Hellraisers Journal: Striking Miner, Alex Breedlove, Shot Down in Cold Blood with Hands in the Air and a Prayer on His Lips

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

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 19, 1921
Lick Creek Tent Colony, Mingo County – The Death Alex Breedlove

June 18, 1921, Affidavits of James Williams and Willie Hodge: 

STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA, County of Mingo, to wit:

Mingo Co WV, Tent Colony, Map, WVgn p1, May 19, 1921

James Williams, being duly sworn upon his oath, says that he is a resident of the Lick Creek tent colony and that he was there on the 14th day of June, 1921, when the same was raided by State police and their confederates and deputy sheriff, and when Alex Breedlove was murdered; that he was about 30 feet from Breedlove when he was shot and saw James Bowles, State policeman, shoot him; Bowles was about 6 or 7 feet from Breedlove, and Breedlove had his hands up above his head at the time he was shot; Bowles said to Breedlove, “Hold up your hands, God damn you, and if you have got anything to say, say it fast,” and Breedlove said, “Lord, have mercy,” and instantly the gun fired and Breedlove fell. They were standing facing each other and Breedlove just above him on the hill.

At the same time Victor Blackburn, a special State police, was shooting at Garfield More, who was behind a tree, the same tree that Breedlove had just been behind, and after Bowles had called Breedlove to come out from behind the tree and put up his hands and come to him and he had done so and then was shot, Bowles immediately turned his gun on Garfield Moore, but did not have time to fire until he was shot in the back by another State police who was lying flat down on the ground straight down the hill below Policeman Bowles; that at the crack of his rifle a half dozen or more women who were there screamed out, “Look out, man, you are shooting your own men,” and ask him to get away from there; that he would get them all killed.

Affiant thereupon said to the man who had shot Bowles, “Yes; you done shot this man up here now,” and at that he said to affiant, “You are a damn liar, you damn black———-, you get away from there.” And thereupon the said police who had shot Police Bowles fainted and was carried off the ground by Willie Ball and carried under a bridge across Lick Creek. He remained under this bridge 30 or 40 minutes, with a lot of union miners who had taken shelter under said bridge.

JAMES WILLIAMS.

Subscribed and sworn to before me this the 18th day of June, 1921.

THOMAS WEST, Notary Public.

Willie Hodge, being duly sworn, says that he was present when Alex Breed love was shot and that the statement made about his shooting by James Williams is correct.

WILLIE HODGE.

Sworn to before me this the 18th day of June, 1921.

THOMAS WEST, Notary Public.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Union Miner George Crum Dies of Wounds After Battle Near Nolan, Mingo County, West Virginia

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Quote Mother Jones Princeton WV Speech Aug 15, 1920, Steel Speeches, p227—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday May 31, 1921
Mingo County, West Virginia – Union Miner Dead After Battle Near Nolan
 -Senate Committe to Investigate Conditions Along the Tug

From The New York Herald of May 27, 1921:

THIRD VICTIM DEAD AFTER MINGO FIGHT
———-
George Crum in Ante-Mortem Statement
Denies Attempt to Start Trouble.
———-

Nolan WV Battle, Guardsman n Trooper Killed, Wlg Int p1, May 26, 1921
Wheeling Intelligencer
May 26, 1921

WILLIAMSON, W. Va., May 26.-George Crum who was shot in a fight between a detail of State police and Kentucky National Guardsmen on one side and a party of men they encountered in a road near Nolan, W. Va., last night, died in a hospital here this afternoon. A State policeman and a Guardsman were killed in the encounter.

Gov. Morgan in Charleston to-day announced that ten thousand rifle cartridges shipped from St. Louis and consigned to Sid Hatfield, feudist, at Matewan, W. Va., are being held in the office of the American Railway Express at Bluefield.

The cartridges are being held at the request of Gov. Morgan, made to the president of the Norfolk and Western Railroad. An embargo was placed on the shipment of arms and munitions into Mingo county last week.

State and county authorities to-night watched with extreme caution the situation along the West Virginia-Kentucky border after the events of last night at Nolan. Capt. Brockus of the State police, reported that the region was quiet. A similar report came from Sheriff A. C. Pinson of Mingo county.

Soon after Crum was admitted to the hospital he told the authorities that he had done nothing to excite the trouble at the Nolan ferry, where the fight started, and during which Private Charles Kackley of the West Virginia State police and Private Manley Vaughan of the Kentucky National Guard, were killed.

An arrest under Gov. Morgan’s proclamation of martial law for Mingo was reported to-night. Sheriff Pinson announced that Ross Perry was arrested by deputy sheriffs near Gilbert, W. Va., and charged with having ammunition in his possession. He was held without bail.

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Hellraisers Journal: Williamson, Mingo County, West Virginia: “Sid Hatfield and Tom Felts Size Each Other Up in Court”

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Quote Sid Hatfield, re Gunthugs n Right to Organize, Altoona Tb Lbr Ns p10, Sept 3, 1920————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 8, 1921
Williamson, West Virginia – Hatfield and Felts Size Each Other Up in Court

From the Baltimore Sun of February 6, 1921:

Sid Hatfield And Tom Felts Size
Each Other Up In Court
———-

Principal In Mingo Trial Engages In Duel Of Eyes With
Head Of Detective Agency, As Process Of Securing
Jury Slowly Drags Along.

———-

(By a Staff Correspondent of The Sun.)

Sid Hatfield, ed Labor News, Altoona Tb PA p10, Sept 3, 1920Williamson, W. Va., Feb. 5.-This has been a day of speculation and rumors and of desperate struggle on the part of everyone, except Sid Hatfield and the 20 others on trial for the Matewan murders, to be reasonably cheerful and comfortable. Court adjourned before noon today without having added to the jury panel and left all of those in attendance upon the case with nothing to do except talk and wander about muddy streets in a dismal rain, with bare, scarred, cut-over hills rising at one’s elbows, it seemed, to press down the gloom.

Out of all that came to the front stories from quarters favorable to the defense that the prosecution is deliberately trying to prevent a jury being selected in this county. The theory is that there is little hope of any Mingo county jury convicting Hatfield and the others, while there may be some hope that a jury from another county will do so, if the West Virginia Legislature passes the bill permitting juries to be drawn in murder cases from other counties. Also the theory is that the desire of the prosecution to get the case before a jury where there would be more chance to convict is based upon more than the usual ardor of the prosecution for success, or even that ardor plus the anxiety of the Williamson coal operators for conviction.

Added to all of that is the blood feud created by the killing of Albert and Lee Felts in the Matewan battle. They were brothers of Tom Felts, manager of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. Tom Felts, known in these parts as “the man-hunter extraordinary,” a suave gracious-mannered man, and next to John J. Coniff, chief counsel for the defense, the most impressive and distinguished looking man connected with the case, is on the spot, surrounded by a large number of trusted operatives. He is supposed to be paying part of the large force of lawyers assisting Prosecuting Attorney Bronson, and he wants blood for the blood of his brothers.

Melodrama in life is had when he appears in court. Sid Hatfield occupies his consciousness, and he occupies that of Hatfield. After he had directed attention of the court to Hatfield’s possession of guns in court, and thereby led not merely to disarming the mountain fighter, but to the frisking of everyone entering the courtroom, including reporters, who do not know which end of a pistol goes off, the absorption of the two men in each other, when Felts is in court, became more pronounced. Each concentrated upon the other, is moved by an almost boyish craving to emphasize by physical proximity lack of fear.

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Hellraisers Journal: Frank Keeney Seeks Senate Investigation of Conditions in Coalfields of Mingo County, West Virginia

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Quote Mother Jones Princeton WV Speech Aug 15, 1920, Steel Speeches, p230———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday February 6, 1921
Washington, District of Columbia – President Keeney Seeks Senate Investigation

From The Washington Times of February 5, 1921:

URGES SENATE QUIZ IN MINGO
———-

Mine Workers’ Chief Says Constitution
is in Discard-Gunmen in Power.
—–
By DAVID M. CHURCH.
International News Service.

 

Declaring that “the Constitution has been kicked into the discard in West Virginia,” Frank Keeney, president of District No. 17 of the United Mine Workers of America, is here today seeking a Senatorial investigation of labor troubles in the West Virginia coal fields.

“GOVERNED BY GUNMEN.”

Keeney, Prz UMW D17, Lbtr p9, Aug 1920

[Said Keeney:]

The time has come for civil government to be restored in Mingo county and other West Virginia fields. We want a Senate committee to investigate this situation. The miners want them to come into the fields, see conditions as they are, investigate present and past troubles, and let the chips fall where they may.

Keeney today conferred with a number of Senators and laid before them evidence of what he termed “the brutal government of gunmen.” He stated that he had assurances that a resolution would be introduced in the Senate shortly authorizing a complete investigation of the West Virginia troubles.

[Said Keeney:]

The fact that the troops are in West Virginia is prima facia evidence that civil government has been destroyed there. We are tired of these shooting affrays and lawlessness, and we can prove that the blame for these shooting affrays can be laid at the door of the operators’ gunmen. We have evidence to back up all of our statements, and we are confident that this evidence will stand the scrutiny of any fair committee.

MINERS ARE DISARMED.

Why, all the miners have been disarmed by the troops, yet it is claimed that the miners are doing some of the shooting. They say that some of the troopers have been shot at as many as forty times. Let me tell you that those miners are crack shots, and it they ever shot at a trooper more than twice he wouldn’t be alive. We are willing for a committee of Senators to decide who is doing the shooting.

The Winchester rifle and the gun is the law in West Virginia coal fields now, and the gunmen aren’t at all backward in telling you so, either.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for October & November 1920: Veteran Organizer Found in West Virginia and Washington D. C.

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Quote Mother Jones, Doomed, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel, p213———-

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday December 11, 1920
Mother Jones News for October & November 1920
“Veteran Organizer” Found in West Virginia and Washington D. C.

From The Charleston Daily Mail of October 2, 1920:

COAL COMPANIES AFTER
RESTRAINT ON MINERS
———-
Petition Federal Court for Injunction
to Prevent Officials Organizing.
———-

Mother Jones, UMWJ p11, July 15, 1920The United Mine Workers have made defendants in two injunction suits brought in the southern district federal court by the Red Jacket Coal company of Red Jacket, Mingo County, and the Pond Creek Colliery to restrain them from  interfering with employes of the two companies in efforts to unionize the mines operated by the coal concerns. Notices were reported as served yesterday evening from the United States marshal’s office, and arguments will be heard October 11, at Huntington.

John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America; William Green, secretary and treasurer of the United Mine Workers; C. F. [Frank] Keeney, president of district No, 17, United Mine Workers; Fred Mooney, secretary and treasurer of the district; Harold W. Houston, attorney; Mary Harris, (“Mother Jones“), J. A. Baumgardner, president of Local Union, No. 4804, at Williamson; C. L. McShan, secretary of the local union; Dock Wolford, president of Local Union No. 4181 and Bud Auzier, secretary of the union, and a score of others are named in the petition.

Petitions in both cases are said to be based on the allegation that activities of agents and organizers of the mine workers interfere with contracts which the companies have made with the miners and would prevent the delivery of coal to customers. The further charge is made that the purpose of the United Mine Workers in organizing is illegal.

[Photograph added.]

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts & Doings of Mother Jones for October & November 1920: Veteran Organizer Found in West Virginia and Washington D. C.”

Hellraisers Journal: From the New York Liberator: “The Wars of West Virginia” by Robert Minor, Part III of IV

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———-

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday August 4, 1920
Robert Minor Arrives in Matewan, Meets Smilin’ Sid Hatfield

From the New York Liberator of August 1920:

WV Mingo Logan Coal Wars by Robert Minor, Lbtr p7, Aug 1920

III of IV

From the five o’clock morning train I alighted at the little. double row of stores and houses that are called Matewan, and before the town was astir I took a walk to the middle of the bridge over Tug River. There boy asked me, “Is it true they got two more thugs up the road last night?” I turned back to talk with the boy, and then I saw a man on a bench before a building on which was scrawled in red letters, “U. M. W. of A.” This man’s face limbered up when I told him I was a friend of Fred Mooney, Secretary of the Mine Workers at Charleston, and he said, “I sized you up as a friend of the Union and I’m glad you didn’t go further across the bridge, because you might have got shot. That is Pike County, over there.

Sid Hatfield by Robert Minor, Lbtr p11, Aug 1920

Toward nine o’clock I saw, standing near the railroad track, a middle-sized man of age about twenty-two. Although this man was alone, he was continually smiling. When he moved, his vest was displaced and exposed two Smith & Wesson revolvers, one stuck into each side of his trousers; A coal digger introduced him as Chief of Police Sid Hatfield.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the New York Liberator: “The Wars of West Virginia” by Robert Minor, Part III of IV”

Hellraisers Journal: Samuel Gompers Demands Senate Investigation of Government by Gunthug in West Virginia

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Quote Mother Jones, Doomed, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel, p213———-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 5, 1920
Gompers Demands Investigation of Government by Gunthug in West Virginia

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

Asks Investigation of Killing at Matewan

Gompers, Ogden Standard Examiner p1, June 7, 1920
When Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, heard of the killing of ten men in a battle between coal company gunmen and coal miners at Matewan, W. Va., he sent a letter to Senator Kenyon, chairman of the Senate committee on labor and education, asking him to have his committee make an investigation of the case. His letter was as follows:

The men were shot and killed by an armed band of men sent into the state by the order of and in the pay of private interests. The men who were killed were interested only in seeing that the statutes and the constitution of the state and of the United States were respected, according to the newspaper reports of the outbreak. I am of the opinion that the invasion of West Virginia by an armed band of men in the pay of absentee owners of West Virginia mining property constitutes a suspension of the constitutional guarantees.

It will be remembered that a public official, testifying in the investigation of 1912-13 before the committee of which you are now chairman, swore that the constitution of the United States did not apply in West Virginia. It was brought out that miners had been kidnapped and given long sentences by drumhead court martial. This official was not rebuked by West Virginia for his testimony as to its lawlessness. On the contrary, he was appointed by the governor of the state to be the impartial investigator of crime against the miners, their wives and their children, in the mining camp of Guyan Valley, and this within the year.

For a generation the only law in the mining camps of West Virginia, save in those few instances where the power of organized labor and outraged public opinion has forced a return to constitutional methods, has been the law of the thug and the gunman disguised as deputy sheriffs and usurping the police power of the land. The blackjack and the pistol, the high-powered rifle and the machine gun have been substituted for statute law, judges and juries.

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Mingo County W.V. Holds First Mine Workers Convention; District is 100% Organized

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Quote Mother Jones, Doomed, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel, p213———-

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 4, 1920
Williamson, West Virginia – Mine Workers Hold First Mingo County Convention

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

Williamson Conv ed, Mother Jones, UMWJ p7, July 1, 1920

Every coal miner in Mingo county, W. Va., is now a member of the United Mine Workers of America. Mingo county, up to this time, has been one of the worst hotbeds of anti-unionism in the entire state of West Virginia. It was only a few weeks ago that a gang of Baldwin-Felts gunmen undertook to clean out the union from that field, and as a result there was a battle in the streets of Matewan, Mingo county, in which seven of the gunmen, Mayor Testerman and two miners were killed. This battle seemed to mark the end of the reign of the vicious gunmen system of terrorism in Mingo county, for soon afterward the remainder of the thugs disappeared from that county.

The international union and the District 17 organization sent a number of organizers into Mingo county at once and instituted an intensive campaign of organization. The miners were ready and anxious to join the union, but they had been prevented from exercising this right by the brutality of the Baldwin-Felts thugs in the employ of the coal companies. Once these outlaws were out of the way there was a great rush for membership in the union.

Mingo county is now 100 per cent organized. Approximately 6,000 new members have been taken in in that county since the Matewan battle.

The first convention of the United Mine Workers of America ever held in Mingo county was held at Williamson, the county seat, on June 23. The sessions were held in the court house, the purpose of the convention being to formulate a set of demands as to wages and working conditions to be presented to the operators. The above photograph was taken on the court house steps, and it shows the delegates, some of the officials of District 17, and also some of the international organizers who were active in effecting the organization.

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

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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.]

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