Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 11, 1913
From Pratt, West Virginia, Military Bastile: “Stirring Letter from Mother Jones”
From the Appeal to Reason of May 10, 1913:
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A Stirring Letter from Mother Jones
(The following letter to Appeal readers from Mother Jones was sent to Mrs. Ryan Walker who is now in New York City, and by her forwarded to us. Had the letter been addressed to the Appeal to Reason it would never have reached its destination. This letter proves that prison bars, even death itself, has no terrors for this brave heroine of more than a hundred fiercely fought battles on the industrial field. Mother Jones is your mother, and I appeal to you to help us raise such a mighty protest that the outrages against the working class in barbarous West Virginia will cease. You have helped the Appeal win many a contest with plutocracy. We are now engaged in the biggest fight of all its career-a fight the outcome of which is of vital concern, not only to our imprisoned comrades in West Virginia, but to every man, woman and child in America. Read Mother Jones, letter-read it from the housetops, in the mines, in the shops, read it aloud wherever men congregate to work.)
Pratt, W. Va., Military Bastile, April 25, 1913.-This is a very serious situation we have here and is not grasped by the outside world and God knows when it will be. I have been in here about eleven weeks. There are twelve of we poor devils, eleven men and myself, one of them the editor of the Socialist paper in Charleston, and another one of our speakers, John Brown. His wife and three children are left to perish outside. We hear the cry of these little ones for their father; we hear the groans and sobs of his beautiful wife, but the dear, well-fed people don’t care for that. I don’t care much for myself, because my career is nearly ended, but I think of my brave boys who are incarcerated in Harrison county jail in Clarksburg and not a voice of protest raised in their behalf. They have been brave and true. They are now paying the penalty for having dared to fight for right and justice; but it matters not, this fight will go on, and the workers themselves will have to take hold of the machinery and pick out the skypilots and lawyers and quit feeding them and giving them jobs. I have been fighting this machine for years with scarcely any help. I am still in the fight and the pirates can’t shut me up even if I am in jail watched by the bloodhounds.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday May 7, 1913 John W. Brown on West Virginia Despotism: Mother Jones and Organizers Arrested
From The Coming Nation of May 3, 1913:
[Part II of III]
When Governor Glasscock issued his first declaration of Martial law, he seized everything in the shape of guns that could be found in the “War Zone.” After the embargo was raised he returned to the operators and Baldwin guards their gattling guns, high-power rifles and pistols, but not so with the miners guns. Consequently when these midnight assassins made their murderous attack on the sleeping village [of Holly Grove] the miners were practically unarmed.
Saturday afternoon and Sunday [February 8th and 9th, following the attack upon Holly Grove] was devoted to the mobilizing of sufficient guns and ammunition to enable the miners to put up a defence. Some of these men traveled as much as forty miles on foot simply to borrow a gun. In the meantime, all kinds of rumors were flying thick and fast. The governor sent men into the field to investigate, but the miners have long since lost confidence in these investigations. They have seen their comrades murdered before by this band of hired assassins, and then seen the governor send men out to “investigate,” and invariably the investigation resulted in turning the murderers loose to work out their hellish designs.
A well-founded rumor reached Hansford that the guards were going to make an attack on the town and had a gattling gun mounted upon the hill over-looking the main street and in a position that would enable them to rake the town from one end to the other. A small body of men went into the mountains by a round about way and overtook the guards and a pitched battle was fought in the hills from which the guards made a hasty retreat. Just why they should run off and leave a brand new $1,800 gattling gun that shoots three hundred and fifty times a minute, was not clear to the miners, but the secret came out later on when in the trial of “Mother Jones” she was accused of stealing the gun.. These fellows have such a holy horror for Mother that when they saw her coming they just quit that gun and ran. Some went by the way of the creek, but most of them took the Springfield route.
Monday the tenth was a day long to be remembered by the citizens of Hansford and the wives and children of the miners who had sought shelter in the town. During the latter part of the forenoon and up until late in the afternoon people kept streaming out of the main forks of the creek, many of whom were strangers who had been taken into the mines under false representation, and who took this first chance offered to escape the terrible conditions of peonage that now prevails throughout the whole field.
Shortly after noon, a group of men, women and children dragged themselves into Hansford. Everyone that could carry anything had a back load, and the poor women and children were ready to drop at the first friendly greeting.
Aside from what they carried on their backs they brought a new terror with them in that they reported that the guards, driven out of the hills by the miners, had mounted a gattling gun on a hand car and were going to make an attack on the town. This report was somewhat confirmed later in the day when Dr. Hunter of the “Sheltering Arms Hospital,” which is situated on an elevation on the opposite side of the Chesapeake and Ohio tracks from the town of Hansford, sent word through the town to the effect that the town would be fired upon and that the women and children should come to the hospital. There seemed to be an understanding between the hospital authorities and the coal baron’s assassins that the hospital was immune from attack, a thing not to be surprised at when it is remembered that Czar Cabel of Cabin Creek fame is treasurer of the hospital fund.
The miners and citizens of Hansford were not asking for any quarter at this time, though they did accept the hospitality for their wives and children, and by 6 p. m. all the women and children were safely out of range of the assassin’s bullets.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 1, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – Fred Merrick of the Socialist Labor Argus Arrested
From The Cincinnati Enquirer of April 30, 1913:
SOCIALIST EDITOR ———- And Labor Leader Arrested in West Virginia -Plant Confiscated.
SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE ENQUIRER.
The Hinton Daily News April 30, 1913
Charleston, W. Va., April 20.-Fritz Merrick, of Pittsburg, Socialist editor, and John L. Ramsey, a member of the United Mine Workers, were arrested this afternoon by the military authorities, and the printing plant of the Labor Argus, a local Socialist publication, was confiscated.
Merrick and Ramsey were seized by Adjutant General Charles D. Elliott, Major John H. Charnock and Captain Charles Wood and were taken to the Kanawha County Jail and placed in custody of Sheriff Bonner Hill on a commitment from the Governor, who acted under the provisions of the code giving him authority to seize persons who are engaged in an effort to incite insurrection.
The mailing list of the publication, which circulates largely through the coal fields, where a strike has recently been in progress, was seized by the officers, together with a number of copies of the newspaper.
Merrick, who served a sentence in Pittsburg for contempt of Court, anticipated his arrest and wired the Pittsburg Socialist last Sunday that “I expect to be arrested within 24 hours, but I shall have completed arrangements by that time to have the Labor Argus published In Pittsburg.”
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 26, 1913 Clarksburg, West Virginia – Comrade John W. Brown Writes from Jail
From The Wheeling Majority of April 24, 1913:
John Brown Writes From Harrison Jail ———-
John W. Brown, who, with Charles Boswell, editor of the Charleston Labor Argus, and George F. Parsons, United Mine Workers’ organizer, have been imprisoned under the martial law anarchy system in West Virginia since last February, has written a letter to W. A. Peters, of this city, from the present abode of the three men, the Clarksburg jail.
These men, with Mother Jones and many others, were arrested by the militia and have been in jail ever since, having been tried at a farcial trial at which they were not even represented, and tried by men who had previously sworn that they believed them guilty. Their crime is defending the poor mine workers of this state from the greed of the coal barons. For this they will likely be sentenced to the penitentiary, and sent under a violation of the constitution of the state of West Virginia and the United States, for they have been denied a trial in the civil courts, before a jury.
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The Letter.
Following is the letter:
Harrison County Jail. Clarksburg W. Va., April 10, ’13.
Dear Comrade Peters:
Your kind favor of March 25 just reached me. Was mighty glad to hear from you. Nothing doing in the Haywood line for this bunch; I know of but two Haywoods in this country, and I am not one of them. As to trials and tribulations…I will tell you all about it some other time. Let it suffice to say: We are here—because we’re here.—Because we can’t get away.
We arrived here April 2 from Pt. Pleasant, where we were flooded out. And, strange as it may seem, we are treated here as human beings. We have been under arrest since Feb. 10, and up to the time we were brought here we were held “incommunicado.” Yet notwithstanding this, did not prevent us from touching an underground wire, and stinging them once in a while. Do you get the “Argus”? Did you see “Old Liberty” from the Bull Pen at Pratt or “Don’t give up the Fight” from Mason county jail?
It is impossible to say at this time what they are going to do with us. But you can take it from me that if they can get Boswell, Parsons and myself, we will sure go. I am looking for about five years. They couldn’t get us for a day in the civil-courts.
As to matters personal, there is nothing the comrades can do for us other than to demand a trial in the civil courts. It’s a great opportunity for the [Socialist] party, but unfortunately, the party is not taking advantage of it.
They made a mistake in bringing us here. Evidently the jailer told them he was running this jail, as we are getting our mail, and outgoing mail is not censored, besides we can see “everybody”, and there is someone here about all the time. The boys hold a meeting every night in front of the court house and every day they bring us in a good dinner.
We have been corraled in box cars, passenger cars, churches, freight depots, old stores and three jails in three different counties. I am afraid the comrades here are going to spoil our “playhouse,” and in that case they may take us to Wheeling.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 3, 1913 Ralph Chaplin Travels with Comrade Rumbaugh to West Virginia Strike Zone
From the International Socialist Review of April 1913:
[Part III of III.]
A brief account of a trip made by Comrade Rumbaugh, of Hurricane, W. Va., and myself to the danger zone, might be of interest to readers of the REVIEW. We rode into Charleston “on the front end” and found that city to have the appearance of a place preparing for a siege. Martial law had been declared but a short time previously and the streets were full of soldiers. Yellow-legged sentries were stationed in front of the state house and the governor’s residence. It was rumored that machine guns were mounted in the upper windows of the former building, commanding both entrances to the capitol grounds.
A sentry was also stationed in front of the office of the Labor Argus to guard Comrade W. H. Thompson, who is editing that paper while Comrade Boswell is being “detained” in the bull pen. Comrade Thompson is an ex-Kanawha county coal miner and is unblushingly ”red.” He is the editor of the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star and he has put up as staunch a fight for the cause of the miners as any man in the state. At the city jail we witnessed the interesting spectacle of a bunch of “tin horns” bringing a prisoner from the military district to the city lockup. As the great iron gates swung open to receive them, the spectators commenced hissing the soldiers, calling them “scab herders” and other expressive names. Some of the “yellow legs” glared at these people brazenly but, may they be given due credit, others of the soldiers hung their heads with shame, as if such condemnation from members of their own class was more deadly to them than bullets.
From Charleston we took the labor train that was to carry us into the martial law zone. At Cabin Creek we were almost arrested with a bunch of miners in the car who were poking fun at the grave and ludicrous antics cut by some of the would-be man-killers in khaki. At the Paint Creek junction we remained for several hours, ostensibly to visit some soldier boys of our acquaintance, but in reality to secure information and photographs for the REVIEW and the Labor Star. Comrade Rumbaugh was afterwards arrested and relieved of his camera for attempting to take photographs to illustrate this article. We spoke with dozens of the soldiers, and one of them, an ex-mine guard, admitted that the guards use dum-dum bullets against the miners. He told of two miners who had been killed with these proscribed missiles, one man who had the top of his head completely shot off and another who received a death wound in the breast large enough to “stick your fist into.”
The freight house at Paint Creek has been converted into a bull pen, and over fifty men are now incarcerated there, only three of whom are not native West Virginains. The interior of this place would make a Siberian prison pen look like a haven of refuge. The sleeping accommodations are inadequate, ventilation poor and the floors filthy beyond description. Even with two or three men sleeping in the coal-bin there is no room for the others. The only papers the prisoners are permitted to read are the reactionary local rags and the National Socialist. Mother Jones, Charles Boswell and John Brown have somewhat better quarters elsewhere in town. A sentinel is constantly measuring his paces before the door of each. Dear old Mother Jones in the bull-pen and guarded by armed mercenaries of the Mine Owners! The very thought of it makes blood boil, here in West Virginia.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 14, 1913
Pratt, West Virginia – Mother Jones Seriously Ill, Awaits Verdict of Militia Jury
From The Hinton Daily News and Leader of March 13, 1913:
MOTHER JONES IS NOW SERIOUSLY ILL
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The Fate of the 49 Strikers Are Now
In the Hands of the Militia Jury
of Six Soldiers-Verdict Soon
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Mother Jones in West Virginia with Children of Striking Miners
Charleston, March 13.-Mother Jones is reported to be seriously ill at the Military Camp at Pratt. She broke down completely and had to be carried out of the court this morning. She is getting the best of attention. Repeated adverse decisions seems to have the best of the labor worker and the condition may be serious.
The fate of the forty-mine miners and others, who are charged with violating the rules of the militia in the strike zone, are now in the hands of the military jurors, six in number. The last of the evidence for the prosecution was given yesterday and later there appeared two witnesses for the defense. With the close of their testimony, the cases then went to the soldier jurors.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday March 8, 1913 Charleston, West Virginia – Coal Barons Own State Government, Rule Over Miners
From the Chicago DayBook of March 7, 1913:
HER NATURAL DESERTS
Little West Virginia is having big troubles. She deserves most of them.
For years, her politics have been, a cesspool of corruption, her contributions to the U. S. senate, for instance, being silly, caricatures upon the word “statesmen” and their selections being brazen travesties upon the term “self-government.”
The other day, a legislator, a minister, got up in the assembly and announced that his pockets had been stuffed with money to induce him to vote for a certain man for U. S. senator. The arrests of four representatives and one state senator followed. Last Thursday it took an entire police department to put down a riot in the capitol at Charleston. Rotten politics begets rotten conditions, and West Virginia has earned what she has got.
West Virginia has permitted her “coal barons” to treat their workmen like dogs. There has been bloody, warfare in the Holly Grove district. Six companies of militia are there, the third invasion of troops in less than a year. The governor is averaging three proclamations of martial law per week. “Mother Jones,” the well known friend of the miners, an editor and two labor union officials have been jailed as “accessories before the fact” in the death of a man killed in one of the riots. The Ettor case over again, you see.
The military court has 150 cases against strikers to pass upon. And the governor is compelled to borrow the money to promulgate his declarations of martial law. Such are West Virginia’s industrial, or economic troubles. She has earned them by foul liason with the vilest gang of monopolists that ever debased a community and looted her resources.
But maybe there’s hope for even West Virginia. Some of her citizens are being shot or arrested, and some of her editors are going to jail in behalf of the right of free speech, Such things seem to be the beginnings of reforms now-a-days.
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