The Coal War

by Upton Sinclair

  [29]

  The little cowboy Governor had issued a statement in the newspaper that morning, saying that everything was now all right in the coal-country. But that afternoon he was so unwise as to ride out in the automobile without either Schulman or Atchison—with only his secretary and two detectives. He was going up to the Pine Creek mine, to make sure that there were no strike-breakers held in “peonage”; and half way up the canyon he ran into a sentry, who brought up his rifle and commanded, “Halt!” When the question was asked, “Why?” the answer was, “Company orders!” No one was to pass by that road. When it was explained that this was Governor Barstow, the answer was, “Nothing doing.” How could the guard know it was really the Governor? And anyhow, he had no business on the property of the “G.F.C.”!

  So the chief executive went back to Sheridan, from which place he issued another statement, to the effect that all the strikers now had to do was to obey the law. He took his departure for Western City; and that same day a party of gunmen, going through a crowded street in the town of Sheridan, turned upon a group of strikers and opened fire on them with rifles, killing three people and mortally wounding two others. The strikers had hooted at them, calling them “scab-herders”, they declared; later on they added the claim that someone had thrown a stone. But none of the strikers had been armed, and no one ever asserted that they fired a shot in the entire affair.

  That was the climax; there was little revolution in Sheridan that night. Mobs of strikers swarmed the streets, and the gunmen fled, some fifty taking refuge in the courthouse, with the sheriff-emperor in command, and machineguns mounted in the windows. Young Vagleman, son of the judge, and an attorney of the operators, got together a crowd of deputies in Pedro, with three machine-guns and a ton of ammunition, and stopping a United States mail-train, piled this miniature army into the sleeping-cars. When a brakeman protested, the deputies threw him off the train and knocked him over the head. But when they got to Sheridan, they found the situation in charge of the citizens of the town. As a general thing in strikes the trades-people sympathize with the employers; but in this case, the employers had gone too far, and about four hundred armed citizens held the streets of Sheridan for six days, while the sheriff-emperor and his courtiers stayed within the walls of their castle.

  At Horton the leaders were holding anxious conferences. It was a desperate crisis which confronted them. Should they purchase arms in earnest, and get ready for what might turn into a revolution? Or should they join with the operators and their newspapers, in calling for the militia to keep order? The strike-leaders distrusted the militia, for they knew how it had broken the strike ten years ago. Would the operators want it now, unless they knew what it would do?

  Hal listened to tales about the militia, but could not believe them. His cousin, Appie Harding, was an officer in this body, and a number of his friends belonged to it—Bob Creston and Dicky Everson among them. These young fellows were self-indulgent, and entirely without idea of the meaning of the strike; but they were not depraved, and they had a sense of fair-play—surely they were more to be trusted than brutes like Hanun and Dirkett and Stangholz! Surely anything would be better than this present arrangement of “Government by Gunmen”!

  [30]

  They were threshing out these questions on Friday evening at a meeting in the headquarters tent. Half a dozen times the discussion was interrupted by strikers rushing in to say that parties of mounted men were gathering. They were getting ready for their threatened raid! They were going to wipe out the colony! All that night excitement continued—alarms and excursions, telephone-calls from all sides, the digging of shelter-holes and trenches.

  And sure enough, soon after daylight a party of twenty armed horsemen came down the canyon. With Mary Burke and Jerry Minetti at his side, Hal stood at the edge of the village, and saw one of the horsemen raise his rifle and fire into the tents. The provocation was deliberate; and it at once became evident that every preparation for attack had been made. Parties of the guards had been posted on all sides, and opened fire.

  The strikers rushed into the open, to draw the fire from the tents with the women and children; but the enemy meant business this time—their volleys were deadly. Several men fell, and the rest retreated, firing as they went, to the steel railroad-bridge. From this shelter they continued shooting all day, until darkness fell and the gunmen retired up the canyon.

  But the strikers were now thoroughly aroused, and gave ear to Billy Keating, with his program of offensive defense. They followed the guards, and sent out a call for help all over the district. Men walked all night—twenty or thirty miles in some cases; they posted themselves behind rocks, and laid regular siege to Barela and North Valley and the Northeastern.

  The guards too, called for help—and needless to say they did not understate their peril. Rescue parties with machineguns were loaded upon trains both at Sheridan and Pedro; but behold, a new development in strike warfare—the crews of the trains refused to move them!

  So the strikers had things in their own hands next day. One may judge how little pleasure they took in fighting, by the use they made of their advantage. It was Sunday, and there was a festival scheduled in the evening, and they came home to dance! To celebrate their victory, to tell their wives and sweethearts how they had made the enemy run! There was music and feasting in the big school-tent, until the small hours of the morning—when word came that the “death special” was on the way, and an army of gunmen leaving Sheridan in a train of steel cars, which they were running themselves!

  So the strikers proceeded to organize and put themselves under military discipline. They mounted pickets, and when the steel train made its appearance in the grey dawn, it was received with such a hail of bullets that it was forced to back away. And all that day bodies of strikers continued to arrive, and new companies were formed and new leaders appointed. They offered a command to Hal Warner, and more than one man looked at him with wonder and distrust when he declined. One of those who accepted with alacrity was the new “Ironside”, with the gun and the reporter’s note-book; another was Jerry Minetti, and a third Jack David. “Big Jack” got himself a horse from one of the neighboring ranches, and with it the title of “General”. It was a small horse, and when the “General” sat on it, his feet all but touched the ground. But nobody smiled at the sight; the silent Welshman was become suddenly bold and determined, giving his orders like a veteran commander.

  That night a blizzard descended out of the North. But even this made no difference—in the early morning a thousand men marched forth, and proceeded in business-like fashion to besiege the coal-camps. They cut the telephone and telegraph wires, so that it was no longer possible to send out news; they made ready to dynamite the railroad-tracks, so that the steel train could not make another foray. They beat down the resistance of the guards, killing several; the group under the command of “Captain” Keating was actually in possession of the North Valley stockade, when word came to Horton that the “policy committee” of the union had had a session with Governor Barstow, and had worked out an agreement for the ending of the strike.

  The militia was to come to the field immediately, and both sides were to submit to its authority. The Governor gave his solemn assurance that the mine-guards would be disarmed as well as the strikers; also that the importation of strike-breakers would cease, that the laws would be enforced and the strikers protected. So messengers were sent to the various war-parties, and the wearied skirmishers came in, and piled their guns in the headquarters tent.

  There was general relief; but it died with the day-break, for no militia appeared, and more and more mine-guards kept coming. Toward the middle of that day, seven automobile loads were turned loose in the hills around Horton; the strikers rushed to the headquarters tent, declaring that they had been betrayed, that it was all a trap. They clamored for their arms, and marched out to fight again.

  But now the guards were well armed and well led, and the strikers were repu
lsed, and the tent-colony was again under siege. All night the terror continued, and in the morning the strikers resolved to send their women and children to Pedro. The militia was all a myth, the colony was doomed to destruction! So, while General Jack and his men were digging trenches about the tents, General Jack’s wife was marshaling women and children, in a weary and pathetic procession through the snow. Hal put Tommie Burke on his back and carried him over to the village of Horton, where a room was found in which he could stay with Jennie and Mary. As for the strikers, they settled down to a siege. Their supply of fuel had failed, their food was failing, but they would die rather than surrender to the guards.

  [31]

  That day, however, the militia arrived. They detrained and camped a few miles below Horton, and the commander rode up to the colony under a flag of truce.

  Adjutant-General Wrightman was an old man, with heavy white mustaches and beetling eyebrows; in civil life he was an oculist, but he looked imposing in his big military overcoat, with a sword and revolver in his belt, and he did the soldier business sufficiently well to impress the untutored strikers. He laid his hat and gloves on the table of the headquarters tent and made a little speech, in which he informed them that he had come to carry out the Governor’s orders, disarming both factions in this wicked civil strife. He assured them that they would have fair treatment, that no further attacks upon them would be permitted; he ended by solemnly adjuring them, in the name of the law, to surrender their weapons and abandon their disorderly activities.

  John Harmon replied to him, declaring that the strikers were peaceable people, who asked nothing but to be protected in their rights as citizens. He, for one, was willing to accept the General’s assurance, and he believed the other leaders would do the same. They would do their best to influence their followers; the militia might come in without fear of trouble, and all weapons in the tent-colony would be given up as soon as they could be collected.

  That evening Hal went down to the militia encampment. It was Company C which was coming to Horton—the company under the command of Captain Appleton Harding. Appie, needless to say, did not relish having to give up his law-practice and come to the coal-country in the midst of a blizzard; but he came, because it was his duty. He was a slender young man, wearing gold-rimmed eye-glasses, and looking more like a college professor than a soldier. But he was a man of rigid honor, and Hal felt sure that no outrages would be perpetrated under his authority.

  Also there were Bob Creston and Dicky Everson, and half a dozen other of Hal’s friends; for it happened that Company C was the “society” body of the State Guard. These young fellows had joined the militia because they liked to wear dress uniforms, and to invite their young lady friends to “hops” in the armory; but here they were trapped and ordered away on disagreeable duty! They vented their discontent upon Hal. What the hell was this stunt he was doing? Talk to them about brotherly love for “red-necks” and “wops”! Was he getting ready to go into politics? But when they heard a bit of his story, their attitude changed. Yes, it was rotten, they must admit; Hal might assure his “wops” that nothing of the sort would happen while Company C was on the ground!

  Other circumstances contributed to restore the strikers’ hopes. The Governor seemed so very much in earnest; he repeated his pledges publicly, and in such convincing fashion, that the doubters were silenced. The women and children came back from Pedro, and the men who had been hiding in the hills came in and surrendered their guns. Parties went down to visit the militia-men at their camp, and there was joking and good humor, and music and feasting in the tents.

  It was decided that the coming of the troops to the colony should be made the occasion of a demonstration. The strikers resented the false accounts of the fighting which had been published in the newspapers, and they wanted to show the country that they were decent, law-abiding men, with proper respect for the flag and the government. There was a day of hurried preparations; over a thousand children were gathered from the near-by tent-colonies, and the women set to work to dress them for a holiday. They bought all the white goods they could find in the little store at Horton, and brought from Pedro as much as several men could carry; there was cutting and sewing and fitting all night, and next day came two brass bands, and there was a pageant so pathetic that Hal could hardly keep the tears from his eyes. Little children of the coal-camps, marching out all in white, in spite of cold and snow on the ground; little children of twenty nations, waving American flags! Cheap flags, stiff and shiny, some of them no bigger than a child’s hand—but meaning the same as if they had been big and made of costly silks. They meant that America had come to the coal-camps! The dream of liberty and self-government, which these children, or their parents, had come from the far ends of the earth to seek—this dream was at last become reality in their lives!

  Little Jerry had on those wonderful clothes which Hal had bought him for the New Year’s party; also he had two wreaths of pink paper roses which his mother had made him. He gave one of these wreaths to Hal, and made him put it on; he clung to Hal’s hand, and clamored for him to fall in with the procession. Also the two David children and the swarm of little Rafferties crowded about him and clamored; so he went, with children dancing about him, and children’s voices singing in his ears, “My country, ’tis of thee”.

  And here came the soldiers, tramping through the snow—all in dress uniform, with glorious big flags of silk flying in the wintry gale, and a fifer and drummer making shivery music. The children divided, and the soldiers marched through, under a shower of paper flowers and confetti: General Wrightman, his horse prancing, the rider sitting stiff and solemn, staring ahead, his white mustaches looking like snow on his rosy face; Captain Porter, a real-estate man, with Troop A of the cavalry; Captain Smithers, a leading hardware merchant, with Battery One, two rumbling cannon and a mounted machine-gun; Captain Harding, with his “society” company of infantry, the men marching by fours, some of them looking stern and self-conscious, others grinning, and dodging the paper roses.

  The children fell in behind and followed the procession, through densely-packed lines of strikers. Such cheering and yelling—you could hardly hear the two brass bands, blowing for dear life, each a different tune! Hal looked at the faces in this crowd as he passed: Old Mike Sikoria, with a cap of purple tissue paper on his head, capering like a trained billy-goat; “General” Jack David, having dismounted and resigned his commission; John Edstrom, white-haired and benevolent looking, smiling feebly; Louis the Greek, black-eyed and olive-skinned, his mouth open, singing “America” in Greek; Charlie Ferris, with his head still bandaged where Jeff Cotton had hit him; poor pathetic little Klowowski, with his face almost hidden in bandages, where the bullet had taken his four teeth!

  There was many a bandage in this throng, not only on men, but on women and children; but now the wounds of war were forgotten, the hatreds of war were swept away. The American flag had come in, there would be no more Government by Gunmen! That night there was a big dance and a feast, and everywhere you went through the tent-colony, you heard men singing their song of hope:

  “We’ll win the fight today, boys,

  We’ll win the fight today,

  Shouting the battle-cry of union!”

  BOOK THREE

  LAW AND ORDER

  [1]

  The next two weeks were among the most interesting of Hal Warner’s life. This wonderful experiment in democracy which he was watching came as it were from under an evil spell, and found freedom to express itself. Collectively, the strikers had the sense of power, of certainty for the future; while individually they were happier than they had ever been in their lives before. They had comfortable homes, they had enough to eat, and they made their life one long celebration.

  All sorts of musical talent discovered itself in the tent-colony; there was an impromptu concert going on somewhere all the time, and on two evenings a week the big school-tent was cleared out, and there was a dance with a regular orch
estra, made up entirely of strike talent. To these festivities all the world was welcome—especially the militia, whom the colonists looked upon as their deliverers. The militiamen were glad enough to come to the dances; even the young society men, who found the military routine wearisome, and were surprised to find how gracefully the daughters of these foreign races could dance.

  Then in the day-time, the soldiers and strikers would go a-hunting. The soldier would take his gun, and the miner his pick and spade, which was quite as necessary to hunting in that country. A man could not get much meat upon the strike allowance of three dollars a week, and the militiamen soon grew sick of their rations of “bully beef” and “salt horse”, canned corn, beans and “hard tack”. So, when the hunters came in with a load of jack-rabbits in a bag, there would be a grand feast, and afterwards there would be music and dancing in the square in the middle of the tent-colony, and the Greeks and Bulgarians and “Montynegroes”, who were war-veterans, would take the militiamen’s guns and show how they drilled “in old country”.

  Also the militiamen and strikers played baseball together; and it is impossible to despise anyone with whom you play baseball. When it came to mingling the races, a baseball bat was better than any wizard’s wand. Jerry Minetti, who in his organizing work had had trouble with race prejudice, sat watching a game among these Balkan peoples, who at home had been at one another’s throats. “Somebody ought to make Balkan Baseball League,” said he. “Then they don’t fight over there!”