During the 1902-1903 New River coal strike waged by the U.M.W.A. a multi-racial mountain miners camp in Stanaford, West Virginia was attacked in a surprise morning assault by 50 U.S. Marshals, sheriffs, Baldwin Felts assassins, and the usual posse of businessmen and gangsters. Ostensibly sent to arrest those in the camp for violation of an injunction, the three Black miners killed were shot while sleeping, surrounded by their families. The firing alerted other miners who put on a short, but fierce resistance before being cut down. The Black U.M.W.A. miners killed outright in their beds (as asserted by the coroner) were William Dodson, William Clark, and Richard Clayton; white miners Lucien Lawson, Joe Hiser, Bert Irvin, and John Winchester died shortly after from their wounds. Fleeing into the wounds, at least fifty survivors were arrested, dozens wounded, and perhaps another five murdered. The posse and its leaders were never charged. Articles from the Toiler, St. Louis Labor, and The New York Worker. Never forget. Never forgive.

‘Striking Negro and White Miners Murdered in West Virginia’ from The Worker (New York). Vol. 12 No. 50. March 13, 1903.

Terrible Story from West Virginia Coal Fields–Officer of United Mine Workers, Investigation, Reports on the Men Were Shot in Their Beds–Deputies Were Notorious Thugs.

INDIANAPOLIS, March 8.The official report of Chris Evans, who was sent to the West Virginia coal fields to Investigate the killing of colored miners at Atkinsville, has been received at the headquarters of the United Mine Workers.

The report says that Gen. St. Clair, the attorney for the coal companies, created an agitation to have the men arrested and taken to Charleston, and that immediately afterward arrangements were made with the United States Marshal by the Mine Workers’ officials to give bond for all, who were arrested, but that later, on account of the agitation created by Deputy Marshal Cunningham, the agreement was broken, and Cunningham was sent to arrest the men.

A Posse of Thugs.

According to the report there was great feeling against Cunningham. The men decided not to allow him to arrest them and he was driven away. Mr. Erans says that he sent a telegram to the men to submit quietly, but that the coal companies, who own all the telegraph and telephone lines into the town, refused to deliver it, and before he could get any message to the men Cunningham and his deputies, who were the worst characters he could collect, made another raid and killed or mortally wounded several men. They then arrested forty-eight men on charges of conspiracy to kill Cunningham.

Mr. Evans got to the scene the next morning. In the house of a colored man named Jackson he found the bodies of three murdered miners. He says:

No Warning Given.

“We found that the wife of Jackson and her four children, with eight negroes, were in the house, and that about daybreak all were awakened by shots fired into the house from the outside. This shooting took place without warning, and the three colored men were found dead on the floor. Two were in their night clothes and the other one was partly, dressed. We visited another house, where Joseph Hizer lay in bed mortally wounded, having been shot as he was dressing. Hizer lived with his sister, and she made the statement at the inquest that she pleaded with those shooting not to kill her children, and in reply Cunningham said: ‘Women and children must take care of themselves.” In no instance could we find where these people had been asked to surrender, until after the deputies had commenced shooting the occupants of the houses. “We next went to the house of Lucien Lawson, who was considered mortally wounded. I understand that after the shooting referred to, this man, with others, returned the fire of the posse, and this is the only instance where any attempt at resistance was made by the miners. During the shooting in many instances the men pleaded with the men outside to have mercy on them, but their cries were met with derision and curses. Our investigation proves conclusively that no effort was made to shoot or resist, except in the one case mentioned, but that all would have been glad to surrender if they had been allowed the opportunity.” The Coroner’s jury has returned a verdict of felonious killing against Cunningham for the killing of William Dodson.

‘Coal Miners Killed by Deputy Sheriffs’ from St. Louis Labor. Vol. 4 No. 108. February 28, 1903.  

The Second Act in Judge Keller’s Injunction Proceedings in West Virginia–How the Capitalist Mine Owners and Politicians “Arbitrate” Labor Questions–President Mitchell Had Been Included in Injunction.

While the arbitration commission is doing its capitalist work in Pennsylvania trying to help the mine owners in defeating the United Mine Workers of America, the deputy sheriffs are shooting down the brave miners in the coal fields of West Virginia.

Read the following headlines to a Globe-Democrat special telegram from West Virginia:

STRIKING MINERS SHOT BY POSSEMEN–THREE KILLED AND TWO MORTALLY WOUNDED IN A WEST VIRGINIA BATTLE–COLORED DEPUTY SHOT DOWN–DEFEATED FORCES RETIRE TO PREPARE FOR FRESH ATTACK–ASSAULT MADE BY PARTY OF FOREIGNERS, SAID TO BE ANARCHISTS, IN AN EFFORT TO PREVENT SERVICE OF AN INJUNCTION.

An Associated Press report reads as follows:

Charleston, W. Va., Feb. 25. Desperate miners, armed with rifles, fiercely fought a posse of 100 deputy sheriffs and deputy marshals at Staniford City, Raleigh county, this morning. They were utterly defeated, having been taken by surprise.

Three of the rioters were killed, two mortally wounded, many more injured and 73 placed under arrest.
The dead: Dick Taylor. Dobson. Unidentified miner.

Mortally wounded: John Heiser. Irwin Lawson.

The trouble grew out of an attempt to arrest 34 miners for violation of the blanket injunction issued by Federal Judge Keller last August.

The mining companies in the neighborhood furnished the deputy marshal and sheriff with about 150 men. This morning about daybreak the officers and their combined posse surprised the rioters in their camp, and called on them to surrender.

“The reply was a shot.

“This was answered by a shot, and immediately a furious battle was raging.

“When it ceased three of the rioters lay dead, and many others were found to be wounded, two of them fatally.

“Seventy-three arrests were made, ten falling to the share of Deputy Marshal Cunningham and sixty-three to that of Sheriff Cook.

“All prisoners were taken to Beckley, the county seat of Raleigh, where the ten United States prisoners obtained a preliminary hearing by Commissioner Dunn and were held for appearance in court here. They will be brought here on an early morning train.

“The federal authorities will try to get the state to give up the sixty- three, so that they may be tried in the federal court, but it is doubtful whether it will be done, as the state court meets on Monday, and it is thought they can be tried more expeditiously there. S.C. Burdette, attorney for the United Mine Workers of America, went to Beckley this afternoon to appear for the miners.

“The injunction, which the miners were charged with violating, was the blanket writ issued by Judge B.F. Keler at the suit of the Chesapeake and Ohio Coal Agency Co. last August.

“The defendants in the case were all the coal companies operating in the New River field, a hundred and fifty members of Mine Workers of America, by name, including President Mitchell and Secretary Wilson and all other persons whatsoever who aided and abetted them. The injunction covered almost every foot of ground in the coal mining region of New River.”

This is another illustration of the “harmony between capital and labor” as preached by Messrs. Mark Hanna. Cleveland, Mitchell. Gompers, etc., of the “Civic Federation.” Such occurrences will make the mine workers realize the seriousness of the class struggle, and will eventually lead them into the camp of Socialism. These are expensive lessons to organized labor. Experience is a good teacher, and we hope that the union men throughout the country will realize the necessity of independent political action on the lines advocated and practiced by the Socialist Party. The working class must take possession of the law-making powers with the object of socializing the means of production by expropriating the capitalist expropriators.

‘West Virginia Massacre’ from the Toiler (Terre Haute). Vol. 5 No. 5. March 13, 1903.

THE jury at Charleston, W. Va. charged with the investigation of the shooting of union miners by an armed body of men under a deputy United States marshal have rendered a verdict which states that the men “came to their death by being feloniously shot under his direction.” The men who were killed were all in their homes when the uniformed assassins fired upon them without a note of warning and fell dead in their tracks. One of the posse stated that not a shot was fired by the miners and the whole affair was an outrage.

This massacre occurred under the direction of an agent of “our government” and though they have been indicted for their bloody work it is questionable whether they will receive anything more than a reprimand for it. It is such cold blooded massacres as these which is fast destroying the faith of workingmen in that capitalist virtue known as patriotism which teaches that the killing of a human being, providing the butcher is clothed in a uniform of blue and brass buttons, is a sacred duty. As Prof. Herron has well said, patriotism is nothing but crime with a flag over it.

Wave the stars and stripes and you have the privilege of poisoning vast numbers of men with rotten beef or murdering barbarous peoples who have no desire for shoddy goods and rum and other blessings of civilization. But become a patriot on a small scale and chastise a real enemy who has robbed you of all that is dear and the stripes that will be the symbol of your prowess will be those of the prison garb.