Power Read Free

here the news story I filed later on this same day. The story follows, just as the Daily Mail printed it:
    Hogan County, West Virginia. May 26, 1920.
    Eleven men are dead, and a twelfth lingers between life and death as a result of a gunfight in this small West Virginia town.
    Today, this reporter was witness to one of the most incredible gunfights in the history of a state that is not unfamiliar with private wars. The battle that turned the quiet main street of Clinton, West Virginia, into a scene of blood and horror took place during a sixty-second interval, early this morning. But the forces that led to this showdown were growing for a much longer time.
    One does not have to have pro-labor sympathies to see the situation of the coal miners in Hogan County. An hour’s walk around this community, in the heart of the richest coal country in America, convinced this reporter that the coal miners in Hogan County are not to be envied. A short conversation with any one of them leads immediately to the fact that at least part of their many troubles stem from the lack of a trade union of any kind.
    This is a situation Benjamin R. Holt set out to remedy when he was elected president of the International Miners Union at the beginning of this year. Stating that there could be no job security for the unionized miners in Pennsylvania and Illinois, so long as West Virginia remained an unorganized area, he personally led a force of union organizers into Hogan and Mingo counties three weeks ago. They approached the local miners with the proposal that they constitute themselves a branch of the International Miners Union.
    In defense of their own interests, the mine operators here announced that any miner under suspicion of meeting with IMU organizers or of supporting their attempts to organize a union, would be immediately discharged. These discharges began the day after Benjamin Holt arrived in West Virginia, and they have continued during the three weeks since then. Today, it is estimated that at least 75 per cent of the miners in Hogan County have been locked out of the mines.
    The mine operators own most of the local stores and practically all of the miners’ housing. Ten days ago, they cut off the miners’ credit allowances at the food stores and began a program of evicting from their homes those miners who had co-operated with the union organizers. Here in Clinton, Sheriff James D. Flecker was given the responsibility of carrying out the evictions.
    Sheriff Flecker, famous locally as the only survivor of the notorious Flecker-Curry feud, stated that he would uphold the law and carry out the evictions, but only if he had proof that the accused miners had actually co-operated with the organizers. When four days passed without any evictions, the coal operators charged Sheriff Flecker with deliberate refusal to carry out his duties as specified in his oath of office. They explained this attitude on the part of Flecker by the many family connections Flecker had with miners in Clinton, and demanded his resignation. When Sheriff Flecker refused to resign, the operators were forced to resort to other measures, and they brought into Clinton twelve operatives of the Fairlawn Detective Agency of Philadelphia. The operatives were skilled labor consultants, under the leadership of Jack Madison, who made a national reputation during the steel strike of last year.
    Immediately upon their arrival in Clinton, the Fairlawn operatives began a program of evictions, and during the next four days, these evictions were carried forward at the rate of fifty a day. Yesterday, they attempted to evict Sheriff Flecker’s brother-in-law, and they were halted by the sheriff at gunpoint. Eyewitnesses to this incident say that when one of the operatives made a gesture toward his pocket, Sheriff Flecker stated that if the operative drew his gun, he would not hesitate to shoot him dead. Whereupon, Detective Madison ordered his men to halt eviction