunthugs at Stanaford, Raleigh County, West Virginia”

WE NEVER FORGET: February 25, 1903-Mother Jones and the Massacre of Raleigh Co. Miners at Stanaford Mountain, WV

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Has anyone ever told you, my children,
about the lives you are living…?
-Mother Jones
———-

MOTHER JONES, MINERS’ ANGEL

“I am one of you, and I know what it is to suffer.”

Mother Jones by Bertha Howell (Mrs Mailly), ab 1902

Let us stop and consider, for a moment, what would cause thousands of miners to lay down their tools and go out on strike, when striking meant homelessness and hunger for themselves and their families. Striking also brought down upon them the terror of the company guards, heavily armed deputies (often one and the same), state militia, bullpens, raids, court injunctions, and the wrath of the capitalistic press. In 1897, Mother Jones was in West Virginia traveling and speaking to miners and their families. John Walker of the United Mine Workers of America was traveling with her. In 1904, a reporter who had accompanied her wrote this account of one of her speeches:

Has any one ever told you, my children, about the lives you are living, more so that you may understand how it is you pass your days on earth? Have you told each other about it and thought it over among yourselves, so that you might imagine a brighter day and begin to bring it to pass? If no one has done so, I will do it for you today. I want you to see yourselves as you are, Mothers and children, and to think if it is not time you look on yourselves, and upon each other. Let us consider this together, for I am one of you, and I know what it is to suffer.

So the old lady, standing very quietly in her deep, far-reaching voice, painted a picture of the life of a miner from his young boyhood to his old age. It was a vivid picture. She talked of the first introduction a boy had to those dismal caves under the earth, dripping with moisture often so low that he must crawl into the coal veins; must lie on his back to work. She told how miners stood bent over until the back ached too much to straighten, or in sulpher water that ate through the shoes and made sores on the flesh; how their hands became cracked and the nails broken off in the quick; how the bit of bacon and beans in the dinner pail failed to stop the craving of their empty stomachs, and the thought of the barefoot children, at home and the sick mother was all too dreary to make the homegoing a cheerful one….

And so, while he smoked, the miner thought how he could never own a home, were it ever so humble; how he could not make his wife happy, or his children any better than himself, and how he must get up in the morning and go through it all again; how that some day the fall of rock would come or the rheumatism cripple him; that Mary herself might die and leave him, and some day there would be no longer for him even the job that was so hard and old age and hunger and pain would be his lot. And why, because some other human beings, no more the sons of God than the coal diggers, broke the commandment of God which says, “Thou shalt not steal,” and took from the toiler all the wealth which he created, all but enough to keep him alive for a period of years through which he might toil for their advantage.

[Said Mother Jones:]

You pity yourselves, but you do not pity your brothers, or you would stand together to help on another.

Continue reading “WE NEVER FORGET: February 25, 1903-Mother Jones and the Massacre of Raleigh Co. Miners at Stanaford Mountain, WV”

Hellraisers Journal: John W. Brown on Miners’ Strike in Paint Creek/Cabin Creek, West Virginia: “This Is War and War Is Hell”

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Quote Mother Jones re Get Rid of Mine Guards, Charleston WV, Aug 15, 1912, Steel Speeches p95—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 15, 1912
“This Is War and War Is Hell” by John W. Brown, Socialist and U. M. W. Organizer

From The Coming Nation of October 12, 1912:

WV Mine War by JW Brown, Cmg Ntn p5, Oct 12, 1912

[Part I of III]

WV Mine War, Text Coal Miners Story, Cmg Ntn p5, Oct 12, 1912—–

“COD walks on sea and land, but the devil reigns in the coal fields of West Virginia.” This was uttered by Gen. C. D. Elliott and the reference was to the civil war now going on in the Kanawha valley where the coal miners and the coal barons have grappled in a life and death struggle which can only end in the surrender of either one of the contending forces. “And the devil is greed,” says General Elliott. Greed personified in a handful of mercenary plutocrats who know no more, care no more for the rights of humanity than do the lean dogs who lick their grimy hands.

The details of this terrible struggle do not differ from that which could be written of all the other coal fields, and forms but another page in the development of American capitalism.

A Long Story of Stealing

First comes the usual questionable and fraudulent land titles, then corrupt legislation, then the usurpation of the courts and finally the general debauchery and degradation of the whole body politic. The Moloch of capitalism is never satisfied. It has no heart, no soul, no conscience. It has but one object, one purpose, and that is to make profit. It stands with open mouth crying, “give, give,” and the people of West Virginia have given, given and given again, first their lands, then their labor, and now the insatiable beast demands the half starved babes. The present strike in the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek districts has a shadowy background reaching back some ten years or more.

In 1902 the coal miners of West Virginia organized under the auspices of the United Mine Workers of America. Immediately following, the coal barons began their present fight against the union and a general strike followed. During this strike of 1902, Judge Jackson and Judge Keller issued their nefarious injunctions which if obeyed by the miners would have been nothing short of wholesale suicide. Naturally, the miners refused to bow to these injunctions and there followed a reign of rapine and legalized murder such as is seldom found in the pages of human history. Among which is recorded what is now known as the Stanford city massacre [Stanaford Massacre.].

An American Pogrom

WV Mine War, Mother Jones Speaks at Mass Meeting, Cmg Ntn p5, Oct 12, 1912

Dan Cunningham, at that time a United States deputy marshall armed with injunction and eviction papers and preceded by an army of professional murderers went to Stanford city in the night and at daylight made a murderous attack upon the helpless and defenseless miners, murdering them as they slept. Unarmed, old age, fathers and mothers, youths and even suckling babes were shot down like wild beasts and not even the prayers of pregnant mothers could prevail against this thirst for human blood.

There is always a point beyond which lies desperation and revolt. This point was reached during the strike of 1902 and for the time being both the federal authorities and the coal barons were baffled. But not for long. The Baldwin-Felts detective agency, an organization composed of ex-convicts and professional strike-breakers entered the field and agreed by contract to break the strike and from that day until this there has existed in West Virginia, a state of guerrilla warfare that beggars either pen or tongue to portray.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: John W. Brown on Miners’ Strike in Paint Creek/Cabin Creek, West Virginia: “This Is War and War Is Hell””

Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for February 1912, Part II: Four Score Hard Winters of Labor’s Heroine Described by Lawrence Todd

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Quote Mother Jones, No Abiding Place, WDC Hse Com Testimony, June 14, 1910—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday March 28, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for February 1912, Part II
The Four Score Hard Winters of Labor’s Heroine by Lawrence Todd

From The Tacoma Times of February 14, 1912:

Four Score Hard Winters Has Mother Jones Seen,
and She Is a Heroine in Labor’s Ranks Still
———-

BY LAWRENCE TODD.

Mother Jones, Tacoma Tx p3, Feb 14, 1912

Where do you live, ‘”Mother Jones?” asked the chairman of a Congressional investigating committee of a little old woman in rusty black.

She had kindly, determined Irish features and the most piercing and confusing of blue Irish eyes. Brave, kindly, faith-inspiring eyes the old woman had, and a motherly way of speaking when she was not aroused. But this chairman was trying to defend the steel barons from the charge of enslaving their men.

“I live in the United States, sorr,” she replied.

“But where-in what state have you a home?”

“Where the big thieves are wringing their dollars out of the blood and bone of my poor, miserable people, sorr,” came back the reply, in a voice like that of an accusing judge. “Sometimes it is among the slaves of the Alabama iron mines; sometimes with the gold and silver miners of Arizona, where the Southern Pacific has fastened itself on their throats; sometimes with the boys on the northern copper range, and often in the coal miners’ shacks in Pennsylvania or West Virginia. Where you send your militia where men are shot and women driven from their homes at night by armed bullies, there I stay.”

“Mother” Jones is nearly 80 years of age. What she told the corporation congressman is literally true. For more than a generation she has been an organizer for the Western Federation of Miners and for their brothers, the United Mine Workers. Strikes she has seen and taken a part in, since she was a little girl in a southern cotton mill. Once she led 1,500 women of the coal miners’ families against a Colorado sheriff and his deputies. The sheriff for once was driven back from the strikers picket line.

At another crisis, when the children of the Philadelphia factories were crying for protection, “Mother” Jones shocked the community by organizing a great parade of 7,000 crippled and maimed boys and girls, ragged and pale, underfed and haggard as factory children always become, to march through the streets of the fashionable shopping quarter. Always she is making a fight against social wrongs. Usually she is dramatic about it. Always her warm heart and her fearless tongue, and her white forehead that has more than once been pressed by the muzzle of a deputy’s gun, endear her to the wretched people who spend their days in factories and mines.

Just now the miners have lent “Mother” to the striking stoop employes of the Harriman railroads in the western country, where she is making appeals to the women to do picket duty. Incidentally she visited the convention of the California State Building Trades council at Fresno, and urged the delegates to stand by their officials, Tveitmoe and Johannsen, indicted in connection with the alleged dynamiting conspiracy.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for February 1912, Part II: Four Score Hard Winters of Labor’s Heroine Described by Lawrence Todd”

Hellraisers Journal: West Virginia’s Mine Guard System: “The Hired Thugs of the Capitalists and Coal Operators”-Part II

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Quote Mother Jones, Powers of Privilege ed, Ab Chp III—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday October 2, 1911
West Virginia’s Mine Guard System, Brutal Thugs Hired by Coal Operators-Part II

From The Labor Argus of September 28, 1911:

HdLn re West Virginia Gunthugs, Lbr Arg p1, Sept 28, 1911

If there is a place on earth where every right of citizenship is ruthlessly tramped beneath the feet of the brutal tyrants, armed thugs and political traitors it is the nonunion and guard ridden coal fields of West Virginia. Since the introduction of the Baldwin detective agency into the New River and Cabin Creek coal fields, crime has increased instead of being suppressed. More crimes have been committed in Thurmond, Fayette Co. since the Baldwin Feltz detective agency have made it their headquarters than were ever know before, and all of these crimes are traceable to the detectives themselves. This Baldwin Detective Agency is nothing more than a legalized band of Molly-McGuires, commissioned by the Governor of the State and allowed to brutalize, rob and murder the unprotected citizen.

The murder of six or seven miners at Standford City [Stanaford Coal Camp], on Piney, in 1902 [February 25, 1903] by a posse of coal operators and thugs lead by United States deputy marshals was one of the most revolting and cold blooded murders of innocent working men that was ever committed. These poor miners were guilty of no crime; their only offence was they had dared to strike against conditions. The posse lead by deputy marshalls, went to Stanford City in the night arriving just before day light. The first, warning the miners had of their presence came when they were awaken from their sleep by the bullits fired through their thin board houses, by the cowardly posse, bent on murder. Men were shot down like dogs as they ran from the houses in their night clothes; several being killed outright and many more wounded.

An active union miner named Harless [Joe Hiser?] realized that it was death to leave shelter during the firing and remained in the house until after day light, but when he attempted to leave he was shot dead from ambush. Was anything done about this wholesale murder of the innocent? No, it was done in the name of the law. The authorities took the words of the men who did the murdering. But that was just, a beginning of the tyrannical rule of the outlaws.

[There follows a long “partial list of men who have been slugged, beat, robbed and murdered” by coal-company gunthugs.]

These are not all the crimes directly traceable to the detectives, as some will never be known and space will not permit us to enumerate them all. When these guards spot a man they wish to assault, they always try to pick a quarrel, or get into a controversy of some kind. An old trick of theirs is to slip an old pistol into their victims pocket, and arrest them for carrying concealed weapons, beat them up and take them before one of the fixed Justice’s and have the poor victim sent to jail for six months and fined all the money on his person.

All the crimes we have listed have been committed; we can name the guards guilty of the assaults and murders in many cases, but what have our authorities done to protect the life and liberties of these working men? Nothing. Not a man has been brought to account for any of these crimes.

The strong arm of the law is paralyzed and palsied when it comes to protecting the rights and lives of the working class, but let the property of the masters be endangered and you can see how quick the powerful arm of the law will be put into action.

Are conditions any worse than those pictured here in Russia or barborous Mexico? The coal baron rules West Virginia and our officials are but puppets to jump and do the bidding of their masters.

How much longer, Oh! patient and long suffering people are you going to submit to these damnable conditions? Have you and yours not suffered enough already? Then go to the polls next year and vote these conditions out of existence by voting the Socialist ticket. Elect the Socialist to office in Kanawha county in 1912 and it will be moving day with the guards.

—————

[Emphasis added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: West Virginia’s Mine Guard System: “The Hired Thugs of the Capitalists and Coal Operators”-Part II”

Hellraisers Journal: United Mine Workers Journal: Fred Mooney Reports on Struggle in Mingo County, West Virginia

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Quote Fred Mooney, Mingo Co Gunthugs, UMWJ p15, Dec 1, 1920———-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 7, 1920
Mingo County, West Virginia – Fred Mooney Reports on Miners’ Struggle

From the United Mine Workers Journal of December 1, 1920:

Figures About Mingo County Are Juggled

Editor The Journal-One B. C. Clarke, supposed to be a representative of the New York Herald, in its issue of Sunday, November 7, says in part, that the “strike” in Mingo county, West Virginia, has cost $24,200,000.00 and a loss in tonnage production of five million tons. We do not know what prompted Mr. Clarke to juggle figures as he did in this article, but anyone with any intelligence whatever, can readily see that the article is a gross misrepresentation of facts.

UMW D17, Mooney Keeney, Lbtr p9, Aug 1920

In the first instance, Mr. Clarke leaves the impression that the “strike” in Mingo county is a continuance of the Hatfield-McCoy feuds. Nothing could be further from the truth, as there is no feud in this territory now, nor has there been any marks of one for years. The economic aspect of the struggle now going on in Mingo county is a struggle of a group of crushed wage slaves who have been robbed from their birth of from 35 to 50 per cent of the wages rightfully earned by them and that portion of their wages of which they were robbed was paid out to private armies of “gunmen” to club the miners into submission.

Let us review the figures quoted by Mr. Clarke. He says that 700 miners are on “strike”, which is a fabrication manufactured of whole cloth. Let us see if the loss in tonnage production is 5,000,000 tons. The miners were locked out on July 1, 1920. Four months they have been out of employment, 26 days to each month. If every miner had worked full time, each would have had to produce in round figures, 68 tons per day; or take his total number of employees thrown out of employment, which was 3,500 and they would have had to produce 13.73 tons per day, which is impossible, as the highest average of production per employe was reached in 1918, and for that year, the average production per employe, was 4.20 tons. The average production per miner for the year of 1918 in the State of West Virginia, was 7.65 tons. This average was the highest in the history of the state.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: United Mine Workers Journal: Fred Mooney Reports on Struggle in Mingo County, West Virginia”

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks in Cleveland to Delegates of Convention of United Mine Workers of America, Part II

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Quote Mother Jones, Judge Gary Cup of Rice, Clv UMWC p540, Sept 16, 1919———-

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 18, 1919
Cleveland, Ohio – Mother Jones Speaks at U. M. W. A. Convention, Part II

From Stenographic Report by Mary Burke East
-September 16th speech of Mother Jones continued:

Mother Jones Crpd Women in Industry, Eve Ns Hburg PA p2, Jan 6, 1919

In Homestead the labor men were allowed to speak for the first time in 28 years. We were arrested the first day. When I got up to speak I was taken. Eight or ten thousand labor men followed me to the jail. They all marched there. When we went into the jail they remained outside. One fellow began to cry and said: “What for you take Mudder Jones?” and they took him by the neck and shoved him behind the bars. That is all he did or said. We put up a bond of $15 each. We were to come for trial the next day, but the burgess didn’t appear. They postponed the trial on account of the mob that appeared outside. When they got me in jail the police themselves got scared to death. One of our men said: “Mother can handle those men.” He was told, “No, nobody can handle them.” “Yes, she can; let her get out.” I went out and said: “Boys, we live in America! Let us give three cheers for Uncle Sam and go home and let the companies go to hell!” And they did. Everybody went home, but they went down the street cheering. There was no trouble, nobody was hurt-they were law-abiding. They blew off steam and went home.

In Duquesne they took forty men. One man came out of a restaurant and asked what the trouble was. They got him by the back of the neck and put him behind the iron bars. He was kept there from two o’clock Monday afternoon until ten o’clock Sunday morning without a bite to eat or even a drink of water. That was the only crime the man had committed. Is there any kaiser who is more vicious than that? Do you think it is time for us to line up, man to man, and clean out those kaisers at home?

The steel workers have taken a strike vote and decided to strike. You men must stand behind them. Never mind what anybody says, that strike will come off next Monday. The miners and all the other working men of the nation must stand with them in that strike, because it is the crucial test of the labor movement of America. You are the basic industry. They didn’t win the war with generals, and the President didn’t win the war. They could have sent all the soldiers abroad, but if you hadn’t dug the coal to furnish the materials to fight with, what could they have done? You miners at home won the war digging coal. You have been able to clean up the kaisers abroad, now join with us and clean up the kaisers at home.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks in Cleveland to Delegates of Convention of United Mine Workers of America, Part II”