Appeal to Reason from Girard, Kansas • Page 2

aii itiasat MUM TTcsIdy, 50 Cents per Year. Appeal to Reason, Glrard, Kansas. May 17, 1913 Clubs of four or more, 40 wcclu ttsj CC2 t-3 the miners att emoted to form them -'Fascination0 of Mining A Labor-Hunting Army brutal threats and persecutionsof ma-summary eviction from their rented hovels into the present strike. Enrolling for Life It takea but nr dollars for a lift subscription to th Appeal to Season. The life list Is growing and ws wast to add th simt of crery Apfeax, worker.

"Yours for life la tna way a loyal old coat of the ArrsAbv Army signs himself Just a Dollar BUI PTi for a foor years' subacrtptlon to th ArPCAL TO Kearom. Vsys tor four iuM, forty weeks each. for four sub cards rood for forty wek esch. Part for a year's aubscriptloa to the Arrest, to Reabox and a cloth-bound vol-ume of Deba' -Life, Writings and Speeches." Te are toing to need a aood many dollar bills, thousands of them in fact. a prosecute the cowardly snd Infamous llbel-ers of Comrade Wsjlsod who sines bis death hare by the most dastardly-means attempted to destroy the results of bis life work, snd it will take thousands more to prosecute tbe airsresslre warfare on capitalism which the Afpul is planning and which includes the liberation of Mother Jones tnd her comrades, and the overthrow of bullpen rule in West Virginia.

Send us a dollar bill and your order per a bore list and help us to flrht for Socialism while help you to convert your neighbor sault took place were S. A. Scott, Quinn Morton and another operator, and Charles W. Dillon, attorney for Scott, a prominent politician and recently candidate for the nomination for governor against Hatfield. While Feltz choked Williams to keep him from crying out, the other four secured entrance to my room through Dillon's impersonating the district attorney, which -act constituted ajfelony.

Dillon claimed authority to question me and to search my room on the ground that he "had been informed" that I had received some "stolen" balance sheets from I outwitted them, however, showing them the manuscript of a novel that Williams had given me to read and telling the necessary lie that it was all I had received from him. By this and other manoeuvers I finally succeeded in getting rid of them. Williams brought about the arrest of Dillon, Feltz and Scott. The three denied everything, declaring that they would send Williams to the penitentiary for perjury. This may yet be attempted.

For so great is the influence of coal operator upon public officials that the justice of the peace, M. Gilchrist, who woo Das just sent In Bis lire subscription. Th amount Is small and your bum foes on to stay for aU tba rest of your days. The life list consists of the loyal sap-porters of this paper who believe in it so thoroughly and are so devoted to the cause It represents that they enlist for life. Let us add your name Meaning of the Struggle BT JOHN KXN1TETB.

TtrM- FOR a proper understanding of the West Virginia labor war it is necessary to begin with a glance at the conditions peculiar to the state, the nature and extent of the coaldeposits, the operators, who they are and how they got possession of their holdings, the miners, and the issues that led up to the strike. West -Virginia, one of the smallest states of the union, is, nevertheless, one of the richest in mineral deposits. Its most valuable resource is bituminous coal. There are no large valleys. The surface of the state consists of row after row of low, wooded mountains, set close together, and the mountains are seamed with coal.

It is estimated that of the 24,780 square miles of West Virginia, nearly three-fourths, or acres, is underlaid with coal. While coal was mined in the state as long as sixty years ago, development on a large scale has been confined to the past twenty years, and more particularly to the past ten years. In production West Virginia runs second only to Pennsylvania. The boosters of the former state claim that in a few years it will far surpass the latter, and with apparent reason. In 1911 West Virginia produced, in round numbers, 60.000,000 tons of coal, valued at the mine mouth at nearly $60,000,000.

Yet in the year mentioned only one-tenth of one per cent of the known deposits of the state were worked out. In other words, at the presentrate of production it would require 1,000 years to exhaust the coal resources of West Virginia. Figuring the present value at the mine, these resouces are worth $60,000,000,000 sixty billion dollars a sum actually inconceivable by the mind of man. But production will not go on at the present rate. Relatively speaking, coal mining in West Virginia is in its first stages.

Those who claim to know predict that in ten years the state will be digging a third of a billion tons and that the number of miners employed will not be 70,000, but 300,000. Moreover, the price of coaj is hot remaining stationary; it is steadily rising. In ten years, instead of averaging one dollar a ton at the mine, it may be worth two or even three. But the output will not remain the same; the operators are looking to the future. They figure on saving wages and hours not on 70.000 men, but on hundreds of BESIDES, there is the larger issue that I have mentioned elsewhere.

The men who are. coming into the control of the coal industry of -West Virginia are employers of labor in other states. They are big men in big business. Deliberately they have chosen West Virginia as the most favorable battlefield upon which to strip labor of its legal rights. The means being used to break the strike in West Virginia might never pay, if the returns were to be got from West Virginia alone; but if these means succeed in West Virginia they are to beat down wages in every state where big business is in control.

I have referred to the tremendous fortunes that "await" the men into whose hands the vast natural resources of the state of West Virginia have fallen. Already tremendous fortunes have been made, although they are nothing compared with those that will be made, should the schemes of the coal operators work out as they have planned. This may be seen in the lavish luxury evident in the capital of the state, Charleston. Few of the biggest operators, the "men higher up," deign to live within the confines of West Virginia. But many of the lesser ones do.

and their choice of residence usually is Charleston, the capital. Charleston is a city of only 30,000 inhabitants, yet I wonder if there is a city in the world of the same size that may boast of as many residences Costing over $50,000. Charleston lies in a narrow valley, most of it just north of the Kanawa river. East of the toll-bridge leading across from the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad depot and fronting the river one sees block after block of private palaces, worth $50,000, $75,000. $100,000 and even more for two solid miles.

And for three streets back of this row of palaces, running the same distance and parallel with them, the homes are almost as good. Here live "the people to whom God in His wisdom has entrusted" the coal deposits of West Virginia. Many of these families spend a part of their time each year in Europe. When at home they ride in fine automobiles and worship in stone churches unusually costly for America. Meet them on an equal plane in business or at recreation and thev are the most agreeable people in selves into associations for their mutual benefit they would cold-bloodedly con tract with a notorious detective bureau to send in gangs of professional thugs iu liud ana snoot tnem into suDmission; hnaily, when this failed to bnnz the de sired result, they would upset the civil powers of the state and impose a mill tary dictatorship in order to discipline the leaders and beat the masses back into their black holes.

They have absolutely no mercv. The crimes for which these refined and cul tivated people, "the best Virginia families," "the aristocracy of the south," are responsible, and which they are openly defending, are almost inconceivable. shall get down to these crimes in detail as soon as possible. But it is to be expected. It is the way of capitalism.

The capitalist car-not be human in relation to the man who feeds him, no matter how cultivated his sensibilities nor what his training. Stripped naked of pretense, his one law is the law of profits. He will yield up nothing that is not forced out of him. WHO, specifically, are the owners of the coal mines of West Virginia? First and most numerous, the "old families" of the state. In 1911 there were 693 producing mines operated by 424 firms, though a very small fraction of these firms own the majority of the mines, or are in control of other firms which give them control of the majority of the mines.

Though concentration is going on rapidly and the control is passing more and more in the hands of persons out side of the -state, these "old families' are destined to be "on the of the coal business for a long time to come. It is safer to have your governor a business partner and your district at torney, sheriff and county judge minor stockholders- in a corporation whose profits you manipulate, than it is to depend on going out and buying these officials every time tne occasion arises. So it is that the majority of the members of the state legislature arc either coal operators or are in the employ of coal operators. The coal operators have two business clubs, the operators' association, to be found in each district mining held. and the state legislature.

Likewise, the other public offices, from United States senator down to the poorest justice ot the peace, are, as a rule, in the hands of the mine owners. These offices are administered, not with any idea of serving the people at large, but as adjuncts of the business of mining and marketing coal. For example: The late U. S. Senator Stephen B.

Elkins, for many years the republican boss of West Virginia, was a heavy owner of coal properties. William Glasscock, until March 4th eovernor of West Virginia, who instituted the military dictatorship which Henry D. Hatfield is continu ing, was an attorney and creature of Elkins, Wm. E. Chilton, the present senior U.

S. senator from West Virginia, is an attorney for various coal companies. Senator Chilton owns the Charleston Gazette, a violent cham pion of the operators' interests. Isaac T. Mann, who barely missed being elected to the U.

S. senate this year, is president of the Pocohontas Consolidated Collieries company, a holding: concern for about fifteen dis tinct "operations," and the largest producer in the Norfolk and Western held. Mr. Mann owns tne Charleston Mail, another violent champion of the interests of the operators. THE PRESENT GOVERNOR, DR.

HENRY DRURY HATFIELD, IS ASSOCIATED WITH ISAAC T. MANN IN THE OWNERSHIP OF THE POCOHONTAS CONSOLI DATED COLLIERIES COMPANY, BUT HAS MADE EVERY EFFORT TO KEEP THAT PACT A SECRET. Hatfield's further connec tion with the operators interests will be dealt with at length in a later article. A. A.

Lily, attorney general of West Virginia, is at the same time attorney for the New River Collieries company, a heavy producer in the New River field, and for other coal mining concerns. Charles W. Dillon, recently candidate against Hatfield for the republican -nomination for governor and late U. S. district attorney for the New River company is another heavy producer in the New River field.

I shall refer to Mr. Dillon again, when I come to detail my own personal experiences with Baldwin-Feltz sluggers. Adjutant General Charles D. Elliot, who carries out the orders of the governor in the martial zone, was for years a lobbyist and newspaper publisher in the interests of Stephen B. Elkins.

Elliott has the reputation of having handled Elkins' "dough-bag," before the legislature was the happy family it now is. when it was at times necessary to make outright purchases of legislators in order to kill a bill that the operators did not want, or "put over" a law that they did want. John Laing, chief of the department of mines, WHOSE BUSINESS IT IS TO ENFORCE SUCH LAWS AS THERE ARE IN WEST VIR-VINIA SAFEGUARDING THE LIVES OF THE MINERS, is an operator himself. He owns mines on on strike. The members of the state supreme court of appeals, at least three of the five, were connected with coal corporations, either as attorneys or otherwise, before they were elevated to the bench, AND WERE DOUBTLESS ELEVATED TO THE BENCH FOR THAT REASON.

Judge George Brannon, president of the supreme court of appeals to December 31, 1912, who wrote the first subversive decisions sustaining martial law and the military commission, was held in the hollow of the hand of the great god, coaL I have it from a well-known man of Charleston that, while this very question was under advisement, 'Brannon participated in an all-night carouse with prominent operators in a notorious negro resort in Charleston. Locally the same situation obtains. The operators do not name the office-holders in the counties where no coal is mined, but in all the big "fields" the sheriffs, 1 (Continued from Arst page.) pair running: at full speed back irKthe direction whence they had come. "They're going to get the whole gang and head us off at the bridge," Brown cried. I had just counted eight of these thugs, strung along two blocks of the mam street.

The night was as black as a coal cellar and I did not wish to be headed off. We made fast time to the bridge and on to Rodgers' house. "We beat them," said Brown, "but they'll be laying for us as we come bark." But we reached the hotel without seeing The reason soon became evident. 'Squire Dooley, the justice of the peace, came in, covered with dirt, his clothes torn, his derby hat badly battered. Seeing the "Baldwins" start to head us off, Dooley had slipped across lots to see what was going to happen.

Too late, he realized that Baldwin thugs are 'no respecters of justices of the peace. His derby hat saved him from being knocked out by a descending blackjack. He fought with his pocket knife and attributed his escape from death to his having succeeded in getting over a picket fence, which gave him an opportunity to run. If 'Squire Dooley had had his gun, or if the thugs had not turned aside from their pursuit of Brown and myself to attack him, somebody would have been killed at Oak Hill that night' and the newspapers would have printed one more story of a shooting by lawless union men. Yet the incident is a mild one, comparatively.

I relate it only because I was there myself. SEEING that It was impossible for union men and miners to help me, I called on the cashier of the local bank. Still going under the name of Turney, I represented myself to be a magazine writer, got a newspaper man from Charlestonyto vouch for me, was introduced to some mine managers, and by leading them to believe that I might easily be deceived, through them I succeeded in going over a part of the New River field and into some mining towns. On the day I left the district, however, I again fell under suspicion. Rodgers was going back to Charleston on the same train to report.

Brown and Maynor felt that they would not, be safe in Oak Hill any longer. We went together to the depot. As I stepped on the platform I saw, through a window, a "Baldwin" talking to the station agent and the agent nodding significantly. I asked for a ticket. "The train is late," announced the agent.

"If you want to grt to Charleston tonight you'd better walk to Bishop. It's only two miles." The union men scented a trap to get us out in the woods. Bishop is on the main line of the Virginian railroad, while Oak Hill is on a branch. A group of "Baldwins" came up the railroad track as we stepped out on the platform. Instead of marching down the track, as they doubtless expected, we announced that we were going back up town for a rig, then repaired to Rodgers' house and got his rifle.

Rodgers had never used the weapon, so I took it. To catch our train we had to hurry. So there was presented a spectacle of four men running through the forest, myself at the head, holding a rifle at full cock, ready to shoot at the first figure that might bob up. As we had taken an unexpected route, we saw no one on the way. The down train swarmed with "Baldwins." I chose a corner seat in a car which was boarded by three of the "Baldwins" whom I had seen at Oak Hill.

One took a seat just in front and two sat opposite me. They were constantly moving about, whispering together and taking counsel with the conductor, and their demeanor in genera! was so threatening that I took out a heavy knife which I had bought after being robbed of my pistol by Felix Diaz in Mexico and held it under a newspaper on my knee. I knew that these thugs had assaulted men on trains in broad daylight before. That night I missed from my grip an envelope containing clippings "and a letter. I had taken unusual precautions to safeguard such things.

But once I had left them in my room and that once was sufficient to insure their theft. The letter must have been shown very promptly to some pf the local operators for when I saw my Charleston newspaper friend again he informed me that an operator had told him that they had found out that I was "the biggest Socialist of them all." and to "wait until he comes back to Oak Hill." A FEW days before I left West Virginia T. G. Williams, a former auditor of one of the big coal companies, who had given me information, was beaten up, choked, and his life was threatened bv T. L.

Feltz, on the fifth floor of the Hotel Ruffner, the Ruffner management conniving. Looking on while the as- AN EASY WAY TO MAKE MONEY. I resolved New Years that I would do all In my power to help others and so write you my experience, hoping your readers may be benefited. I am selling Dish Washers and doing fine. I do not canvas people come or send for them; thep are lovely to sell the machine washes and dries the dishes perfectly in four minutes; you don't have to put your hands into the water.

Every lady who sees the Dish Washers wants one as they cost only $5. I think any person can do as well as I. Write to the Hvdraulic Dish Washer Company. 324D Fourth Pittsburgh, Pa. TBey will give you instructions and start you in business.

Dish Washers sell to everybody as dishes must be washed three times a day. A Reader 17 Cent a Day Buys an ftv jl TfM Standard Viatel Wrttw Sava Your Pen an own OLIVET Can you spend 17c a lypaiArrrOf day to better advantage than in the purchase a a of this wonderful macmner WVJ fmr 8 feint lam Paraxial Pt mmatifn ar mm tf- mww uutxw 4t TKZ CUYEfl TYPEOTJTCT CttX'AXY tOa W. OUt IUaM City. Sa. Continued from page.) ginia that does not rob the miner con sistently on the weiehta.

Coal sells by the short ton, 2,000 pounds, but the mining of it is paid for in the non-union mines by the long ton, 2.240 pounds. That is nothing. The real theft comes in the doctoring of we weignts. me rule is not to weigh each car as it comes down to the- tinn! but to figure by the car. I have meas urements that prove that the car which is supposed to hold two tons of coal actually holds more than three.

Of course the miners know this, but they have no redress. 'I have a mass of inside figures on the profits of the operators and the robberv of the min ers, which I plan to publish entire at a later date. Perhaps the reader is beginning to see wnere trie tascmation of coal-dig ging conies in A manager complained to me that he was never able to get as many men as he wanted. His explanation of this phenomenon was that workingmen are all lazy and shiftless. It did not occur to him that low aires and consistent fleecing might have something to do.

wun worKingmen Being shy ot accept ing service with him. Robbery by weight juggling can only De corrected by maintaining a check-weighman at each mine, and the check- pweighman is a practicable institution only when he is selected bv the union. paid by the union, protected by the union, and is dischargeable by the union. In some states, such as Alabama, non-union miners are given a check-weighman, but without the union the system is a fraud. The laws of West Virginia require the operators to give the miners a checkweighman if tkey request it.

The operators on Cabin creek maintain that their employes have never requested a checkweighman. But the records show that these same operators have made a practice of discharging any miner that so much as hinted that a checkweighman was desirable. Not satisfied with getting their paltry $47.54 (less) back through exhorbitant rents, overcharges for mining materials, overcharges for store supplies, and weight juirgline, the companies take an other slice inside the mine in "docking for slate. I went through a iinion mine, being piloted by the Though tin's man, by virtue of his position, represented the company instead of the union, his elucidations of mining by piece-work showed me very plaintly that the non-union coal miner, more than any other workingman that could name, is completely at the mercy of the boss. In a unionized mine a committee is always at work making adjustments of wage rates demanded by varying conditions of the coal vein.

In non-union mine the boss arbitrarily decides these things and naturally in favor of the company. A Judge's Opinion Judge. Ira E. Robinson, scoring his four associates of the West Virginia supreme court of appeals. The part of these corporation-mrnsd judges in the plot to railroad strikers ami Socialists to the gallows icill be exposed in the second West Virginia special edition of the Apfeai to be out in three wre-efc.

The people declared against the suspension of the constitution at any time, war or no war, on any plea whatsoever. Yet the majority of this court holds that it may be suspended whenever the governor by proclamation, right or wrong, sees fit to suspend it. The people ordained that the privilege of the writ 6f habeas corpus should never under any circumstances be suspended. Yet theliolding of the majority is to the effect that the governor may make that sacred writ totally unavailing. The people further ordained that no citizen not in the military service should ever be called to answer before a military court for a civil offense.

Yet the majority holds that any citizen may be subject to trial and condemnation before a military commission whenever the governor sees fit to displace the civil courts by a proclamation to that effect. Why He Opposes Investigation. In spite of frantic protests of ex-U. S. Senator Watson against "interference in West Virginia affairs," the Kern resolution" providing for an inquiry into current happenings in the coal fields has been favorably reported by the senate committee.

Hon. Watson has good reason for wanting to hush up West Virginia matters. He the largest individual holder of coal properties in that state and a leading exponent of the mine guard and company store systems. A dispatch printed in the Kanawa Daily Citizen, Charleston. April 2Sth, read in part as follows: At a meeting held at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City, the Elkhorn Fuel company was permanently organized.

The officers were ohoson as follow Ex-Senator Clarence W. Watson, president J. Mavo. J. N.

Camden. George A. Baird. of Cincinnati, and Georjre W. Fleming, vice presidents: S.

D. Camden, treasurer, and W. M. Stewart, secretary. The hoard of directors is composed of the foregoing officers and T.

Williams and J. F. Ferbhagen. of Baltimore; John Clark and O. S.

McKlnney. of Fairmont; William Ohley. of Charleston Thomas Paris and .1. Nnshanm. of Cincinnati.

This organization will probably represent the larpest bituminous coal operations in the world. It9 capitalization is thirty millions of dollars and Its holdlnss coal areas will approximate 300,000 acres. No Settlement Latest news from the martial zone in- icates that the situation on Painty and Cabin creeks, W. is farther away from any real settlement than ever. After Governor Hatfield threatened jail for the union officials and wholesale deportation for the strikers, the former practically surrendered, throwing themselves upon the.

promises of the governor for a "square deal." Hatfield then repaired to the martial rone and commanded the strikers either to go back to work or leave the state. Certain union officials also went to the "martial zone and counseled a return to work. Many of the miners refused to return to work under the conditions agreed to, and many others who were induced to applyfor work found that they were turned away on the ground that they had been on strike. iii a mm Cheapest As Well As Best Every sensible person wants the best of everything, but in many things the best is beyond their means and they must necessarily be content with something less. In the case of the Cream Separa tor, however, the best is fortunately the cheapest as well, and it is of the greatest importance that every buyer of a separator should know this.

Moreover, the best is of more importance in the case of the Cream Separator than in anything else, since it means a saving or a waste twic a day vary amy in ibm year for many years. It Is true that DE LAVAL Separators cost a little more in first price than some inferior separators, but that counts fornothingagainst the fact that they save their cost very year over any other separator, while they last an average twenty years as compared with an average two years in the case of other separators. And if first cost is a serious consideration a DE LAVAL machine may be bought on such liberal terms that It will actually savo and pay for Itself. These are all important facts which every buyer of a Cream Separator should understand and which every local DE LAVAL agent isglad toexplainanddemon-strate to the satisfaction of the intending buyer. If you don't know the nearest DE LAVAL agent please simply address the nearest of our main offices as below.

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ascaanaa.i (. ii if XV 1 LI 1 hkl as a i 7m VTUaAiiUaAa 4 judges, "squires" and constables, assessors, mayors of towns and all other officials are selected by them. WHAT DO THE OPERATORS GAIN BY THIS CONTROL OF THE PUBLIC OFFICES? THE ANSWER WILL COME OUT IN DETAIL IN THE COURSE OF MY STORY. COAL MINING is not the only industry in West Virginia. There are extensive fields of oil and natural gas.

Stockraising is an important industry. But the mining of coal overshadows all others. The population of West Virginia is 1.200,000. The value of coal taken out of the earth each year, for every man, woman and child in the state, is $.50. I have tried to convey an idea of the class of persons within the state whose fortunes depend upon coal.

Of even greater significance are the interests from Jhe outside that are coming in to dominate the industry and make it a part of the vast capitalistic scheme of things concentrated known as The System. Among the big financial figures outside the state who have recently acquired West Virginia coal properties are the family group known as "The Jones' of Scranton." John H. Jones and his five sons, all millionaires. The Joneses of Scranton own the Pittsburg and Buffalo Coal company and, in addition, are heavy stockholders in the largest river corporation in the world, namely, the Monongahela Consolidated Coal and Coke company of Pennsylvania, which is in possession of 63 mines, thousands of barges, scores of tow-boats and is affiliated with the Pittsburg Coal company, the largest bituminous coal corporation in the United States. The Joneses of Scranton are part and parcel of the great coal trust, so-called of the United States.

In West Virginia they are heavy holders in the New River and other companies. W. H. Payne and John H. Kelly.

Boston copper magnates, through the Federal Trust company of Boston, recently acquired control of the New River company, which operates 22 mines. -Robert Cross, the H. O. Oatmeal man of Boston, is president of this corporation. Congressman John B.

Weeks of Boston, of the Big Business brokerage firm of Hornblower and Weeks, is also interested in this company, his personal representative being F. B. Doust, the treasurer. The three biggest railroads operating in West Virginia, the Baltimore and Ohio, the Chesapeake and Ohio and the Norfolk and Western, are in extremely close touch with the mining corporations. While they are popularly supposed to be interested directly in the ownership of mines, this is a thing forbidden by the interstate commerce commission, and, therefore, if true, is care fully concealed.

However, ex-U. S. Senator Watson, one of the three heaviest individual owners of coal mines in the state, is also reputed to be in control of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, which would indicate the gathering of coal mining and railroad stock in the same hands. Certain it is that. by their handling of cars being free with them here and withholding them there the railroads are in a position to favor some companies and injure others, and it is charged that they are actually doing this, which would argue a direct interest in the mining busines.

Of more importance than any of these is the RECENT ENTRY OK M. GUGGENHEIM 'SON'S. CZARS OF THE MINING INDUSTRY IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND IN ALASKA, AND GEORGE F. BAER, PRESIDENT OF THE PHILADELPHIA AND READING RAILROAD AND REPUTED HEAD OF THE ANTHRACITE COAL TRUST. HE OF THE "GOD IN HIS WISDOM" FAME, INTO THE WEST VIRGINIA FIELDS.

The Guggenheim and Baer are working together. Under one concern, the New River Consolidated company, they have gathered 15 mines in Raleigh and Fayette counties, and are reported to be MOVING STEADILY IN THE DIRECTION OF CONSOLIDATION AND UNIFICATION OF THE COAL INTER. ESTS THROUGHOUT THE STATE. "HOW did the present holders of these mountains of coal get possession of them, as a ruler" I asked a mine official. "Some paid fifty cents an acre for them," he replied.

"Some paid sixty; some paid seventy." "And how much are they worth now?" "We sold an undeveloped property not long ago at the rate of $2,500 an acre" "Well, what does society eet out of that increase in value that difference between fifty cents and Do the mines pay any special tax of any kind for example, a royalty on the output? "Nothing of the sort. There's an as sessed valuation tax, such as is laid on any other property nothing more." He hesitated. "The fact is. he added, we'don't pay hardly any of that. We let the other fellows pay the taxes.

We own the assessors." Then he went on to specify. "The tipple of Scarborough cost us $18,000 and is worth that today. Our county assessor said to me: 'Torn, what's that new tipple I said. 'It's worth $18,000, hut we'll put it down at 'All right, Tom. And it went down that way.

He knnv verv well that we could make or break him." Here is revealed one reason why the coal operators are careful to control the political orTices. Hut this ts by no means the important reason, as I shall presently show. Next we come down to the lives of the coal miners and the conditions that forced them, in the face of the most Other Offices Wrecked A week ago tb office of the Labor Argus, Socialist paper of Charleston, wa seized, and wrecked by the agents of the governor. This is clearly only a beginning of the effort to keep the truth from being made knows, as the following special telegram to the Appeal Indicates a Charleston, W. May 13th.

In the dark of night soldier seized on the Huntington So- A cialist and Labor Star, de- stroyed the machinery, arrested Thompson, the editor, and four A officers of the company, and brought them to Charleston to join Merrick and other editors A in prison. A free speech and free press fight is being organ. ized. Speakers are needed to A fill jails. RUSSELL.

heard the evidence, played into the hands of Feltz et al. in a decision worded as follows: State of Went Virginia ajratnst C. W. Dillon. T.

I Feltz. S. A. Scott. This day this case rime on to be heard on the within trial al! of the defendant appearing the state being represented by J.

6. Harless and A. M. Belcher and the prosecuting witness being placed on the stand, having failed to make out any case and on motion of the attorney for the state and it appearing to the court that th charge is wholly untrue and the defendants are discharged. M.

Gilchrist, J. P. "RUN out all union men. Kill all organizers." This is the motto of the coal operators of West Virginia. The Baldwin-Feltz Detective agency has the contract to carry it out, and so well has it performed its work that, until the present year, less than five per cent of the coal mjners of that state belonged to a union.

So. ruthlessly have the "Baldwins" gone about their work that today there are great coal fields which an organizer does not dare enter and where not a meeting of miners has been held for years. So completely "was Cabin creek terrorized before the strike that for nine years, until Mother Jones made her first speech in Eskdale last July, not an organizer had shown himself in the dis-trict. The strike on Paint creek was called April 20, 1912; that on Cabin creek came in July. Immediately the Bald-win-Feltz agency, in pursuance of their contract, sent in an army of thugs, armed to the teeth, with express orders to drive every union man and striker out of both districts.

The "Baldwins" went to their work with trfe complete assurance that no crime they might commit, however brutal though it might be murder would be serious enough to bring them punishment. The state and local officials, through the influence of the coal operators, as well as by direct bribery, had been properly "fixed." More than that, every "Baldwin" carried a commission as a deputy sheriff. On their side the miners were "fixed," too. "fixed" so that they could not fight. The state legislature had provided for that.

With the express purpose of preventing the miners from arming themselves for defense against the Baldwin thugs, a member of the lower house named Johnson, a notorious satellite of Coal Magnate Samuel Dixon of Fayette county, had introduced a bill which passed and became known as "The Johnson Pistol-Toting Law." This law, while permitting the arming of private police and making it possible for wealthy persons, by giv-. ing bond and paying a license fee, to carry pistols, renders it impossible for workingmen to do so. For the first offense the penalty for violation is -imprisonment for frdm six to twelve months; for the second offense, from one to five years. Thus protected, the criminal Baldwin-Feltz Coal Operators' Private Labor-Hunting army proceeded to drive the strikers out of Paint Creek and Cabin Creek. In this work there were perpetrated outrages surpassing anything that had happened before.

Every striker and union man whom I met in West Virginia had some story to tell of Baldwin brutalities. Sworn statements as to outrages also were taken by former Governor Glasscock's mining investigation commission. Under the title of "Some Crimes of the West Virginia Coal Operators Private Army," 1 intend to refer more fully to these stories in a succeeding issue. What followed has been called a civil war. It was not a civil war, properly speaking; for the state, though backing the thuo-e was.

not onenlv enaffed. The a a mf S- fcj I fight was between the thugs and theij miners, tne latter Dauung in sen-ae-fense. This war was brought on purely and solely because the miners refused to be driven cut of the district by a band of criminals. The miners did not buy pistols; they bought rifles. They fought to defend their lives and the lives of their families.

It was not a question of choice, or of policy, but of necessity. They were as much compelled to fight as our pioneers of the '50's were compelled to fight the savage Indians of the western plains. And the number of "Baldwins" killed in these battles was far greater than either the operators or the Feltz brothers are willing to admit. These battles also will be dealt with at some length in a succeeding issue of the Appeal. I a is C.

J. A. of the world. They are' cultured, but, s75TCabin Creek, where the miners are far as the other half, the toilers of those narrow valleys and cold black holes are concerned the people who bring in to them their golden profits they are cultured savages. They pray in theiriine churches for the compassion of heaven uoon sinning souls; they send missionaries afar to redeem from everlasting fire the Chinese and the East Indian they are genuinely touched by the sight of a deg or a cat pain, tsui wnen iney turn toward the miserable human beings out of whose sweat and blood their cultivated lives are made possible their faces become fiint.

their hearts are turned to stone. RATHER than lose one per cent of their profits, rather than give up one automobile, one pleasure trip, one fine dinner, they would condemn the miners to go on living to the end of their days in leakv and drafty three-room shacks; they would go on robbing them through the scrip system and the company stores they would deny them the sight of the 5UU till S1A UJT UJf nt.Uk, nuvu.