Hellraisers Journal – Sunday May 30, 1920
Logan County, West Virginia – Coal Operators Own Public Officials, Part I
From The Nation of May 29, 1920:
Private Ownership Of Public Officials
By ARTHUR GLEASON
[Part I of II.]
Harrisburg Telegraph October 16, 1919
WEST VIRGINIA has started in again on the organized killing which every few years breaks loose in the mining districts. On May 19, eleven men were shot to death in the town of Matewan, Mingo County. Seven of them were detectives, three were miners and one was an official. This skirmish is the first in the 1920 war between the coal operators of the State and the United Mine Workers of America. Mingo is one of the counties in the southwest of the State which have been held against organized labor by detectives, armed guards, and deputy sheriffs.
With the beginning of May, the miners formed local unions, and brought in 2,000 members. As fast as the miners join the union, the coal companies are evicting them from the company-owned houses. I saw the typewritten notice of the Stone Mountain Coal Company on the window of the company-owned grocery store. It stated that the houses of the miners were owned by the company, and that the miners must leave the premises at once if they join the union. Ezra Frye, the local organizer, acting for the United Mine Workers, had leased land, and was erecting tents for the evicted families. He had ordered 300 tents on the first allotment. Matewan lies on the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River. It is run politically by the Hatfield clan, who for generations have had a feud with the McCoy clan. The economic struggle is making a new alignment across the old feudist divisions. No stranger is safe just now in these unorganized counties. We had a spy who trailed us from Charleston to Matewan. In the town, we were kept under constant guard.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday April 21, 1920
Centralia Defendants Get Heavy Sentences; Anna Louise Strong Reports on Trial
From the Washington Standard of April 6, 1920:
HEAVY SENTENCES GIVEN I. I. W.’S
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TWENTY-FIVE TO FORY YEARS GIVEN MEN CONVICTED OF
SECOND DEGREE MURDER; PRACTICALLY MEANS LIFE
TO MOST OF THEM; CASE TO BE APPEALED.
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The seven men convicted at Montesano March 13 of second degree murder for the slaying of Warren O. Grimm, Centralia Armistice Day parade victim, were sentenced to not less than 25 years in state’s prison and not more than 40 years, by Judge John M. Wilson Monday afternoon.
Defense Attorney Vanderveer took exception to the sentences and gave notice of appeal.
Judge Wilson said that he could not pay any attention to the jury’s plea for leniency in the case of John Lamb and Ray Becker in the light of the evidence submitted. He said he regarded the case against all of the men as identical. Loren Roberts, whom the jury found insane, was ordered sent to the criminal insane ward at Walla Walla penitentiary.
The seven men sentenced to 25 to 40 years were O. C. Bland, Bert Bland, John Lamb, Eugene Barnett, James McInerney, Ray Becker and Britt Smith.
Motion for a new trial was made by Vanderveer, and argued at length but was denied by Judge Wilson before the sentence was passed.
The minimum sentence for second degree murder is 10 years, the maximum life imprisonment. The defense has 90 days in which, to carry the case to the supreme court.
[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From The Nation of April 17, 1920:
Centralia: An Unfinished Story
By ANNA LOUISE STRONG
NEITHER side was satisfied with the compromise verdict rendered by the jury at Montesano in the trial of the eleven members of the I. W. W. charged with the murder of Warren 0. Grimm in connection with the Centralia tragedy on Armistice Day. The prosecution asked that all eleven be convicted of murder in the first degree, as having conspired to commit murder. The defense asked that all be acquitted, as men who had planned only to defend themselves and their hall against a threatened raid. One of the defendants was freed on a directed verdict. Of the ten considered by the jury, two were acquitted, one adjudged insane, and seven convicted of murder in the second degree. Even to the jury itself this verdict was not satisfactory. It brought in first a verdict of murder in the third degree for two of the defendants, but was informed by the judge that this was inadmissible, and upon further consideration changed the verdict to that of murder in the second degree. It is generally conceded that three of the jurors held out for some time for absolute acquittal of all defendants.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 23, 1919
State of Arkansas Sanctions Legalized Lynching of Twelve Union Men
From The New Solidarity of December 20, 1919:
TWELVE UNION NEGROES SENTENCED TO GALLOWS
A wholesale judicial lynching threatens to be the outcome of the recent situation in Arkansas, where a protest on the part of a group of Negroes known as the Farmers Protective Union [Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America] has resulted in a general charge of conspiracy against all the Negroes of the community. One hundred and twenty-two have been brought to trial. On the flimsiest evidence, sixty have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from one to twenty-one years. After a trial lasting exactly seven minutes, twelve have been condemned to die. This hideous travesty upon justice has been well called “legalized lynching”
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[Photograph and emphasis added.]
From The New York Age of December 20, 1919:
NEW BRUNSWICK FOLK GIVE TO DEFENCE FUND
NEW BRUNSWICK, N. J.-Acting on the suggestion of THE AGE that a fund ought to be raised for the defense of the colored men convicted and sentenced to be executed in Elaine (Arkansas) riots, the citizens of this, town, through M. J. Preston, have raised and forwarded $68.25 to Miss Mary White Ovington, chairman of the executive committee. N. A. A. C. P.
[There follows a list of person who made donations (from $.25 to $5.00) to the Defence Fund.]
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 14, 1919
Seattle, Washington – Union Record, Confiscated and Returned
From The Nation of December 13, 1919:
A Newspaper Confiscated—And Returned
By ANNA LOUISE STRONG
[Part I of II.]
SEATTLE has a way of making labor history. The third week in November saw not only the confiscation and later the return of the property of The Seattle Union Record, the mouthpiece of organized labor in that city, but produced as by-products several actions new in the history of unionism. The newspaper’s plant was seized without warning by the United States Attorney, held throughout a week’s time through various court delays, and at last returned on order of the court, which stated that it was illegally held. The mailing of the paper was held up for over a week by the local postmaster on the ground that he was “in doubt” concerning its mailability.
The Seattle Star of November 13, 1919
Meantime, the labor movement of the city, which was obviously expected by the authorities to indicate its anger in some storm or upheaval, remained calm and self-controlled, and began voting a day’s pay per member for “a bigger, better Union Record.” Several unions displayed spontaneously the extent to which solidarity of feeling has transcended in Seattle the actual craft lines of organization. The union teamsters, sent to The Union Record office to haul away the confiscated files, records, and papers, obstinately refused to handle them until the marshal appealed to the secretary of The Union Record’s board of control, whom he had just arrested. Mr. Rust then went out and told the teamsters “It’s all right, boys; go ahead.” And they went ahead.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday November 18, 1919
Pennsylvania Cossacks, Steel Strikers, and Civil Liberty
From The Nation of November 15, 1919:
Civil Liberty in the Steel Strike
By MARY HEATON VORSE
THE steel strike has been marked by the orderliness of the strikers on the one hand, and on the other by the sweeping denial of their civil rights, and by the brutality of that extraordinary body of men, the State Constabulary of Pennsylvania. When one states that in Homestead, for example, there was a reign of terror, that men were beaten for no cause and chased down the street into strange houses; that men and women were arrested and fined for no cause and their fines remitted under promise that they would go back to work; and that posters fomenting race hatred are even now in current circulation in the steel mills, the statements sound fantastic. Let the documents, however, speak for themselves. One may choose almost at random from a wealth of material. The cases cited are not isolated; town after town had its own story of terrorism to tell.
In spite of Judge Gary’s statement to the contrary, men were persecuted and dismissed for union activities.
Not only were such methods used to discourage the men from organizing, but the rights of free speech and free assembly were denied them. No meetings were allowed in Farrell, Monessen, and Donora. In McKeesport people were arrested while attending a meeting and fined excessively. Rabbi Wise was refused a permit to hold a meeting in Duquesne, the burgess of this town remarking with naive truth: “Jesus Christ couldn’t hold a meeting in Duquesne.” Since September 22 [the date the Steel Strike began] no meetings have been allowed in Pittsburgh except at the Labor Temple. The strike in that city is unpopular with the authorities. Because the sheriff does not like Mr. Foster, he arbitrarily takes away the workers’ civil liberties, though at no time has there been even a suggestion of disorder in Pittsburgh.
Before the strike was actually in progress, the State Constabulary was called in and an extra police force of 5,000 was deputized in Allegheny County alone. Among these deputies were Negro strike breakers—in the towns of Donora and Monessen—and this during a time when an epidemic of race riots had swept the country.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday December 11, 1918
Sacramento, California-Federal Trial of I. W. W. in Progress
The trial of members of the Industrial Workers of World is now in progress in Sacramento, and little to no mention is made by the kept press of the five fellow workers who did not live long enough to face a jury of their peers.The San Francisco Chronicle of December 9th does mention them briefly:
[F]our of the defendants-Robert James Blaine, Edward Burns, Henry Evans and Frank Travis-have died since they were arrested.
However The Chronicle fails to mention the death of defendant, Fellow Worker James Nolan, and also fails to mention that these five fellow workers were imprisoned under horrendous conditions and further fails to mention that they died of influenza/pneumonia to which those unsanitary conditions may have been a contributing factor.
From the San Francisco Examiner of December 8, 1918:
I.W.W. to Treat U.S. Charge
With Silent Contempt
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47 Defendants in Conspiracy Case
at Sacramento
Will Make No Defense.
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SACRAMENTO, December 7.-A “silent defense” is the program of the trial committee, which will represent all but one of the forty-seven defendants in the Industrial Workers of the World conspiracy cases, who will be brought to trial here Monday in the United States District Court, according to Robert Duncan, special attorney for the Department of Justice, who will prosecute the case for the government.
Duncan said today he had received information from among the defendants and through other sources that it was the plan for the defendants and their committee to treat the entire proceedings with “silent contempt” and to take no part in the trial.
The only women defendant, Theodora Pollok of San Francisco, will be represented by Attorney Nathan C. Coghlan of San Francisco. The other defendants announced at their arraignment October 8, when they entered pleas of not guilty, that they had dismissed their attorneys and would conduct their own trial.
One defendant, Julius Weinberg of San Francisco, entered his plea of guilty on October 4, but has not been sentenced.
The defendants are charged with conspiracy to obstruct the war program of the United State government.
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