Hellraisers Journal – Saturday September 23, 1911 West Virginia’s Mine Guard System, Brutal Thugs Hired by Coal Operators
From The Labor Argus of September 21, 1911:
The blackest spot that stains the pages of the history of West Virginia is the damnable guard system, employed by the coal barons of our state. Such conditions as exist on Cabin Creek, New River and other non-union coal fields of the state, are a disgrace to civilization, and an outrage on American manhood. The brutalities of the hired thugs of the capitalists and coal operators, surpass that of the Cossacks of Russia. The peonage practiced by Barbarous Mexico, of which we read with horror, is practiced here in our own county and state.
Russianized West Virginia, where the law-abiding citizens are subject to brutalities and outrages equaled only by those endured by the oppress, ignorant and brow-beaten peons of Mexico. Every crime known to criminality has been committed by these hired convicts of the coal barons.
These men will stop short of no crime. Men have been murdered by these desperados, for no other offense than belonging to a Labor Union. To go into Cabin Creek or New River districts and declare yourself a labor organizer, is to invite death. All the excuse these guards want is to slug and murder a workingman, is to know that he is a union man. To even be known as a union sympathizer is all the provocation necessary to become the object of a brutal attack by the gun-men.
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Governor Glasscock in his address on Labor Day said he believed in organized labor. But his actions when he commissions and legalizes these outlaws, belie his words. In the first place, these men are not commissioned as coal company guards, but as railroad detectives. But the railroads don’t pay them a cent, as they draw their salaries from the coal companies. This is a fraud on the face of the transaction. We can show that these guards are maintained by the coal companies, and commissioned by the Governor, for the sole purpose of fighting organized labor; in other words, the United Mine Workers. If this is not so, why do they not need guards in the organized field? If they are railroad detectives, why do they assault and murder men for belonging to the Miner’s Union?
These men are retained for no other purpose than to keep the miners from organizing, and to brow-beat and brutalize them into humble submission to the coal barons. They were commissioned for that purpose only and the Governor knew it when he commissioned them.
If the words spoken by Governor Glasscock on Labor Day to the effect that he believed in organized labor that the workers had a right to organize for mutual protection were true, why does he commission these brutal guards at the behest of the coal barons to fight the organization? Why does he not protect the working men in the exercise of their rights?
Our governor is nothing but a spineless jellyfish, and a tool of the corporations. A man nominated and elected by the special interests. According to Governor Glasscock’s own words, he is either a coward or a liar. He either don’t believe in the right of labor to organize, as he said he did, or he is too big a coward to protect them in the exercise of these rights.
Next week we will take up the crimes committe by these guards and show that they have been given protection by the officials.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 14, 1911 “The Blighting of the Babies” -from John Spargo’s Bitter Cry of the Children
From The Progressive Woman of September 1911:
THE BLIGHTING OF THE BABIES —————
(From “the Bitter Cry of the Children” by John Spargo)
Poverty and Death are grim companions.Wherever there is much poverty the death-rate is high and rises higher with every rise of the tide of want and misery. In London, Bethnal Green’s death-rate is nearly double that of Belgravia; in Paris, the poverty stricken district of Ménilmontant has a death -rate twice as high as that of the Elysée; in Chicago, the death-rate varies from about twelve per thousand in the wards where the well-to-do reside to thirty-seven per thousand in the tenement wards .
The ill developed bodies of the poor, underfed and overburdened with toil, have not the powers of resistance to disease possessed by the bodies of the more fortunate. As fire rages most fiercely and with greatest devastation among the ill-built, crowded tenements, so do the fierce flames of disease consume most readily the ill-built, fragile bodies which the tenements shelter. As we ascend the social scale the span of life lengthens and the death-rate gradually diminishes, the death-rate of the poorest class of workers being three and a half times as great as that of the well-to-do. It is estimated that among 10,000,000 persons of the latter class the annual deaths do not number more than 100,000, among the best paid of the working class the number is not less than 150,000, while among the poorest workers the number is at least 350,000.
This difference in the death-rates of the various social classes is even more strongly marked in the case of infants. Mortality in the first year of life differs enormously according to the circumstances of the parents and the amount of intelligent care bestowed upon the infants. In Boston’s “Back Bay” district the death-rate at all ages last year was 13.45 per thousand as compared with 18.45 in the Thirteenth Ward, which is a typical working class district, and of the total number of deaths the percentage under one year was 9.44 in the former as against 25.21 in the latter. Wolf , in his classic studies based upon the vital statistics of Erfurt for a period of twenty years, found that for every 1,000 children born in working-class families 505 died in the first year; among the middle classes 173, and among the higher classes only 89. Of every 1,000 illegitimate children registered-almost entirely of the poorer classes-352 died before the end of the first year.
Dr. Charles R. Drysdale, Senior Physician of the Metropolitan Free Hospital, London, declared some years ago that the death-rate of infants among the rich was not more than 8 per cent, while among the very poor it was often as high as 40 per cent.
Dr. Playfair says that 18 per cent of the children of the upper classes, 36 per cent of the tradesman class, and 55 per cent of those of the working-class die under the age of five years.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday September 13, 1911 “Echoes from the Triangle Fire…Americans Need Big Shocks”
From The Ladies’ Garment Worker of September 1911:
Echoes from the Triangle Fire.
Dr. Price Suggests Co-operation Between
the Waist Makers’ Union and the
Board of Sanitary Control.
The whole community is responsible for the safety of its workers.
Parents and friends of the 145 victims who were in the Triangle fire, says the New York “Call,” and of the scores of workers who saved their lives but were maimed and injured, have written, telephoned and appeared in person at the office of the Ladies’ Waist and Dress Makers’ Union, in the last two days, calling upon the union to see to it that Harris & Blanck, the owners of the Triangle shop, be brought to trial.
The parents and friends of the victims also called upon the union officials to demand an account from the Red Cross as to the manner in which $100,000 collected for the benefit of the families of the fire victims, has been disposed of, if it had been disposed of.
As a result of these numerous calls the Executive Board of the Ladies’ Waist Maker’s Union stirred up the committee of three which has been appointed some time ago to look into the Triangle case, to immediate, vigorous activity.
The committee, which consists of Sam Spivack, A. Silver, and Sam Gusman, met last night at 151 Clinton street to decide upon plans to co-operate with the parents and friends of the fire victims, and to determine upon ways and means of improving conditions in the shops where the lives of workers are daily exposed to the fire panics.
Several of the parents and friends of the Triangle victims, who called at the office of the Ladies’ Waist Makers’ Union, said that they will either get up a petition or will write personal letters to District Attorney Whitman calling upon him to bring Harris and Blanck to trial.
Dr. George M. Price, M. D., the chairman of the Executive Committee of the Joint Board of Sanitary Control in the Cloak and Suit Industry of New York, has written to the “Call” suggesting a way in which the Board might co-operate with the Waistmakers’ Union.
Americans need big shocks, says Dr. Price.
Because several meetings have been held, because a “safety committee” has been appointed, because the papers devoted a few pages to factory fire damages, it is not to be expected that the 30,000 shops in the city should have suddenly become improved, that new fire escapes should have been put in where needed, and that workers should have become interested in protecting their lives from fires instead of devoting their whole time to the most important question of election of business delegates?
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