Tag: Washington DC

Hellraisers Journal: Justice Dept. Considers Amnesty for Nef, Fletcher, Walsh and Doree of Philadelphia Marine Transport Union

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Matilda Robbins ed, Ben Fletcher, p132 PC—————

Hellraisers Journal – Saturday April 22, 1922
Washington, D. C. –  Amnesty Possible for Fletcher, Nef, Walsh and Doree

From the Baltimore Sun of April 20, 1922:

HdLn Amnesty Move for Fletcher Nef Walsh Doree, Blt Sun p13, Apr 20, 1922

(From The Sun Bureau.)

Washington, April 19.-In the face of a renewed effort, led by the American Civil Liberties’ Union, to secure the pardon or commutation of sentences of 113 so-called political prisoners who still are in Federal prisons, it was learned today that the Department of Justice has no thought of recommending amnesty for the group. It is willing, however, to take up individual cases in the usual way, it is said. Apparently only Presidential intervention can accomplish general amnesty, and of that there is no sign. 

Four cases are now concretely before the department-those of Walter T. Nef, Ben Fletcher, John J. Walsh and Edward F. Doree. They were members of the Marine Transport Workers’ Union, of Philadelphia, which is affiliated with the I. W. W. They were sentenced to prison by Judge Landis, in Chicago, because of their activity in the I. W. W., although, it is asserted by their friends, they had been wholly loyal to the Government in their work at Philadelphia.

No Evidence Yet Of Disloyalty.

Investigation made thus far by the Department of Justice has failed to disprove contentions of champions of Nef, Fletcher, Walsh and Doree that the Transport Workers’ Union in Philadelphia, which Nef, dominated and which embraced practically all of the dock workers in Philadelphia, performed its work with complete loyalty to the Government.

Dr. Frederick Edgerton, of the University of Pennsylvania, a champion of the men, has said that the Philadelphia dock workers did better than those anywhere else. 

Dr. Frederick Edgerton has said that enormous quantities of munitions were shipped from Philadelphia during the war without a single accident at the dock or on any ship loaded at the dock; that many accidents occurred at other ports, and ships loaded elsewhere were taken to Philadelphia and reloaded. He also asserted that there was no strike in 1917 among the Philadelphia longshoremen, although strikes occurred elsewhere; that Nef used his influence against a strike, and also intervened against strikes in Boston and Baltimore; that many of the members of the Philadelphia union entered the service and that the members of the union bought $115,000 of Liberty bonds.

Thinks Record Should Count.

All of this, according to Dr. Edgerton and others, should outweight any significance that may attach to the activity of the four men in the central organization of the I. W. W., which led to their indictment and conviction with a large number of others, under the Espionage act, on charges of conspiracy. And it seems that Government officials, so far as they have gone into these cases, have no evidence that the men were not helpful to the Government at Philadelphia or that they were guilty of any overt acts elsewhere.

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Hellraisers Journal: Children’s Crusade for Amnesty Heads to Washington Lead by Kate Richards O’Hare, Former Political Prisoner

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Kate O’Hare re War Profitters, Address to Court, Dec 14, 1917—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday April 20, 1922
Children’s Crusade for Amnesty Heads to Washington, D. C.

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of April 13, 1922:

Part of Children's Crusade for Amnesty, Kate OHare, St L Pst Dsp p17, Apr 13, 1922

MRS. KATE RICHARDS O’HARE, whose five-year sentence under the espionage act was commuted by President Wilson after she had served 14 months, greeting, at Union station today, the families of other prisoners similarly convicted and still imprisoned. Mrs. O’Hare will accompany them to Washington to beseech President Harding to release their husbands and fathers. 

The woman at the extreme left is Mrs. Walter Reeder of Wilson, Ark., with her son, Don, 16 (rear row), and her daughter, Elbertina, 9 years old. The woman behind Elbertina is Mrs. Stanley J. Clark of Fort Worth, Tex. Next are Mrs. O’Hare’s son, Victor, and Mrs. O’Hare. Beside Mrs. O’Hare is Mrs. William Madison Hicks of Guthrie, Ok., with her son, Robert, 9, and her daughters, Rose Alice, 3, and Helen Keller, 6. The group at the right of the picture are Mrs. William Benefield of Saskawa, Ok., and her five children, Beulah, 12, Willie, a girl, 5, Dock, 18, George, 10, and Eugene, 6.

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Children's Crusade for Amnesty Banners and Badges, St L Pst Dsp p17, Apr 13, 1922

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Hellraisers Journal: Child Strikers at Washington, D. C.; Harvard University Sends Bayonets to Crush Lawrence Strike

Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912
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quote BBH Weave Cloth Bayonets, ISR p538—————

Hellraisers Journals – Sunday March 24, 1912
Lawrence Child Strikers at Washington; Harvard Bayonets at Lawrence

From The Coming Nation of March 23, 1912:

Lawrence Child Strikers at WDC, Cmg Ntn p16, Mar 23, 1912

—–

Harvard Bayonets v Strikers by R Walker, Cmg Ntn p15, Mar 23, 1912

“Higher Education” by Ryan Walker

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Hellraisers Journal: Children of Lawrence Strikers Go to Washington to Tell Their Stories before House Rules Committee

Janet RayeBread and Roses Strike of 1912
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quote BBH Weave Cloth Bayonets, ISR p538—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday March 8, 1912
Children of Lawrence Strikers Appear before House Committee at Washington

From The Washington Times of March 2, 1912:

Lawrence Strikes bf Hse Com Liss Sanger Teoli, WDC Tx p1, Mar 2, 1912
[Inset: Miss Tema Camitta, Philadelphia Sunday School Teacher.]

From the Washington Evening Star of March 2, 1912:

Child Tells Her Story.

There was Camello [Camella] Teoli, a little Italian girl, who stood up when she was told and who said she was sixteen years old, although she didn’t look it. She started to work in the spinning room of one of the American Woolen Company’s mills in Lawrence two years ago and three weeks later had her hair caught in a shafting and her scalp torn off, just as did Miss Houghton, at the census office, more than twelve months ago. But little Camello Teoli was the oldest of seven children and, with her father, the support of the family.

She earned several dollars a week when “speeded up,” and her father, when he was lucky, made seven. She is still under treatment as a result of the horrible accident of which she was a victim, but lately has been working just the same, she said, for her father has been on “slack time” and has been making $2.80 a week.

There were other children there, too, who, while they showed no scars, looked even to the untrained eye as if they had been “speeded up” beyond the limit of juvenile endurance.

Cheeks sallow, lips pinched and eyes that seemed to have looked upon all the misery of the world, the children sat unmoved throughout the hearing, presented by Mr. Berger as an exhibit of what “one of the most highly protected industries in America does to the human life by which it is served,” as he declared.

The children, with several adult strikers as guardians, and accompanied by George W. Roewer, the Boston attorney, who has defended in court the strikers arrested in Lawrence, reached Washington last night several hours behind schedule time, and were met at the Union station were escorted to the accommodations that had been provided for them by a big crowd of local socialists and labor sympathizers. All of the Lawrence delegation wore little cards, bearing the inscription “Don’t be a scab,” and although weary from their journey, marched to their lower Pennsylvania avenue hotel singing and cheering.

Today they marched to the Capitol in the same way, and outside of the House building had to run the fire of a battery of cameras and moving picture machines stationed right outside of the entrance.

[Note: Camella Teoli was introduced to the Committee on March 2nd. She made her full statement before the Committee on March 4th.]

[Emphasis added.]

———-

Lawrence Strikers Children, WDC Eve Str p2, Mar 2, 1912

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for August 1921: Found Advocating for Workers of Mexico and Standing with West Virginia Miners

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones PAFL Congress, p72, Jan 13, 1921————————-

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday January 24, 1922
Mother Jones News Round-Up for August 1921
Found Advocating for Mexican Workers and Standing with West Virginia Miners

From the Salina Kansas Leader of August 4, 1921
-from The New Majority (Chicago Federation of Labor):

U. S. LABOR ASKED TO ASSIST MEXICO
———-
Mother Jones Brings Request for Alliance in
Fight for New Civilization

The Republican administration under President Harding is beating the tom-toms to arouse the country to stand for a war against Mexico to bind and gag that country while the oil profiteers continue to pick its pockets. Excuse has been made of a strike of oil workers to send United States gunboats to Mexican waters in an effort to cow the Mexican workers back to work for their “American” employers.

Only the labor movement of the United States can prevent war with Mexico. The Denver convention of the A. F. of L., adopted a policy of resisting such a war. The time seems to be at hand for the American unions to start their protest, if it is to become effective.

Mother Jones has just returned from her second trip to Mexico within the year. She was in Chicago last week and brought with her a message from the Mexican organized workers. Just before she left, she attended a meeting of the presidents and secretaries of the unions affiliated with the Mexican Federation of Labor. They asked her to bear this greeting to organized labor of the United States : 

We send greetings to our brother workers in America and we want you, Mother Jones, to carry the message to them that the world is in the birth throes of a new civilization and that we in Mexico are coming to her aid to relieve her pain. We also wish you would ask our brothers in the United States to join us and we will stand shoulder to shoulder with them to usher in the new day and the civilization.

Now is Time to Help

If the workers of the United States are to stand shoulder to shoulder with the workers of Mexico, the job has got to begin with making impossible a war by our oil kings against the Mexican people.

Mother Jones reports that labor is making great strides in Mexico. She says that the newspaper reports that President Obregon is giving in to American demands that article 27 of the Mexican constitution be repealed are false. Article 27 vests ownership of the underground wealth of Mexico in the Mexican people.

She says that recently the Mexican government provided 300 striking miners with agricultural implements and placed them on farm lands so they could support themselves during their struggle and that in another case when the workers of a factory were locked out, the employer was compelled to reinstate them and pay their back wages.

[Said Mother Jones:]

Mothers who are employed are now retired on full pay for three months before childbirth and three months thereafter. Then for another three they bring their babies to work and have them cared for during working hours in nurseries provided by the employers. Whereas Mexican workers heretofore never knew when starvation and death would overtake them, their condition has improved so that now their children are going to school and are assured of their breakfast every morning before they go.

-New Majority.

[Photograph added.]

From North Carolina’s Wilson Times of August 5, 1921:

UNION MINERS GO TO COAL
FIELDS N MINGO COUNTY
———-

MOTHER JONES IS GOING
———-
Union Official Sates if the Organizers Were Arrested
He Would Send More Until the Jails Were Full.
Coal Fields in Mingo County Are Under Martial Law
———-

Charleston, W. V., July 29.-100 members of the United Mine workers of America from Cabin Creek and Paint Creek fields will start for Mingo county according to C. F. Keeney, president of district No. 17.

Mother Jones, organizer, is expected to arrive here tonight and also will go to the coal fields.

The decision to send the union men into the district which is under martial law was made the miners president said after C. F. Workman an organizer was reported arrested. Keeney claimed Workman had permission from the state authorities to return to the fields to wind up his personal business.

Keeney stated if organizers were arrested he would send more until every jail was filled, and if they were not arrested it would prove “organizers can go into a strike zone unmolested.”

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Hellraisers Journal: Debs Released from Atlanta Penitentiary, Weeps as 2,300 Convicts Cheer for His Freedom

Janet RayeEugene Victor Debs
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Quote EVD if Crime to oppose bloodshed, AtR p1, Oct 23, 1920—————

Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 27, 1921
Atlanta Penitentiary – Debs Weeps as 2,300 Convicts Cheer His Release

From The Indianapolis Star of December 26, 1921:

Ipl Str p1, Dec 26, 1921
——Ipl Str p1, Dec 26, 1921———

(Special to The Indianapolis Star.)

ATLANTA, Ga. Dec. 26.-Eugene V, Debs left prison today. His going was the occasion of the most unique demonstration in American prison history. 

Twenty-three hundred men, convicted of crimes unnumbered, their faces pressed against the bars of the windows on three floors of the big Federal penitentiary, shouted and cheered him and before them all, in the great foreground, he broke down and cried like a child. 

Recovering himself, he stepped into an automobile and was driven off, the voices of the 2,300 following him for half a mile. As this is written, on a train bound for Washington, with Debs as a passenger in a day coach, the mystery surrounding the celebrated convict deepens. Why is he going to the capital? He refuses to say, but he has admitted he has a mission there. Whether or not the trip is a condition of his release he declines to say, but the fact that he was driven to the station in the automobile of the warden, four of whose deputies are aboard this train, would indicate that while Debt is out of prison he is not yet free. 

“Citizen of the World.” 

So far as he himself is concerned, however, he construes himself a liberated “citizen of the world,” the phrase having to do with President Harding’s refusal to grant a pardon which would have restored the prisoner’s civil rights. 

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Hellraisers Journal: Whereabouts and Doings of Mother Jones for July 1921: Found Attending Senate Hearings on Conditions in the Coal Fields of West Virginia

Janet RayeHellraisers Journal
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Quote Mother Jones, Doomed, Wmsn WV, June 20, 1920, Speeches Steel, p213—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday December 22, 1921
Mother Jones News Round-Up for July 1921
Found in Washington, D. C., at Senate Hearings on Conditions in W. V. Coal Fields

From The Cincinnati Enquirer of July 15, 1921:

Unionization Back of Strife,
Senate Mingo Inquiry Shows
—————

Mother Jones, ed WDC Tx p2, Aug 29, 1920

SPECIAL DISPATCH TO THE ENQUIRER.

Washington, July 14.-In the opening hour of its investigation to-day the select Senate committee investigating conditions in the West Virginia coal fields, elicited from spokesmen for operators and for the miners the admission that the virtual warfare there centers about unionization of the fields.

At the prompting of Senator William S. Kenyon, of Iowa, the committee Chairman, both agreed that unionization is “the issue.” 

[…..]

A distinctly West Virginia atmosphere permeated the committee room.

Attorneys for both factions were powerful man, husky voiced and tanned. Others present were: Sid Hatfield, former Chief of Police of Matewan, who participated in the gun battle there; Frank Keeney, President of the district organization; Samuel B. Montgomery, state labor leader; Sheriff Jim Kirkpatrick and Mother Jones, silvery haired matriarch of labor welfare.

Secretary Mooney described general conditions in the mining region and paralleled them with the situation there in 1913 when a Senate Committee investigated.

[…..]

—————

[Photograph added.]

From The Scranton Times of July 16, 1921:

Sid Hatfield Describes Pistol Battle In Mingo
—————

Takes Stand In Senate Committee’s Probe of Strike Trouble
-Denies He Took Credit For Killing Detectives.

Washington, July 16.-“Sid” Hatfield, ex-chief of police of Matewan, W. Va., today took the stand in the senate labor committee’s investigation of the Mingo mine war.

Word that the member of the famous West Virginia family was testifying spread through the capitol and the room soon was soon crowded.

“Mother” Jones pitched her chair closer to the witness table to catch what the man who is under indictment on charge of shooting Baldwin Felts detectives would say.

Without the slightest sign of nervousness the lanky, blonde mountain youth described the pistol battle in which he was the central figure. His suit was neatly pressed and a Masonic charm dangle from his watch chain. His quick gray eyes watched the members of the committee intently and he frequently gave a sneering laugh at questions from counsel for the operators…..

—————

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Hellraisers Journal: Mrs. Sid Hatfield and Mrs. Ed Chambers Testify Before Senate Committe in Washington, D. C.

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Sallie Chambers re Murder of Sid Hatfield n Ed, Blt Sun p2, Aug 5, 1921—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday October 28, 1921
Washington, D. C. – Wives Charge Mine Guards with Cold-Blooded Murder

From the New York Daily News of October 26, 1921:

Jessie Hatfield Sallie Chambers, in WDC, NY Dly Ns p1, Oct 26, 1921

From the Baltimore Sun of October 26, 1921:

HdLn Jessie Hatfield n Sallie Chambers Testify WVCF Sen Com, WDC Oct 25, Blt Sun p1, Oct 26, 1921

(From The Sun Bureau.)

Washington, Oct. 25. -Mrs. Sid Hatfield and Mrs. Ed. Chambers today charged mine guards of the West Virginia operators with cold-blooded murder of their husbands both of whom were conspicuous in the Mingo county mine war and were among the acquitted defendants in the Matewan murder case. Hatfield and Chambers were killed recently at Welch, W. Va.

The two black-garbed widows testified before the Kenyon committee, which is investigating the mine war. Their testimony that their husbands were shot down while walking with them up the Courthouse steps in Welch followed immediately testimony from Attorney-General E. T. England, of West Virginia, that mine guards in Logan county beat and shot men down, drove out of the county visitors regarded as undesirable, including union organizers; practiced intimidation at the polls, interfered with the processes of justice and generally ran roughshod over the community…..

[Emphases added.]

—————

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Hellraisers Journal: C. E. Lively Testifies Before Senate Committee, Joined United Mine Workers as Baldwin-Felts Spy

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Mother Jones Princeton WV Speech Aug 15, 1920, Steel Speeches, p230—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 22, 1921
Washington, D. C. – C. E. Lively Testifies Before Senate Investigating Committee

From the Baltimore Sun of July 21, 1921:

WVCF Sen Com, Testimony C. E. Lively, Blt Sun p3, July 21, 1921

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Hellraisers Journal: Sid Hatfield Testifies Before Senate Investigating Committee, Relates Details of Battle of Matewan

Janet RayeBattle of Blair Mountain of 1921
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Quote Sid Hatfield, re Evictions per R Minor, Lbtr p11 , Aug 1920—————-

Hellraisers Journal – Monday July 18, 1921
Washington, D. C. – Sid Hatfield Tells of Battle with Baldwin-Felts Gunthugs 

From the Washington Evening Star of July 17, 1921:

WVCF Sen Com, Testimony Sid Hatfield, WDC Eve Str p7, July 17, 1921

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