Tag: Walter B Hilton

Hellraisers Journal: From The Wheeling Majority: Fannie Sellins, Angel to Collier District Miners, Arrested for Violating Federal Judge Dayton’s Injunction

Janet RayeFannie Sellins
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Quote Anne Feeney, Fannie Sellins Song, antiwarsongs org—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday February 13, 1914
Mass Protest Meeting at Wheeling Followed by Arrest of Fannie Sellins

From The Wheeling Majority of February 12, 1914:

Wheeling Mass Meeting Feb 8 v Fed Judge Dayton of US No Dist WV, Fannie Sellins re Colliers Mine Strike, Wlg Maj p1, 2, 3, 6, Feb 12, 1914Wheeling Mass Meeting Feb 8 v Petition Fed Judge Dayton of US No Dist WV, Fannie Sellins re Colliers Mine Strike, Wlg Maj p1, Feb 12, 1914

Fannie Sellins Arrested re Colliers Mine Strike, Wlg Maj p1, Feb 12, 1914

By a grand jury of more than 3,000 talesmen, Federal Judge A. G. Dayton, of the United States Circuit Court, Northern District of West Virginia was indicted for misuse of the power of the injunction, and high crimes and misdemeanors against labor and the citizens of the State, at the huge mass meeting in the Market Auditorium, last Sunday afternoon [February 8th]. Public opinion appeared as the prosecutor; and witnesses were examined whose testimony revealed Judge Dayton as a Twentieth Century Judge Jeffrys, and his judicial methods as those of a Star Chamber court.

Judge Dayton entered no defense. He waived examination entirely, holding himself above the power that placed him in office. The verdict of the grand jury was unanimous, and only one ballot was taken. As a result of the action of the mass meeting, his conduct will be brought to the attention of President Wilson, Chief Magistrate of the United States. An official investigation of his unlawful practices in office will be prayed for, together with relief from the intolerable tyranny of his administration through removal from office.

Oppression of Helpless

Tears came involuntarily to the eyes of auditors as witness after witness recounted the oppression of the helpless miners at Colliers and elsewhere, and the misery and suffering engendered through Judges Dayton’s overriding of the laws of the land. Tears and horror were succeeded by anger and a determination to end the reign of injustice in West Virginia by the recountal of the betrayal of citizens of the State by a judge whose sworn duty it is to redress their wrongs, and to see that the violations of the laws of the United States are punished.

[The article continues at length with descriptions of the many speeches made, including that of Fannie Sellins whose speech was described thus:]

Fannie Sellins

Perhaps the most dramatic and stirring moments of the meeting came when Miss Fannie Sellins began a personal recital of the wrongs she had witnessed and encountered in the Colliers district during the strike. Without any attempt at oratory,—her sentences at times disconnected, her voice now hoarse with righteous anger, now tremulous to the verge of tears, she held the entire assembly breathless for nearly three quarters of an hour.

Audience In Tears

Hundreds in the audience were in tears when she told of hardships endured by miners and their families on the barren hillsides; of families huddled together beneath rags to keep themselves warm; of twin babies born without attention of any kind, either medical or otherwise in just such conditions.

She rehearsed incidents that happened to families of miners who had been brought to the district through misrepresentation,—who were told that there was no trouble, and of cruelties practised on them because they refused to work under those conditions.

She told of assaults without redress, of eviction from homes under unspeakable brutalities; of shots fired by assassins on men peacefully asleep in tents at night.

She recounted the stories of many assaults on pickets by Baldwin thugs,—called by the operators, mine guards. She told of insults offered to women and children; of an attempt to bribe a Polish boy to murder a union man.

She told of nights of horror when unheralded out of the darkness shots would sweep the camps in which were sleeping women and children from the hillsides where the guards were.

Appeals Are Vain

She told of frequent and vain appeals to the courts for justice, and of its refusal by Judge Dayton.

She told of her seizure on entering the district from Pittsburgh, and of threats of personal violence made to her by “Bob” Virgin, superintendent of the Pittsburgh Coal company, and miners.

Wave after wave of feeling swept over the hearers as with unstudied eloquence Miss Sellins told incident after incident, piled tales of hardship upon hardship, and of the vain endeavor to get justice from the courts.

The audience rose en masse and cheered her at the conclusion of her effort.

[…..]

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: West Virginia Supreme Court Hands Mother Jones, Editor Boswell, Charles Batley, Paul Paulson, Etc. Over for Trial by Military Commission at Pratt

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote WB Hilton re Mother Jones Courage, ed Wlg Maj p10, Mar 6, 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 7, 1913
Charleston, West Virginia – State Supreme Court Rules against Miners

From The Wheeling Majority of March 6, 1913:

HdLn UMW Attorneys v Military Comm n WV Supreme Court, Wlg Maj p1, Mar 6, 1913

(Labor Argus Service.)

Charleston, W. Va., March 7.—(Special.)-By an order handed down by the supreme court of West Virginia on last Friday, Mother Jones, Charles H. Boswell, Charles Batley and Paul Paulsen were remanded to the custody of the military commission at Pratt. The court, after having the question of the legality of the military commission argued before it for five solid hours, with its customary evasiveness, said it was not called upon to decide whether the military commission had power to try the petitioners. It being apparent, said the court, that the governor has power, under the law, to detain rioters during the continuance of the disturbance, they would not release the prisoners nor turn them over to the civil courts for trial.

In the face of this dodging attitude of the court, the attorneys for the coal interests and the military court admitted that they were going to try the petitioners before the military commission. The court, however, ignored this fact and refused to give the petitioners a trial to jury, as is provided by the state and national constitutions.

Immediately following the action of the court the military authorities announced they would begin the trials of their victims on March 7. The attorneys for the miners, H. W. Houston and A. M. Belcher, refused to prostitute their profession and lend the color of legality to this anarchial proceeding by appearing before the commission. Their advice to the prisoners is to refuse to have counsel or witnesses and to refuse to answer any questions of the tin-horn bunch of khaki jurists.

—————

A Few Remarks

BY WALTER B. HILTON
[editor of The Wheeling Majority]

Wheeling Majority ed Walter B Hilton, Wlg Maj p4, Mar 6, 1913

HATS OFF to the striking West Virginia miners. They are putting up what is probably the best industrial fight ever waged by American workers. They have had used against the [very best] weapon that the capitalist class could buy with the money that was stolen from the miners in the first place. Thug ‘‘guards” were first employed, then the military and finally the courts. All were at the service of the coal barons of the state and all were hurled at the little fighting group of mine workers. And still they have not been crushed. Hundreds of them have been arrested, dozens have been sentenced, dozens have been killed, and yet such is their glorious spirit that the coal strike is not crushed.

The Kanawha county miners have shown the world an example of working class solidarity and splendid courage. Much of the credit is due “Mother” Jones, that wonderful old woman who went up in the regions controlled by the mine guards, places where no man could go, and agitated and educated and federated. Men organizers had tried it before, only to be beaten by the hired thugs and driven out. Some were killed. But for more than a year they feared to touch this little old woman, who carried her eighty years with her as she tramped the roads, climbed the mountains, walked the cross ties and waded the creeks, carrying the message of industrial solidarity to the thousands who, before her coming, were hopeless.

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for September 1912, Part II: Speaks at Wheeling, West Virginia, Thrills Thousands, Grown Men Weep

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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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 22, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for September 1912, Part II
Found Speaking at Wheeling, West Virginia, Thrills Thousands

From the New York Sun of September 11, 1912:

MINERS TO BESIEGE GLASSCOCK.
———-
Will Bring Wives and Children
to West Virginia Capital.
———-

Mother Jones and WV Gov Glasscock, Wilmington DE Eve Jr p6, Sept 13, 1912

CHARLESTON, W. Va., Sept. 10.-Mother Jones announced to-day that the striking miners of the Kanawha district would make another effort to see Gov. Glasscock. Within a week they are to march into the capital again and make a demand for the use of the State House grounds as a meeting place.

[Said Mother Jones:]

The Governor must hear us this time. We want him to hear our story, we want him to see us. The very looks of the men who are fighting for freedom is a tremendous argument for their cause.

We are coming back to our capital again and twice as strong as last week. The men are going to bring their children along and their wives.

—————

[Photograph added.]

From The Wheeling Intelligencer of September 16, 1912:

MOTHER JONES MAKES ADDRESS
———-

TO OVER 1,500 AT FIFTH WARD MARKET HOUSE.
———-
Paints Horrible Picture of Conditions in Strike District
and Flays Coal Barons.

Owing to the rain the mass protest meeting that was to have been held at the wharf yesterday afternoon [Sunday September 15th] was held at the Fifth ward market house, where over 1,500 people assembled to hear Mother Jones, the lady of the mines, and other prominent speakers.

As the old lady with white hair mounted the platform she was greeted with cheers that lasted for over five minutes. She started right in to business, and did not mince words or names when it came down to condemning the conditions in the southern part of the state. Before the meeting closed, Governor William Glasscock and Senators Watson and Chilton came in for their share of flaying, as well as Senators Scott and Elkins. They were classed by her as leeches and blood suckers, and the detective force and mine guards as human blood hounds. She said that right here in the little Mountain State, peonage of the most horrible kind was being practiced, and that Russia and Bulgaria were a paradise compared to it. She said that slavery was nothing compared to it, and that only last Thursday she was forced to cross streams in the strike district in the middle of the night by wading in the water up to her waist.

She claimed that women, children and sick men were thrown out of doors by these hired toughs and compelled to find shelter in the open, and that women were hauled about by the hair if they resisted these insults.

A collection was taken up to be sent to the relief committee which amounted to over $50. It will be used for the purpose of buying food and clothes for the strikers. A large donation was also received from the miners in Cripple Creek, Colo.

Want Legislation.

By unanimous vote it was decided to send a petition to Governor Glasscock demanding him to call a special session of the state legislature to make laws to help the miners. The following legislation is wanted: To do away with the guard system; that all coal dug by the miners shall be paid for by weight; the enforcement of an employer’s liability law; the abolition of the company store; and the payment of the miners every two weeks. She said that the miners would never go back to work until these wishes were complied with, and that the guard system would have to go, and if the governor would not give the citizens their rights, they would be compelled to take the law in their own hands or starve.

Raps Watson.

She also took a rap at the Fairmont district and hit Senator Watson hard. She scorned him as a blot on the state that would take years to wipe off. As she concluded her speech she was madly cheered.

Other speakers were F. C. Harter, also from the southern part of the state, a Confederate soldier, and a well-to-do farmer over 80 years old. He condemned the tactics used by the coal barons as a disgrace to humanity, and a thing that every citizen in the state should be ashamed to tolerate.  “Mother Jones left last evening for Charleston and will stay with the boys, she says, until they get their rights.

[Photograph added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for June and July 1912: Found in West Virginia Standing with Striking Coal Miners of Kanawha County

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Life Work Mission, WV Cton Gz, June 11, 1912, per ISR p648, Mar 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 16, 1912
Mother Jones News Round-Up for June and July 1912
Found in West Virginia Standing with Striking Miners of Kanawah County

From The Sacramento Star of June 3, 1912:

Mother Jones on Train, Sac Str p1, June 3, 1912

Mother Jones has forwarded $800 from Montana to the Harriman shop strikers. Seven hundred of this was donated, in response to her earnest appeal, by unions of coal miners, and the remainder came from mill and smeltermen, machinists and other crafts. How persistent has been her work tor the System Federation is seen in her statement that she refused to accept less than $250 from the union of miners at Roundup, and their $100 donation was sent through their international office. Butte metal miners gave $300 some time ago.

[She writes in a characteristic letter to President E. L. Reguin and Secretary John Scott of the System Federation:]

If the men had been working regularly in the coal mines, I could have gathered up very much more. However, the whole thing shows the disposition of the men to aid each other in the struggle, which counts to me very much more than the finances,

I shall leave in a few days for West Virginia, to take up the battle there. It is a dangerous field, and many of us who go in there are more than likely never to come out, but what difference does that make so long as we are carrying on the industrial battle, and flaunting in the face of the foe the red flag of industrial freedom? There must be sacrifices made, and there must be martyrs. That state and Alabama must be organized within the next few years.

Tell my boys of the Federation it matters not where I go, I shall keep up the fight against oppression and wrong. Men, women and children must be free, and sentiment will never free them. Those who are grounded in the philosophy of the class struggle must go forth and give battle to the well-entrenched foe.

Tell the boys to keep up the fight. It is far better to die fighting and suffering than to remain slaves.

—————

From the Denver United Labor Bulletin of June 6, 1912:

MINERS HOLD CONFERENCE

A conference of all the officers of the different districts of the United Mine Workers of America of the Rocky Mountain Jurisdiction, was held Monday in Butte, Mont. Plans were laid for more thorough organization, and for active assistance to employers of union labor in the matter of securing increased sale of union-mined coal. “Mother” Jones addressed the meeting and left Monday night for West Virginia.

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Hellraisers Journal: From the Wheeling Majority: “Hot Times in West Virginia”-Mother Jones Working Night and Day

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Life Work Mission, WV Cton Gz, June 11, 1912, per ISR p648, Mar 1913—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 7, 1912
Charleston, West Virginia – Cossacks Rule Paint Creek, Mother Jones at Work

From The Wheeling Majority of July 4, 1912:

Hot Times In West Virginia
———-

[Mother Jones Working Night and Day]

(By G. H. Edmunds.)

Mother Jones WV , Cnc Pst p1, June 11, 1912

Charleston, W. Va., July 3.—(Special.)—You talk about the cossacks of Russia and the state police of Pennsylvania, but the guard system of West Virginia has all these backed off the boards. The guards along Paint Creek have taken the law in their hands, and are openly defying the law in all its phases. They are evicting the miners in open violation of the law up to date, we have been unable to check them. The law firm of Littlepage, Matheney and Littlepage sought to enjoin the coal companies, and here is what happened.

District Judge Burdette did the “fade-away” act’ to perfection. When our attorney went to his court (after having a time set to hear the injunction), and there and then found that the judge had left the community and no one could say where he had gone or when he would return. So the coal companies are still evicting our people. If Kellar, the great magician, wants to learn a few new tricks along the “fade-away” line, he might do well to consult his honor, Judge Burdette.

Assaulting Children.

Assault after assault has been committed upon defenseless men, women and children. But the sheriff of Kanawha county has done absolutely nothing about it at all. We hope that the miners will not forget Judge Burdette when election day comes. If he is afraid to perform the duties of his office, then he is not competent to fill that high office. I know it is pretty hard to go up against such a proposition as issuing or refusing an injunction as the one prayed for, yet it was the plain duty of Judge Burdette to have stood his ground and decided this case on its merits. Judge Burdette stands indicted for rank cowardice before all the people of this county. Will they forget or condone this act? Lots could be said about Kanawha county justice, but we will save it for campaign dope. Board Member Watkins Reports a good meeting at McClannahan, just across the mountain from Raymond City. We are glad to see these men coming out of the kinks at last. There are scores of good men over there and now that they have started again we bid them God speed.

Boys, don’t stop until every man in your locality is a union man and a Socialist. The “man catchers” from Burnwell “caught” two colored brothers in their net of deception, but upon their arrival at Burnwell, they found out about the strike and they left, walking 17 miles, and they informed the guards they would spend a year in the penitentiary before they would work as strike breakers. Pretty good union men, these.

Mother Jones There.

Mother Jones is still here and well and working night and day. She bears her 80 years as if they were 50. We expect big things next week. At this time we have 21 guards on trial for entering the homes of the miners without leave or warrant.

The miners are still firm and there will be no break away from our ranks. Organizers Batley and Davis left for their homes to spend the 4th of July. Organizer G. H. Edmunds and Vice President Frank J. Hayes will speak at Buxton, Ia., on the Fourth. Great credit is due the Majority for the gallant advocacy of the miners’ cause during this strike. All miners should subscribe to this paper, because he is our friend, and we should stand by our friends. Editor Hilton, has been fearless in his defense of our cause.

All mine workers are requested to stay away from West Virginia until notified officially that the strike is ended. 

[Photograph, emphasis and paragraph breaks added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The Socialist Outlook in West Virginia” by Harold W. Houston

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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EVD re Socialism v Capitalism—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 28, 1912
Socialist Party Organizing in West Virginia by Harold Houston

From the International Socialist Review of April 1912:

The Socialist Outlook in West Virginia

[-by Harold W. Houston, State Secretary]

It is impossible to write of the political situation in this state without enthusiasm. The apathy of recent years has given place to a marvelous awakening among all classes of voters. The seed sown by the early agitators has taken deep root in our soil and is bearing abundant fruit. The dues paying membership of the Socialist party is about one thousand. We have ninety-three locals in good standing. Our party press is a development of the last two years, and we now have the following papers: The Labor Argus, Charleston, edited by C. H. Boswell; the Clarksburg Socialist, Clarksburg, edited by E. H. Kintzer; the Wheeling Majority and the West Virginia Socialist, both of Wheeling and edited by Walter B. Hilton; the Plain-Dealer, Cameron, edited by William E. Lang. A movement is now on to start several other papers during the coming campaign.

Several towns in the state have elected Socialist mayors and other officials. Star City, Hendricks, Adamston, Miama and other towns have been swept into the Socialist ranks. All indications point to our carrying at least five counties in the coming election. Our state government is located at Charleston, Kanawha county, and the political piracy that always characterizes the doings of the politicians that infest the seat of government has polluted that community beyond description. The voters there are in revolt. The generals of the old parties find themselves without an army. The Socialists have set themselves the task of electing the entire ticket in that county, especially the legislative ticket. Our enemies freely admit that we have a splendid fighting chance. At Clarksburg, Harrison county, the situation is intensely interesting. It has attracted the attention of all of the lyceum lecturers. The industrial workers of that section are intelligent and progressive, and during the last two years they have been coming into the Socialist movement in battalions. This is another county that is almost certain to land a full Socialist ticket.

At Wheeling there is the same widespread response to the call of Socialism. The voters are organizing the entire county, and there is little doubt but that we will secure at least a portion of the ticket in that county. One of the most gratifying things about the West Virginia movement is the utter absence of factional strifes and disruptive tactics. Some slight differences do indeed exist as to minor matters, but there is no bitter or serious breaches in the organization. On the whole complete harmony reigns. The personnel of the movement is exceptionally high, and the movement is revolutionary to the core.

This is a war-born state, and it has a population that illy wears the collar of industrial servitude. When it seceded from Old Virginia it placed upon its coat of arms the motto: “Montani Semper Liberi” (Mountaineers are always free), and the sweep of the Socialist movement over the mountains and valleys indicates that we are going to translate those words into a reality. We send greetings to our comrades of other states, and we say to them that the coming election will show that we have been in the thick of the battle.

HAROLD W. HOUSTON, State Sec’y.

—————

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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