Hellraisers Journal: Book Review by John D. Barry: “Arrows in the Gale” by Arturo Giovannitti, Introduced by Helen Keller

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Quote Giovannitti, The Walker, Rest My Brother—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday March 11, 1914
Book Review: “Arrows in the Gale” by Arturo Giovannitti
-with Introduction by Helen Keller

From the San Francisco Bulletin of March 4, 1914:

Ways of the World by John D. Barry

A NEW POET: The Revelation of Power Made by Arturo Giovannitti
in His Recently Published Volume, “Arrows in the Gale.”

[…..]

Arrows in the Gale by Arturo Giovannitti w Intro by Helen Keller, SF Bulletin p6, Mar 4, 1914

“Arrows in the Gale” by Arturo Giovannitti, Introduced by Helen Keller

Arrows in the Gale by Arturo Giovannitti w Intro by Helen Keller, SF Bulletin p6, Mar 4, 1914

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Book Review by John D. Barry: “Arrows in the Gale” by Arturo Giovannitti, Introduced by Helen Keller”

Hellraisers Journal: “Peace Hath Her Horrors No Less Than War” for Widows and Orphans of Pennsylvania and Colorado Mine Disasters Facing Poverty and Hunger

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Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, ed, Ab Chp 6, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 29, 1904
Pennsylvania and Colorado – Hundreds of Newly Made Widows and Orphans

From The Rocky Mountain News of January 27, 1904:

Cartoon Horrors Mine Disasters, Widows n Orphans, RMN p1, Jan 27, 1904

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: “Peace Hath Her Horrors No Less Than War” for Widows and Orphans of Pennsylvania and Colorado Mine Disasters Facing Poverty and Hunger”

Hellraisers Journal: Rescuers on the Scene of Disaster at Harwick Mine at Cheswick, Pennsylvania; Families Plead for Help

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Quote Mother Jones, Pray for dead, ed, Ab Chp 6, 1925—————

Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday January 27, 1904
Cheswick, Pennsylvania – Sorrow and Dread at Scene of Harwick Mine Disaster

From The Pittsburg Press of January 26, 1904:

Harwick Mine Disaster Cheswick PA, Ptt Prss p1, Jan 26, 1904—–
Harwick Mine Disaster Cheswick PA, Ptt Prss p2, Jan 26, 1904

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Hellraisers Journal: Sister of Victim of Hanna Mine Forced to Travel Twenty Miles a Day in Order to Arrange Brother’s Funeral

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Quote Mother Jones WV Miners Conditions, ISR p179 , Sept 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 12, 1903
Hanna, Wyoming – Sister of Victim of Mine Fire Not Allowed to Stay at Camp

From The Butte Miner of July 11, 1903:

HdLn Widow of Hanna Mine Disaster Widow at Funeral in WY, Btt Mnr p7, July 11, 1903

Mrs. Mary Cooney returned to Butte yesterday from the Hanna coal mine in Wyoming on the Union Pacific, where here brother, John Boney, met his death with 233 other miners through the recent fearful explosion of gas. Besides her grief because of the loss of her brother in so terrible a manner Mrs. Cooney reports having had a very trying experience at Hanna.

It is stated that the managers of the coal property, who virtually own and control the little mining camp, have given strict orders, both at their store and to the residents that no eatables or other supplies or entertainment should be given or sold to any strangers or visitors to the camp. It was given out that the reason for this order was that the families of the miners who were killed were all destitute and could not give up anything to new-comers.

It was not explained, however, why the company store would not provide strangers and visitors with eatables, as the railroad company that owned the mine and the camp could easily ship in any day whatever was needed.

Under these conditions Mrs. Cooney was compelled to go back and forth to Medicine Bow, a station on the railroad twenty miles distant. Mrs. Cooney was accompanied on her sad mission by her daughter, Mrs. Felix Ogier, also of Butte, and during the time taken up with the arrangements and the funeral they had to make the trip back and forth to Medicine Bow station every day.

Another act of the mine company that is complained of is the order that was given in regard to the papers and other valuables that were found in the cabins and trunks of the 234 miners who met their death. The papers and other belongings of the men were all taken to the company store, and inquiring friends and relatives, it is stated, were not allowed to have access to the property or even inspect it.

Mrs. Cooney signed papers petitioning the appointment of a resident of Hanna as administrator of her brother’s estate, and it is expected that soon, through the courts, the administrator will secure possession of the estate. Mrs. Cooney is the mother of Deputy County Clerk John Doran, of Butte.

John Boney was buried at Carbon, a station twelve miles from the scene of the awful disaster. He was laid beside his father, who died and was buried at Carbon a number of years ago.

The bodies of only two other miners besides John Boney were recovered from the blazing mine interior. The mine is on fire in every portion, and it is impossible to reach the workings where the men met their deaths, it being a great distance from the surface. The tunnel from the main entrance slopes gradually for a mile and a half, and from that point there are seventeen miles of workings on sixty-nine levels.

As all hope of rescuing the 31 bodies has been given up the work of sealing up all openings to the mine has been commenced. This step is taken with view to smothering out the flames that are raging fiercely in all parts of the mine.

It is currently believed at Hanna that the precautions being taken by the company to discourage visitors from coming to the camp and from remaining there after they do come is with the object of diminishing as much as possible the amount of evidence that will be available against the company in case of damage suits. There is considerable talk of blame being attached to the management for the disaster, and it is not desired that there should be any inspection of the conditions at the mine or interviews with the residents.

[Emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: Supreme Court Sets Aside Pennsylvania Law for Protection of Anthracite Miners, Held to Be Confiscatory

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Mother Jones Quote, Life Cheaper Than Props, Trinidad CO, Sept 16, 1913, Hse Com p2630—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday December 31, 1922
Pennsylvania Law for Protection of Anthracite Miners Set Aside by Supreme Court

From the Duluth Labor World of December 30, 1922:

COURT DECLARES LABOR ACT VOID
———-
Pennsylvania Mine Cave-In Law
Held to Be Confiscatory
———-

Spangler MnDs Death Pit, Wlgtn DE Eve Jr p1, Nov 9, 1922

The United States Supreme court has set aside the Pennsylvania law which prohibited the mining of anthracite coal in a manner that would endanger the lives or injure the property of persons-occupying houses situated on the surface soil. Justice Brandeis dissented.

The court held that the law deprived coal owners of valuable property rights without compensation. Under the decision, coal owners can mine coal without any regard for cave-ins that endanger lives and property, unless the coal that is necessary for props is paid for.

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Brandeis said:

If by mining anthracite coal the owner would necessarily unloose poisonous gases, I suppose no one would doubt the power of the state to prevent the mining without buying his coal field. And why may not the state, likewise, without paying compensation, prohibit one from digging so deep or excavating so near the surface as to expose the community to like dangers? In the latter case, as in the former, carrying on the business would be a public nuisance.

[Photograph and emphasis added.]

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Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The Land of the Noonday Night, A Miner’s Song” by Ernest Crosby

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Quote Mother Jones WV Miners Conditions, ISR p179 , Sept 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 26, 1902
“The Land of the Noonday Night, A Miner’s Song” by Ernest Crosby

From the International Socialist Review of September 1902:

Poem Miners Song, ISR p133, Sept 1902Poem 2, Miners Song, ISR p133, Sept 1902

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: From the International Socialist Review: “The Land of the Noonday Night, A Miner’s Song” by Ernest Crosby”

Hellraisers Journal: Interview with Mother Jones On Her Way Back to West Virginia to Face Possible Prison Sentence, Part II

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Quote Mother Jones, Going to Jail, Cnc Pst p6, July 23, 1902—————-

Hellraisers Journal – Friday July 25, 1902
Cincinnati, Ohio – Mother Jones Interviewed on Her Way Back to West Virginia

From The Cincinnati Post of July 23, 1902:

Headline Hour w Mother Jones, Cnc Pst p6, 1902

[Part II of II]

QUOTES SCRIPTURE FREELY

Mother Jones, Coal Miners, Cnc Pst p6, July 23, 1902

Mother Jones is a very religious woman. Her conversation is interspersed with passages of Scripture, delivered with all the awe and reverence inherited from her Celtic ancestors.

“You are hopeful, Mother Jones, I ventured. “Many women would be dismayed at the magnitude of such an undertaking as you have shouldered.”

[She replied:

Yes, I suppose a great deal of my optimistic temperament comes from my Irish parents. I had the advantage of being born on the Emerald Isle, and try not to grow old.

She came to America in her teens, and one can easily imagine the courageous little woman was a very beautiful girl.

MARRIED AT EIGHTEEN

“Mother” Jones was married at 18, and her husband is dead. She rarely speaks of this chapter in her life, and is completely engrossed in her work.

She is “Mother” in name only, as no children blessed her married life. With no living relatives to care for, except a brother in Canada, she gives the love and sympathy necessary to every woman to the miners, their wives and children.

[She said:]

I think the most dramatic thing I ever saw in my whole life was the gathering of the miners’ wives and children to whom I spoke after the awful mine disaster at Coalcreek, Tenn.

There they stood staring me in the face-gaunt, wild-eyed and utterly paralyzed by the dreadful blows which took husbands, fathers and sons at one moment.

I felt like shrieking, “The operators murdered your dead.” Those women never saw their loved ones after they left in the morning for their daily work. The bodies were carried past their homes in coffins, and none saw the faces of the dead but the men who put them in the coffins. The 213 graves left gaps in the crowd where I was used to seeing men. There never was a mine disaster in the history of the world which could not have been prevented by the expenditure of money and effort on the part of the operators. Independence Day I helped the women of Coalcreek decorate the graves of their dead. There was wrath in my heart, but I could not add to their trouble by speaking my mind.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Interview with Mother Jones On Her Way Back to West Virginia to Face Possible Prison Sentence, Part II”

Hellraisers Journal: Interview with Mother Jones On Her Way Back to West Virginia to Face Possible Prison Sentence, Part I

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Quote Mother Jones, Coming of the Lord, Cnc Pst p6, July 23, 1902—————

Hellraisers- Thursday July 24, 1902
Cincinnati, Ohio – Mother Jones Interviewed on Her Way Back to West Virginia

From The Cincinnati Post of July 23, 1902:

Headline Hour w Mother Jones, Cnc Pst p6, 1902

[Part I of II]

Mother Jones, Coal Miners, Cnc Pst p6, July 23, 1902

With a nervous little nod and a deprecating smile, “Mother Jones,” best known throughout the coal regions as “the miners’ good angel,” greeted me in her room at the Dennison House Tuesday evening. “Mother Jones” had stopped over in Cincinnati on her way from the Indianapolis convention of United Mineworkers, to speak before the Central Labor Council at Cosmopolitan Hall.

Mother Jones is at least 60 and a picture of health and comeliness. Her ample white hair is becomingly arranged in soft waves and puffs. A delicate pink tints her cheeks, smooth whiteness when she becomes excited, and her eyes are veritable Irish ones-full of humor, pathos and “the melancholy which transcends all wit.”

OUT ON BAIL

She is out on bail now. Two weeks ago she was placed on trial before Judge Jackson at Parkersburg, W. Va., with 10 miners, charged with violating an injunction order issued during the coal strike in that State. A decision in the case is to be rendered by the Judge Thursday, and “Mother Jones” has said that she wouldn’t be surprised if she were sent to jail.

Unmindful of the prison cell which may be awaiting her, however, the plucky little woman spent the day in Cincinnati shopping. From the middle of a very womanly disorder of tangled twine, torn wrapping paper and articles of feminine adornment, “Mother” Jones begged me to be seated. Considering that she had refused to see me until I had nearly exhausted a very plump and exceedingly warm-looking bell boy with plaintive messages, Mrs. Jones’ smile was a concession.

SUBJECT NEAREST HER HEART

She was unmistakably ill at ease when I opened the conversation with a remark about herself. Her slim, nervous fingers picked imaginary specks off her respectable black gown, and she eyed me with suspicion.

She picked up my note and quoted: “Dear Mrs. Jones, please see me, and you can talk about anything you wish.”

“Seeing that it is so nominated in the bond,” said she, “I choose to talk about my people, the miners.

Softly stroking a pair of new, gray silk mitts-a purchase of the morning-the dainty old lady began to speak of the work nearest her heart, As she talked every vestige of nervousness vanished and the silk mitts were apparently forgotten.

KNOWS THE MINER’S LIFE

[Said she:]

My dear, I have lived, worked, suffered and rejoiced with the miners. They are my people. When the outside world says it knows all about the miners’ troubles and their wrongs, it has no conception of the home life or the privations and sorrow which dwell under every miner’s roof.

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Interview with Mother Jones On Her Way Back to West Virginia to Face Possible Prison Sentence, Part I”

Hellraisers Journal: Coal Miners, Men and Boys, Mangled or Suffocated in Fraterville Mine Explosion at Coal Creek, Tennessee

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MnDs Fraterville TN, Jake to Ellen Goodbye, Offbeat TN—————

Hellraisers Journal – Thursday May 22, 1902
Coal Creek, Tennessee – At Least One Hundred Men and Boys Lost in Mine Explosion

From the Akron Daily Democrat of May 19, 1902:

HdLn MnDs Fraterville TN, Akron Dly Dem p1, May 19, 1902

Continue reading “Hellraisers Journal: Coal Miners, Men and Boys, Mangled or Suffocated in Fraterville Mine Explosion at Coal Creek, Tennessee”

Hellraisers Journal: Photographs at Scene of Jed, West Virginia, Mine Disaster; Women and Children Waiting, Day after Day

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Quote Mother Jones WV Miners Conditions, ISR p179 , Sept 1901—————

Hellraisers Journal – Sunday April 14, 1912
Jed, West Virginia – Photographs at Scene of Mine Disaster

From The Coming Nation of April 13, 1912:

Jed WV Mine Disaster, Women and Children Waiting, Cmg Ntn p2, Apr 13, 1912Day after day waiting for news from the entombed miners-Photo by A. P. Risser

—–

Jed WV Mine Disaster, Carrying Out the Dead, Cmg Ntn p2, Apr 13, 1912Carrying out one of the 85 victims of the explosion-Photo by Paul Thompson, N. Y.

—–

Jed WV Mine Disaster, View of Town, Cmg Ntn p2, Apr 13, 1912General view of the town of Jed, W. Va. Scene of the Disaster-Paul Thompson, N. Y.

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