First District 17 Convention
The first annual convention of District 17 was held at Charleston on April 14, 1891. President Moran reported that the total income for the year had been about $1,000 and the cash on hand amounted to $48.21. The miners at Raymond City, W. Va. were on strike at the time, and aid was pledged to them.
The first great organizing drive in West Virginia was in 1897, when the UMW won its life-giving victory in the Northern coal fields. Such celebrated figures as Samuel Gompers, Eugene V. Debs, Mother Jones, Chris Evans and Michael Ratchford organized and addressed mass meetings in Fayette and other counties.
In an admirable spirit of unity, representatives of many trades helped the UMW in its fight. Aside from AFL President Gompers, also organizing were Henry Lloyd, President of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, President Mahon of the Street Railway Employees, Joseph Vitchenstein, a Pittsburgh newspaper Union representative, President Rae of the Painters’ Union, James O’Connell, President of the International Machinists’ Union, William A. Carney, Vice-President of the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, and James Wood, Vice-President of the Cigar Makers International Union. Organizers from other trades, not officially recorded, were without doubt also present.
Gompers Heads Committee
A committee headed by Samuel Gompers called on West Virginia Governor G. W. Atkinson, asking that they be accorded the privilege of holding public meetings for “the discussion of matters concerning the welfare of the said miners.” The word “privilege” is the language of the Governor. It seems to be taken for granted that miners had no constitutional rights in West Virginia. The committee also complained about an injunction issued by the Circuit Court of Marion County, and asked that the Governor do something about the injunctive coercion.
Governor Atkinson, like many governors since, replied in an evasive letter which used a lot of words and said nothing. Between the lines it said, of course: “Get out of West Virginia or I’ll throw the book at you.”
The Governor’s exact words are as follows: “So long as the working men of this state conduct their cause in a lawful and peaceful manner it will be my duty, as it will be my pleasure, to protect them; but if they should, in an ill-advised hour, violate the laws by interfering with the rights of property of others it will be my sworn duty to repress energetically and speedily all lawlessness, and to see that the public peace is maintained at all hazards, and that the property of our people is protected; for we must all, whether rich or poor, employer or employee, high or low, respect and obey the law.”
Federal injunctions, the first to be used in the West Virginia coal struggle (as far as can be determined), fell like snowflakes. They temporarily, then “perpetually” enjoined from organization and agitation. L.V. G. Morris, a Federal Deputy Clerk in the Circuit Court at Parkersburg, W. Va., wrote a letter on Aug. 15, 1897 to J.T. Waters, Deputy Clerk at Charleston, which gives an idea as to just how prepared the West Virginia operators were to use the injunction weapon:
Letter Is Quoted
“The attorneys were very anxious to have the injunctions issued from here to last night, but I could get no printer to print them. My idea was to have about 100 spas, and 1,000 injunctions printed with the name of the plaintiff blank (as all the injs. are alike) and fill in name of plaintiff with pen on as many copies of each as were required.”
From the above it would appear that the Union printers could find better work to do than set up injunction forms! The injunctions were made on a typewriter, most of them carbons. The Marshal’s return shows that Sam Gompers received his copy in Fayette County on August 17, 1897 at 2 p.m.
The Kanawha County Circuit Court, not to let the Federal courts outdo it, also issued its first injunctions in the case of “The Winifrede Coal Company vs. Chris Evans, Frank J. Weber, et als., signed Grant P. Hall, Clerk,” on August 17, 1897.
The coal diggers fought the injunctions with what was to become in West Virginia the most potent organizational weapon of the miners: the mass march. Union men would congregate at one point in a ragged “army” and go on a march through unorganized fields, speaking and organizing as they went. As men joined the Union the army grew larger, morale grew higher, and nonunion mines shut down.
The Miners March
In his Volume II of the History of the UMW Chris Evans quotes a letter from Frank J. Weber, an American Federation of Labor organizer then working for the UMW:
“Montgomery, W. Va.
“Aug. 25, 1897
“Friend Chris Evans:
“R. L. Davis is here. I had him speak to the colored men. I went to Powelton without the Army. As no one appeared yesterday, I will visit Powelton again in the morning. We start at 12:30 a.m., in order to be on the field early. A few men went in at Boomer’s Branch, and another army will arrive there at 4 a.m. I have not heard from Mason since Sunday. I wish you would notify him to gather all men west of Handly and march to Ace. I have appointed committee to visit the St. Clair Coke miners and ask them to lay down as we must close down. I have not heard from New River.
“I will march in two divisions to Powelton – one up the railroad, and the other through Morris Creek over the mountain. As soon as I return I will report. If I am successful at Powelton I will try Ansted or the Gauly Mountain mine.
“With best wishes, I remain,
“Yours fraternally,
“F.J. Weber.”
The strike continued and on October 14, 1897 Chris Evans, Michael Ratchford and others met at Charleston with coal operators Morris O. Brooks, Enoch and John Carver, T.E. Embleton and J.D. Harris to discuss the situation. Two miners and two operators were appointed as a committee to meet at 2 p.m. The miners arrived at the specified hour, but the operators failed to appear. President Michael Ratchford published a statement in a Charleston paper, part of which follows:
“Chris Evans and myself will meet any two operators in the Kanawha Valley, in this city, and there discuss the merits of the case, that we may go before the public in a proper lights….
“From this it will be seen that the responsibility of the present conflict is not with us, but with the operators, and if either or both of these propositions are rejected, the public will surely rest the blame where it properly belongs.”
It is not known where the public rested the blame, but the operators knew their own power. Organization in West Virginia was for the time defeated. In 1893 there were only 375 UMW members in the entire state.
11/22/52 (Fifth)
After 1898 the operators of the Central Competitive Field found they had a wonderful talking point when the UMW asked for a raise. “Why,” they would shout, “haven’t you organized West Virginia? We can’t give you any increase up here until you do. We’re being ruined by nonunion coal.” The Union would reply that it was doing its best but West Virginia operator tactics, plus the isolated and rugged terrain, made the task difficult. And the northern operator would sit on his point triumphantly.
But many operators in the Central Competitive Field had decided that this West Virginia proposition was too good to overlook. So they secretly bought into the West Virginia coal lands, so that they actually had a finger in both pies and it was impossible to lose. This didn’t keep them from yelling about organizing West Virginia, even though in that field they were buying machine guns and hiring armed guards to shoot the Union to pieces.
Another complicating force was the railroads. They were necessary for the shipment of coal and they were tied up with the mine ownership in many devious ways almost impossible to prove. Naturally, they made their freight rates favor those coal lands in which they had the heaviest interest. Just a glimpse of the situation will give an idea of its complexity. The Pennsylvania Railroad owned most of the stock in the Norfolk and Western, and shortly before had a large interest in the C&O, but sold out to the Hawley interests. The C&O, in turn, owned half the Kanawha & Michigan, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern owning the rest. But the
re was a suit filed in 1912 by the United States Government charging that the C&O and Lake Shore & Michigan were a combine, and that the C&O also controlled an apparently competing line, the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton.
U. S. Steel Arrives
This is not the entire West Virginia situation. To make it complete it is necessary to know that in 1901 a really huge corporate interest moved into the state – United States Steel. A syndicate of E. H. Gary, William Edenborn and Isaac T. Mann bought up 300,000 acres of coal land, four-fifths of the Pocahontas Field. This they turned over to the Norfolk & Western Railroad, which was, as has been pointed out, a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania. And the Pennsylvania Railroad was connected with the Girard Trust Company of Philadelphia, a connecting link with the Morgan financial empire of New York. Very big guns indeed were interested in blasting out West Virginia coal.
The railroad owners were anti-union and old hands at strikebreaking. They were quite happy to give advice and personnel to the West Virginia operators who wanted no part of the UMW. The railroads, the coal companies and the corporate interests formed one family, not an especially happy family, but one welded together by mutual economic advantage.
Every year the miners and operators of the Central Competitive Field sat in joint conference. And every year the northern operators wailed about the increased competition of West Virginia coal and accused the UMW of not attempting to organize that field. The Union was trying, without a doubt. Vice-President T.L. Lewis told the 1902 conference: “Some of the things that could be related about the happenings in West Virginia would be a shame to go into print. It would certainly make the hair raise on some of your heads.”
W. Va. Production Mounts
But it was true that the northern operators were more feeling the southern competition. In 1901 Pennsylvania bituminous coal decreased in sales to Chicago markets by 39,262 tons; Ohio coal to the same markets decreased by 54,734 tons, Illinois by 238,000 tons; and Indiana by 22,000 tons.
West Virginia showed an INCREASE in sales to the Chicago markets of 80,987 tons. The giant in the southern hills had not yet attained his full growth, but he was becoming a mighty strapping youngster.
While most coal miners in West Virginia were not then formal Union members, it became clear as to where their sympathies lay. When the great anthracite strike was called by John Mitchell on May 15, 1902, the soft coal miners in the Kanawha Valley and elsewhere struck in sympathy, although this was not a part of the UMW national policy. At a meeting of District 17 and UMW international officials in Huntington, it was decided to call a strike in that area on June 7, 1902. The strike was eventually smothered, but the fact that it was effective proved that the West Virginia coal miner was ready for organization and that it was not “outside” pressure that forced him to walk off his job, as the coal operators contended.
According to George Wolfe, then secretary of the Winding Gulf Operators’ Association and president and manager of the Atlantic Smokeless Coal Company, the 1902 West Virginia shutdown covered the counties of Mercer, McDowell, Mingo on the Norfolk & Western Railway, and Kanawha and Fayette on the C&O In testimony in later litigation Mr. Wolfe said that
“It was along in the fall of 1902 before there was any resumption of work generally in the New River field, and the effect of that strike in the Kanawha field lasted some time longer…. So far as the Chesapeake & Ohio was concerned, there was an almost total cessation of production of coal for quite a time.”
Union Leaders Arrested
Thirty-six leaders of the 1902 strike in West Virginia were arrested under an injunction and as many as 2,500 miners assembled and marched in large mass meetings. It was evident that the miners of West Virginia were interested in becoming Union men. It is also evident that mine guards, injunctions and other devices were used to break the strike. Baldwin-Felts gunmen, notorious in later years, were imported for the first time, replacing the Pinkertons. The National Guard camped in Fayette County for almost three weeks. The operators of West Virginia were just getting warmed up for later showdowns.
The UMW did, however, get a slight toehold in the Kanawha field. Most of Cabin Creek was organized and there was some organization along the Kanawha River. There was much seesawing after this, the miners sometimes winning, sometimes losing. The operators killed the Union on Cabin Creek in 1904, but it was established on part of adjacent Paint Creek.
And still West Virginia production mounted. By 1903 it was the third largest coal producer. From that year to 1912 its production increased five times, while that of Ohio and Pennsylvania barely doubled. From 1900 to 1910 the population of West Virginia increased only 27 per cent, while the number of mine employees jumped 143 per cent.
Company-Owned State
From 1898 to 1912 West Virginia increased its coal production by 350 per cent – and still, the UMW had been unable to organize the miners, despite their apparent willingness. The West Virginia operators sat in their company towns in a company-owned state, behind impregnable legal barriers. If legalisms failed, guns seldom did, and the operators had plenty of guns and men to use them. In 1912 there were only 1,136 card-carrying coal diggers in West Virginia and there were 69,611 miners in the state.
On paper the situation looked bad. As a delegate to the 1913 interstate conference said, West Virginia was “a dagger in the heart of the United Mine Workers of America.” Did the miners of West Virginia really want to remain scabs, as the operators insisted? Or did they remain quiet because talk is not so effective when a gun is aimed at your head? The answers to these questions came with the strike of the West Virginia miners in 1912, and the subsequent senatorial investigation.
Chapter Two: King of the State
11/25/1952 (Sixth)
In 1912 the miners’ met as usual with the operators of the Central Competitive Field, first at Indianapolis and then on March 20 at Cleveland, Ohio. The Union asked for an increase of 10 cents on the ton and 20% more for day men. The strong opposition of the operators may be seen in the fact that the settlement was for about 5 cents increase per ton and 5.26% for day labor. The District men from West Virginia then went home to bargain with their own operators (who were apparently unwilling to have anything to do with these conferences) on the basis of this agreement.
Not so very many of the mines in the Kanawha Valley were then organized. And the operators in the area had taken a lesson in strategy from those of the Central Competitive Field. Whereas the C.C.F. operators had argued against an increase so long as West Virginia remained unorganized those operators in West Virginia who WERE organized argued against a raise for their men until the local nonunion men were also brought into line.
The Union and the mine owners who operated Union mines met in the Ruffner Hotel at Charleston on April 1. There was a great deal of haggling; the procedure being somewhat like this: The miners offered a series of demands, and the operators countered with an offer to renew the old contract with no increase and the 9 hour day. Then the miners withdrew all their demands except for the “Cleveland advance” of 5.26%. The operators refused. Will England, chairman of the joint scale committee, offered to go back to the old contract provided the miners could have the check-off. The operators interpreted the check-off as a demand for the closed shop (even the Union mines operated on an open-shop basis), and refused.
Conference Breaks Up
The miners then said they would not demand the check-off if they could have the Cleveland advance. There was no agreement on this and the conference broke up April 20, 1912.
The miners and operators met again on May 1, and the Kanawha River operators agreed to give an increase on both tonnage and day labor, but a little less than the basic increase granted at Cleveland. But Quinn Morton, chairman of the operators’ scale committee, would make no such agreement for his Paint Creek mines. He discovered that there was no point in his arguing at all because he had made a contract in 1909 for five years and he was going to stick to that contract.
It may be that Mo
rton’s individual obstinacy was genuine. And it may be that his refusal was merely the signal for a concerted operator walkout. It is impossible, at this date, to know. In any case, Morton had some little notices printed and went home and stuck them up in various places.
These notices ran as follows:
“NOTICE
“To Our Employees: May 3, 1912
“Neither our surrounding conditions nor the market warrant an advance in wages.
“We offer to you work at the scale of wages in effect prior to March 31, 1912.
“Any of our employees who don’t wish to accept this offer and resume work will please vacate our houses at once.”
To see that his men obeyed, Morton brought in 10 Baldwin-Felts mine guards with high-powered rifles and borrowed a machine gun from the New River District. The miners left their houses without causing themselves to be shot, but only a few worked. So Morton proceeded to haul in scabs with the cooperation of the railroads.
And this was the beginning of the great Paint Creek strike of 1912-13. It is a well-documented strike, as these struggles go, and we owe its documentation primarily to Mother Jones, who smuggled a message to the United States Senate from her place of confinement at Pratt, West Virginia, asking for an investigation. Mother at the time was jailed by the military authorities in the home of B. S. Carney, a coal company official.
Over the ridge and parallel with Paint Creek is Cabin Creek. Here the miners had organized a Union in 1902, only to have it broken two years later. For eight years the miners on Cabin Creek had worked under armed guard, and no stranger was allowed up the narrow valley without being questioned by company-hired thugs. If he wasn’t approved he was told to get out, and it was the part of wisdom to obey the edict. It is impossible to prove this point, but it is an actual fact no less that a number of bodies have been consumed in coke ovens in the State of West Virginia.
When Miners March Page 3
