Medieval West Virginia! With its tent colonies on the bleak hills!
With its grim men and women!
When I get to the other side, I shall tell God Almighty about West Virginia!
-Mother Jones
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
Tuesday February 23, 1915
Fairmont Field, West Virginia - Striking Miners in Bitter Struggle, Call for Mother Jones
Striking miners in the Fairmont Field have clashed with "deputies" (most likely deputized company gunthugs-if experience is any indicator) leaving many injured and a constable in very grave condition. The miners, who are mostly foreign-born, are on strike in an attempt to unionize. They have asked for assistance from the United Mine Workers and have issued a called for Mother Jones to come and help them.
Sent to the "Dangerous Fields."
Mother Jones is all too familiar with the Fairmont Field, for it was there that she was sent by John Mitchell when that area was found to be too dangerous for other organizers. He wrote to her on May 10, 1902:
Dear Mother:
...I think the Fairmont [field] would be the place in which you could do the most good, as the coal companies up there have evidently scared our boys, and of course, with good reason, as they have brutally beaten some of them. I dislike to ask you always to take the dangerous fields, but I know that you are willing to go wherever you can perform the best service...
[Emphasis added.]
Mother faced many dangers as a union organizer in the West Virginia strike zone during that year. In August, she was in the New River field holding a meeting for strikers when someone opened fire on the meeting. A. D. Lavidner, a miner, carried her on his back, out of danger, to the other side of the creek. December 2nd, her hotel in Montgomery was set on fire. Mother barely escaped alive. This was the third fire within a few weeks time. It was suspected that Mother Jones was the target.
And, certainly, she will never forget the Massacre of the Raleigh County Miners.
"We fully expected to hear of her being killed by the gunmen."
Mother Jones with strikers' children in West Virginia.
Nevertheless, she was back again in West Virginia in 1912 during the strike of that year. Miner Fred Mooney recounts how she went into the "forbidden territory" of Cabin Creek with Frank Keeney when no one else had the courage to do so:
He [Frank Keeney] proceeded to locate Mother Jones and after a thorough understanding was reached, a date was set for Mother Jones to go into the forbidden territory. I was standing on the bridge at Cabin Creek Junction the day Mother Jones entered Cabin Creek. Her hair was snow white, but she could walk mile after mile and never show fatigue. When we saw her drive by in a horse drawn vehicle we knew the meaning of that visit and. She arrived at Eskdale without mishap, but after she passed through the business center of town and as she approached the southern residence section a body of gunmen could be seen just ahead....
But she drove her rig near [to the gunmen] and one of the miners assisted her to alight. She surveyed the scene with a critical eye and walked straight up to the muzzle of one of the machine guns and patting the muzzle of the gun, said to the gunman behind it, "Listen here, you, you fire one shot here today and there are 800 men in those hills (pointing to the almost inaccessible hills to the east) who will not leave one of your gang alive."
It was a bluff, there were no miners in those hills. But the bluff worked. Mother Jones held her mass meeting in Eskdale, and the miners of Cabin Creek joined the strike with Eskdale as a militant center of strike activity.
Readers of Hellraisers will recall that it was not that long ago that Mother was held in the military bastile of West Virginia and subjected to a court martial along with other organizers, striking miners, and Socialist editors.
While held in the West Virginia bastile, visitors were forbidden, but one reporter did manage to get in to see her, A.J. Hollis of the Pittsburgh Leader who managed to interview her through the basement floorboards. He was detained for several hours in the bullpen for his efforts. An exception was made for Cora Older, wife of the editor of the San Francisco Bulletin, who quoted Mother Jones:
I can raise just as much hell in jail as anywhere.
Despite what she has been through in West Virginia, we are sure that she will answer the call of the striking miners if she is able to. However, she is just recently arrived in Colorado and is assisting the miners and their families there.
Read More