Biography
W. B. Jones was secretary of the United Mine Workers’ local in Evarts, Kentucky. He was prosecuted after the May 5, 1931 Battle of Evarts and convicted of murder pursuant to a conspiracy in the death of deputy James Daniels. The court imposed a life sentence. Jones and union president William Hightower maintained that they had urged miners to keep the peace and had not planned the shooting. The Kentucky Court of Appeals upheld their convictions in April 1933. Jones was released in 1941.
The December 11, 1931 issue reports a Mount Sterling conviction for conspiracy to murder following the original murder accusation and describes International Labor Defense’s offer of appeal support. It attributes the prosecution to an effort to crush miners’ resistance. Its phrase placing Evarts in the previous year conflicts with the established May 1931 events and is not used to redate the case. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n297-NY-dec-11-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=3
The June 11, 1938 Socialist Appeal names Jones, Al Benson, Reynolds and Poore as Evarts defendants still serving life terms. It reports new Kentucky Miners Defense affidavits submitted to Governor A. B. Chandler challenging trial photographs and sightlines. Survey and tree-cover evidence was offered against the allegation that Benson fired from the Smith-Kelly building; the defense said the photographs used the wrong position and did not represent May 1931 foliage. These are attributed defense findings, not a court exoneration, pardon or completed life term. Source: https://themilitant.com/1938/0224/SA0224.pdf#page=1
The September 12, 1931 Daily Worker includes this name in its Harlan murder-indictment list and describes the International Labor Defense’s preparations, including Franklin Reynolds and Leo Gallagher and challenges to alleged planted testimony. The list establishes the reported prosecution, but supplies no additional individual admission, discharge, conviction or completed custody total. Its claim to be a complete list does not justify inventing missing defendants. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n220-NY-sep-12-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=2
The February 1, 1941 Militant reports that Acting Governor Rodes K. Myers unconditionally pardoned Al Benson on January 22, 1941 on innocence grounds and that the release order was carried to LaGrange penitentiary; Benson had reached Louisville. It distinguishes the other three Evarts prisoners, W. B. Jones, Chester Poore and Jim Reynolds: their sentences were commuted to twenty-one years, making them eligible for parole, but parole-board approval and employment arrangements were still pending. Those commutations were not physical release. The source gives ages 44, 58, 36 and 50 respectively, without supplying birthdays. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/1941/v5n05-feb-01-1941.pdf#page=4
Labor Age, October 1932, PDF pages 17 and 33: Lawrence Seco reports his Mount Sterling life conviction as December 12, 1931. That date conflicts with the already cited December 11 newspaper reporting conviction and is preserved as an attributed source discrepancy rather than replacing the date. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/laborage/v21n10-oct-1932-labor-age.pdf#page=17
The New Leader of September 12, 1931 individually named W. B. Jones, secretary, and William Hightower, president, of the Evarts United Mine Workers local as having been in jail for months on murder charges arising from the May 5 killings near Evarts. Its report describes trial delays in the Harlan County labor cases. The report confirms ongoing pretrial confinement of these two union officers; it does not turn the May 5 confrontation into an individual arrest day or establish either man’s final release.
Page 1’s May 21 Harlan dispatch individually names this person among earlier arrestees on murder indictments during the coal conflict. It identifies Evarts police chief Cusick, assistant chief Benson, town clerk Cawood, union president Hightower and secretary Jones. These are contemporary role and prosecution details; the item gives no new arrest day, verdict or individual release. Cawood’s description here as town clerk is preserved alongside the existing account of his property and sheriff candidacy.
The November 25 Mount Sterling report says jury selection was completed for Jones, the first of eleven Evarts miners sent there. It describes questioning about Communism and opposition to union jurors. Trial was underway, not yet a new verdict.
The strike narrative refers to the conviction of Jones and Hightower at Mount Sterling as a warning of prosecution against the Pineville organizers. It corroborates the separate Evarts prosecution without assigning the Pineville nine’s charges or threatened maximum to this defendant.
Titler reproduces a Knoxville News-Sentinel report dated December 11, 1931 describing Jones as already convicted and given life imprisonment. The report names Commonwealth attorney W. C. Hamilton of Mount Sterling as prosecutor, and Capt. Ben Golden, J. M. Robeson and W. Bridges White as defense counsel. Titler separately dates the trial conclusion to December 1, 1931; that retrospective date is retained as an attributed claim rather than replacing conflicting contemporary chronology. The November 1935 juror petition and December 24, 1936 release appeal describe advocacy, not physical release.
Hevener dates Jones’s arrest with Asa Cusick, Al Benson and Joe Cawood to May 9, 1931 and his life verdict to December 10. He describes ten years actually served. The footnote reports a December 1940 commutation and Christmas Eve 1941 release but cites the United Mine Workers Journal of February 1, 1941. This internal chronology conflict is retained; it does not replace stronger contemporary evidence distinguishing January 1941 commutation from later physical release.
John Watts Hevener, A New Deal for Harlan: The Roosevelt Labor Policies in a Kentucky Coal Field, 1931–1939 (Ohio State University PhD dissertation, 1971), printed pages 108, 145 (PDF pages 117, 154). Source 805 SHA256 03766c260a4cf06629fb296358baf9e49448a191f9d290929ecd947963b0e125.
