You ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.
-Mother Jones
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Friday September 17, 1915
From The New York Times: U. M. W. Attorneys Hawkins and Clark Charged in Colorado
John Lawson, Mother Jones, Attorney Horace N Hawkins
According to yesterday's
Times, Horace N. Hawkins and Fred W. Clark, attorneys for United Mine Workers, have been charged with subornation of perjury in connection with the affidavit which was
signed by Grover Hall, a juror in the murder trial of John R. Lawson. The affidavit made by Hall was incorporated into Lawson's motion for a new trial.
And from Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, the boyhood home of John R. Lawson, we find that the Rev. Arthur Willis Spooner has received a reply to a letter sent by him to President Wilson on behalf of Lawson.
From The New York Times of September 16, 1915:
SAYS UNION COUNSEL INCITED TO PERJURY
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Colorado Attorney General Files Charges Against
Hawkins and Clark in the Lawson Case.
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REPORTS HALL CONVESSED
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Asserts That an Affidavit Used to Get New Trial for
Miners' Leader Was False.
Attorney General Farrar
TRINIDAD, Col., Sept. 15.-Informations charging Horace N. Hawkins, general counsel for the United Mine Workers, and Fred W. Clark, local counsel, with subornation of perjury were filed in the District Court here today by Attorney General Fred Farrar.
The charges were filed in connection with an affidavit signed by Grover Hall, a juror in the murder trial of John R. Lawson, a leader to the union coal miners.
Hall's affidavit was used in the application for a new trial for Lawson and also in connection with the petition which secured a supersedeas from the Supreme Court. It alleged that Hall at first stood out for an acquittal of Lawson, but that he finally agreed to a verdict of guilty as the result of coercive measures employed by Frank Gooden, a Court Bailiff.
Gooden, according to the affidavit, told Hall that his wife was seriously ill, and later informed him that Judge Granby Hillyer had ordered the jurors locked up without food until they were ready to agree upon a verdict.
Lawson was convicted on May 3 of first degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was tried in connection with the death of John Nimmo, a Deputy Sheriff [deputized company gunthug], killed in a strike riot [strikers defending tent colony from attack] at Ludlow in the Fall of 1913. Recently the Colorado Supreme Court granted a supersedeas, and an application for Lawson's release on ball now is pending. In the meantime the labor leader is in the county jail here. Another recent decision of the Supreme Court barred Judge Hillyer from presiding at future strike trials.
[Photograph added.]
From Pennsylvania's Mount Carmel Item of September 15, 1915:
REPLY FROM DEPARTMENT
OF JUSTICE
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A recent issue of the ITEM published a copy of the letter sent to President Wilson by Rev. Dr. Arthur W. Spooner, of Mount Carmel, pleading for a new trial for John R. Lawson, former Mount Carmel man who is now serving a life-sentence in a Colorado prison.
Rev. Arthur Willis Spooner, D. D.,
1220 East Fifth Street,
Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania.
Sir:
The Department is in receipt, by reference from the President, of your letter of September 4, 1915, in which you ask him to aid in securing a new trial for John R. Lawson, who was recently convicted of murder in the state of Colorado.
In reply permit me to say that inasmuch as the case does not appear to be one of Federal jurisdiction, neither the President nor this Department can lawfully take any action with respect thereto.
Respectfully, For the Attorney General,
Charles Warren, Assistant Attorney General
Dr. Spooner states that he purposes to at once address an appeal to the Governor of Colorado.
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[Photograph added.]
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SOURCES
The New York Times
(New York, New York)
-Sept 16, 1915
http://query.nytimes.com/...
Mount Carmel Item
(Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania)
-Sept 15, 1915
http://www.newspapers.com/...
IMAGES
John Lawson, Mother Jones, Attorney Horace Hawkins
http://ludlowsymposium.wordpress.com/...
Frederick M. Farrar,
Attorney General of Colorado (1913-1917)
http://www.law.du.edu/...
Rev. Arthur Willis Spooner, 1908
http://www.newspapers.com/...
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The Coal Miner Song - Jimmy Joe Lee
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