110 ChaPter 2
insisted on picking the weight checkers, because they were often cheated out
of pay by company men who understated the amount of coal brought in. The
union also demanded to be paid semi-monthly, so workers would not have
empty pockets at the end of every month. And they wanted the right to
purchase some necessities at local stores, instead of the more-expensive com-
pany stores. The operators agreed to some of these terms, but then simply
did not comply, and when a meeting between the bosses and labor was sched-
uled for July, the miners showed up but the operators did not. Rather than
negotiate or change policies, the operators brought in the Baldwin-Felts
agents whom, with guns in hand, searched trains, halted strangers, ejected
people considered “undesirable,” such as union men, from town, and threw
miners considered troublemakers out of their company housing. Baldwin-
Felts agents were paid $100-125 a month, over double what the miners made,
never hesitated from using force and were sometimes arrested for crimes
ranging from assault to murder. None in Paint Creek were put on trial for
their reign of terror.
But the miners had an impressive weapon of their own show up in June,
an 82 year old woman whose first and middle names were Mary Harris, but
was known nationally as Mother Jones. Put on trial for encouraging miners
during the 1902 coal strike, a U.S. district attorney called her “the most dan-
gerous woman in America” before she was found guilty, though the judge
suspended her sentence so she would not become better-known and seen as
a martyr. In August 1912 Mother Jones gave a speech in Paint Creek calling
the Baldwin-Felts “contemptible, damnable bloodhounds hired by the opera-
tors.” That summer, the strike in Paint Creek became more tense and violent.
Mine owners were evicting more miners from their homes and bringing in
scabs to take their jobs. Beatings, shootings, and sabotage were everyday
events. In late July 3,000 miners marched to Charleston to the state capitol,
where violence broke out and 12 strikers and 4 guards were killed. In
September, over 5,000 miners joined the strikers in their tent colony, where
they retreated after being kicked out of their company houses, and the gov-
ernor sent out 1,200 troops to confiscate labor’s weapons. The strike was
beginning to take its toll on the strikers and families, as the lack of food,
housing, sanitary conditions, and wages was making it impossible to sustain a
decent life. Frank Keeney, a rank-and-file leader of the strike said “I am a
native West Virginian and there are others like me working in the mines here.