Company Gunthugs

WE NEVER FORGET: The "Gallant Boy," Don MacGregor

Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones
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Candle Flame for We Never Forget_0.png

WE NEVER FORGET
Don MacGregor-28
Who lost his life in freedom's cause at
Miñaca, Chihuahua, México,
March 28, 1916
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Hellraisers Journal: Will Colorado Taxpayers Finally Revolt Against Continued Persecution of Miners?

There are no limits to which powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
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Friday March 31, 1916
From the United Mine Workers Journal: The High Cost of "Colorado Justice"

Hellraisers Journal: The Only Convictions from Colorado Mine Wars of 1903-04: Mine Owners Gunthugs

The intent is to hang the officials of the Western Federation of Miners
if any courts can be gotten together subservient enough
to do the dastardly deed.
-Montana News

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Friday February 23, 1906
From the Appeal to Reason: Report on Mine Owners' Hired Gunthugs

The Appeal of February 17th offers this account of the results of the "law and order" campaign made by the Mine Owners' Association and the prominent gentlemen who supported that organization in its endeavors to make criminals of the metal miners of Colorado during the recent strikes in that state:

NO COLORADO MINERS CONVICTED.
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co mine owners ass, ryan walker, appeal to reason, july 30, 1904 (2).jpg

Readers of the APPEAL will remember that this paper repeatedly called attention to the fact that the mine owners of Colorado during the labor war is that state in 1904 employed thugs and criminals to carry out their nefarious ends. Since that time five prominent "law and order" gentlemen who fought under the flag of the Mine Owners' association and who were paid by the mine operators and railroads, have been sentenced to the penitentiary and are now serving behind the bars for various crimes. Three more of the delectable gang are in the toils of the law with chances good for their being sent to join their companions.

It is also a significant fact that with all the charges that have been made against the members of the Western Federation of Miners, not a single conviction has been made. And, mind you, the law is in the hands of the mine operators and they have been moving heaven and earth to convict some member of the miners' organization. These are facts which show on which side of the fence the real criminals operated and who were in reality the law-abiding citizens of Colorado. Gradually the inside history of that momentous struggle is being written, and when all the truth is known there will be disclosed the mangled reputations of a number of highly respected politicians.

Hellraisers Journal: No Bloodshed as Clifton-Morenci Strike Ends-"Most Remarkable Strike in History"

You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

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Monday February 7, 1916
From the Chicago Day Book: Clifton-Morenci Strike in Arizona Is Settled

From Day Book of February 4th:

NO BLOODSHED IN THE MOST REMARKABLE STRIKE IN HISTORY
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Clifton Morenci Strike of 1915, WFM local & national leaders, .png
National & local leaders of the Western Federation of Miners.
Back row, 2nd & 3rd from left: Charles Moyer-WFM President,
& Henry McCluskey-Organizer for Miami Local 70.
Front row from left, John Murray, Canuto Vargas, Pascual Vargas, Luis Soto.
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Hellraisers Journal: Not a Crime to Murder a Union Organizer under Colorado's "Justice" System

Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones

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Sunday February 6, 1916
From the United Mine Workers Journal: John M. O'Neil on Colorado Justice

From the Journal of February 3rd:

The Triumph of Law and Order"
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IT WAS NO CRIME TO KILL AN ORGANIZER.
(By John M. O'Neil.)
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Gerald Lippiatt.jpg
Gerald Lippiatt (Center), Union Organizer & Martyr
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Nearly all the daily journals of the State of Colorado have frequently attempted to defend the fair name of the State and have declared that it was only the pen of the muck-raker that has traduced the reputation of a commonwealth whose people believed in the majesty of the law. The "kept press" has howled with indignation when men, permeated with the spirit of justice, have raised their voice in denunciation of wrong garbed in the veneer of law and order.

Hellraisers Journal: Gunthug Walter Belk Acquitted of Murder of UMWA Organizer Gerald Lippiatt

Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones

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Saturday February 5, 1916
From the United Mine Workers Journal: Imported Gunthug Walter Belk Acquitted

From the Journal of February 3rd:

Justice Ravished
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Gerald Lippiatt.jpg
Organizer Gerald Lippiatt, Center
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In our last issue, commenting on the action of the miners' convention in pledging moral and financial support to the miners whom the men in power in the State of Colorado are attempting to condemn to felons' cells for daring to resist the oppression of the economic masters and their henchmen, their hired armies, we remarked that the counties of that State where the coal mines are located "were not ruled, but terrorized."

In the last week we have had further proof of the truth of that statement.

Walter Belk, imported from West Virginia to Colorado and there employed because of his reputation as a mankiller who could be depended upon to use his ready gun any time in the service of those who would pay him his price, was acquitted, on the instruction of the judge on the bench to the jury, of the charge of killing Gerald Lippiatt, union organizer, on the streets of Trinidad just before the opening of the strike in Southern Colorado in the fall of 1913.

WE NEVER FORGET: The Youngstown Massacre of January 7, 1916

Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.
-Mother Jones

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Candle Flame for We Never Forget.png

WE NEVER FORGET

George Get-23
Robert Davis-24
Unknown Worker

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THE YOUNGSTOWN MASSACRE

January 7, 1916
Youngstown Steel Strike of 1915-16, Capitalist Violence, ISR Feb 1916.png

Hellraisers Journal: How Capitalists' Gunmen Broke Loose in Youngstown, Three Rebel Workers Dead

You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

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Wednesday February 2, 1916
From the International Socialist Review: A Report on the Youngstown Massacre

This month's edition of the Review offers an overview of the Youngstown Massacre:

Youngstown Steel Strike of 1915-16, Capitalist Violence, ISR Feb 1916.png

Capitalist Violence at Youngstown

By JOHN RANDOLPH

A GANG of gunmen broke loose in Youngstown, Ohio, on the night of January 7. When they got through with the paid job they came to Youngstown to do, three union workingmen were dead, twenty more labor rebels had bullet wounds on their bodies, and somewhere over $1,000,000 worth of property lay smoking in ruins.

Not a life was lost nor a bullet gash received by the enemies of labor, according to reports so far arriving. Of the $1,000,000 and more property destroyed practically all was owned by somebody else than the big steel sheet and tube works, whose workers were on strike.

Look at it. Three working class rebels are dead, murdered by hired gunmen. Who paid the gunmen and where did they come from and what were their orders? Nobody is telling. The one certainty is the dead are dead.

Hellraisers Journal: Mother Jones Speaks: "Thank God I have lived to be a grandmother in agitation."

Thank God I have lived to be a grandmother in agitation!
I hope I will live to be
a great-grand mother in agitation!
-Mother Jones

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Monday January 31, 1916
Indianapolis, Indiana - Mother Jones Addresses Convention of United Mine Workers, Part I

Yesterday Hellraisers reported on the speech delivered by Mother Jones during Saturday's afternoon session of the United Mine Workers Convention, now in session in Indianapolis. Today we are pleased to present part one of her speech; we will offer part two in tomorrow's edition of Hellraisers.

Mother Jones Speaks to United Mine Workers Convention, Part I
January 29, 1916, in Indianapolis, Indiana
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Mother Jones UMWJ, Jan 21, 1915.png

ELEVENTH DAY-AFTERNOON SESSION The convention was called to order at 1:30 p.m., Saturday, January 29th, Secretary Green in the chair......

Secretary Green—.....President White will not be here for a little while and, with your permission, we will pause for just a few minutes in our regular order to hear from Mother Jones. She is planning to leave soon and wants to say something to the boys before she leaves.

Mother Jones—Boys, I have looked over this convention from the platform, and I want to give expression to the feeling that in this gathering are men of the most highly developed brains this country can produce. You have come from the picks, but you are developing, and I want to say to you to keep on.

Now I want to call your attention to a few things. Away back in the old Roman age, two hundred years after the world’s greatest agitator was murdered by the ruling class, there arose in Carthage a tremendous agitation among the oppressed, the exploited, those who had borne the burden for ages. The Romans began to be disturbed and thought they would go down to Carthage and capture those who were responsible for the agitation. They went down. All they captured in those days they retained as slaves or sold into slavery. Among the group that was captured was one youth. The Roman judge asked, “Who are you?” The youth said, “I am a member of the human family.” “Why do you agitate?” asked the judge. “Because I belong to that class that has been crushed, robbed, murdered and maligned in all the ages, and I want to break the chains of my class.”

Hellraisers Journal: The Outlook on the Youngstown Strike, Private Detectives & Immigrant Workers

You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age.
Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones

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Thursday January 20, 1916
From The Outlook: Speculations on Causes of Youngstown Strike & Riot

From The Outlook of January 19th:

YOUNGSTOWN: THE STRIKE
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Youngstown Steel Strike of 1915-16, Ohio National Guard patrols ruins after Jan 7, 1916.png
Ohio National Guard on duty in ruins of East Youngstown.
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If it is true, and we have not seen it contradicted, that the battle in Youngstown, Ohio, in which several men were shot dead and many others wounded was one between detectives hired by employers, and strikers, and was on the public street, then that fight and those deaths were a disgrace to town, county, and State. Private detectives, hired by one party to a quarrel, are not the guardians of public order; they correspond rather to the paid bravos of mediaeval private war.

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