When Miners March

by William C. Blizzard

  “Let this be as it may, Liberty will yet arise from the depths of degradation and despair, and when an outraged citizenship asserts itself and demands justice, they will be met with the organized opposition of invisible government within the state. Anonymous letters are received at this office every few days embodying all kinds of threats, but none of the low, cringing curs have yet the guts or gall to sign their names.

  “Study, educate, agitate and work to enlighten your fellows in order that you can function when you are called upon to do so.”

  1/10/53 (Thirty-seventh)

  As can be seen, the miners were filled with a sense of outrage. And on June 14, just about the time Mooney’s letter was written, an incident occurred in Mingo County which fanned the miners’ anger to an even hotter flame.

  This was the Lick Creek affair. There were two strikers’ tent colonies on Lick Creek, about one mile south of the southern limits of Williamson, where lived about 300 men, women and children. One tent colony was in the river bottom and the other on the hillside. The testimony of Captain J. R. Brockus of the State Police was that the incident started when someone fired on a car. He and Major Tom Davis, Sheriff A. C. Pinson and three other men went out to arrest the culprit responsible for the faring. Brockus maintained that their party stopped and they were fired upon, though no one was hit. They answered with a submachine gun, but decided to look into the situation no further. They went back to Williamson for reinforcements. All of the above shooting is supposed to have taken place in the vicinity of the Lick Creek tent colonies.

  Back at Williamson Major Davis, the acting Adjutant General of West Virginia, demonstrated that he was somewhat irritated by this defiance of law and order. He had the fire station whistle give four blasts three times in succession. This, it seems, was a prearranged signal for the vigilantes, otherwise known as “volunteer” State Police, to assemble at police headquarters. Some hundreds did so and were supplied with rifles and plenty of ammunition. They piled into cars and headed for Lick Creek with instructions from Major Davis to “clean out” the hills and the tent colonies in order to investigate the shootings. Major Davis himself remained in Williamson, presumably to take care of any supply problems which might arise in the rear.

  Alex Breedlove’s Murder

  Arriving at a little distance from the scene of the crime, the vigilantes and State Police unloaded and Captain Brockus deployed his men. Some formed a unit in order to cut off escape by the strikers. With his remaining men Brockus formed a line about a mile long, and, with his intrepid band of strikebreakers, advanced with rifles and submachine guns at the ready. They marched right through the tent colonies, where one of the police and a miner were killed, and rounded up 57 men, who were marched to Williamson and put in jail. There they were kept for three days and grilled, but they would tell the good Major Davis nothing, except that there might have been a shotgun or two in the tents.

  This was the version of the Lick Creek affair given by the police. The striking miners tell it a little differently. Here is an affidavit concerning the killing of the Union man, whose name was Alex Breedlove, and the State Policeman.

  “James Williams, being duly sworn upon his oath, says that he is a resident of the Lick Creek tent colony and that he was there on the 14th day of June, 1921, when the same was raided by State Police and their confederates and deputy sheriffs, and when Alex Breedlove was murdered; that he was about 30 feet from Breedlove when he was shot and saw James Bowles, State Policeman, shoot him; Bowles was about six or seven feet from Breedlove, and Breedlove had his hands up above his head at the time he was shot; Bowles said to Breedlove, ‘Hold up your hands, God damn you, and if you have got anything to say, say it fast,’ and Breedlove said, ‘Lord, have mercy,’ and instantly the gun fired and Breedlove fell. They were standing facing each other and Breedlove just above him on the hill.

  Brave Killer Faints

  “At the same time Victor Blackburn, a special State Police, was shooting at Garfield Moore, who was behind a tree, the same tree that Breedlove had just been behind, and after Bowles had called Breedlove to come out from behind the tree and put up his hands and come to him and he had done so and then was shot, Bowles immediately turned his gun on Garfield Moore, but did not have time to fire until he was shot in the back by another State Police who was lying flat down on the ground straight down the hill below Policeman Bowles; at the crack of his rifle a half dozen or more women who were there screamed out, ‘Look out, man, you are shooting your own men,’ and asked him to get away from there, that he would get them all killed.

  “Affiant, thereupon said to the man who had shot Bowles, ‘Yes, you done shot this man up here now,’ and at that he said to Affiant, ‘You are a damn liar, you damn black ——–, you get away from there.’ And thereupon the said Police who had shot Police Bowles fainted and was carried off the ground by Willie Ball carried under a bridge across Lick Creek. He remained under this bridge 30 or 40 minutes with a lot of Union miners who had taken shelter under said bridge.”

  The above is substantiated by other witnesses. If the killing of Policeman Bowles seems farfetched, remember that most of these raiders were clerks and businessmen who handled guns very little. The same sort of men invade our woods during deer season, and excited with the novelty of their surroundings, they yearly shoot one another with gusto in the mistaken notion that they are slaying game.

  So much for the actual shooting at Lick Creek, except to note that from one to four thousand people attended the funeral of Alex Breedlove. Union men mourn a fallen brother, and something of a fighting unionist lives after him in the hearts of his fellows. It is unnecessary to relate that no one was punished for his murder. Now let us refer to what followed the shootings, as described in another affidavit signed by one William H. Ball, the Union miner referred to in the statement of James Williams:

  Law and Order at Work

  “…Brockus gave orders to take the miners out from under the bridge (where they had huddled for protection. – Ed.) and line them up in county road, and all the miners and the women and all were ordered out and required to come out from under the bridge and line up together, and then orders were given by Brockus to break into the tents and to break locks if necessary, and go in and search the tents, and thereupon his orders were carried out. They broke into tents where they had doors and were locked and where no doors existed they cut their way in. They then proceeded to cut the tents all to pieces; break up the furniture; break up dishes, trunks, rifle drawers and destroy food and clothing. They rounded up 56 of us, and after they had destroyed everything we had they drove us at the point of their rifles down through the City of Williamson and put us in the city lockup. This was a room about 20 by 40 feet with a concrete floor, without chairs or beds, and only one open window not more than 28 by 32 inches in size, and one door which opens from the hall. The sink was stopped up and running over; there were five commodes, and four of these were stopped up and standing full of human excrement; the floor was covered with water about half shoe-sole deep and all kinds of filth lying around on the floor in this water. Fifty-six of us were put in this place and a guard placed at the door and were denied the privilege of speaking to our attorney or any other person, and held in this room from about 3:30 Tuesday evening until about 9 o’clock Thursday night, when we were taken out and taken to the jury room in the courthouse and there detained until Saturday evening, and all released except Garfield Moore, Richard Combs, Sam Muney, and Floyd Chaney, none of whom are guilty of any crime any more than the rest of us were, which was not guilty, at all.”

  1/13/1953 (Thirty-eighth)

  (Today’s installment continues the affidavit of miner William H. Ball concerning the Lick Creek raid in Mingo County in 1921.)

  “Affiant further says that he served 18 months in France in the World War and possessed a Victory medal and an American Legion badge and a Moose button and a regulation uniform in his tent; that they entered his tent and cut his tent all to pieces;
cut up his uniform and a $65 suit was missing, and no trace of it could be found except a stack of ashes in the stove, which indicated that they had been put into the stove and burned; the Victory medal was never found and the American Legion badge was never found, Moose receipts gone and a $12 set of knives and forks gone; coal oil was poured into my flour, and groceries thrown away; all the dishes broken, trunk torn all to pieces, and all the damage done that could be done.

  “I also heard Capt. Brockus and Bill St. Clair, the deputy mine inspector who was a volunteer state police, say that all the “God damn ——– ought all be burned"; that the women ought to all be piled up and the tents put on top of them and burned. I also heard Dr. Lawson, a volunteer state police, say to a woman “he would knock a kid out of her big enough to walk,” and used such language toward others, and all of this was done in the presence of Capt. Brockus.”

  None of these miners were ever charged with anything, and there were no warrants for their arrest issued or shown. Martial law in the West Virginia coal fields in 1921, as in 1913, was justification for any abuse.

  Miners all over West Virginia, already indignant because of the Mingo situation, were now furious. A UMW attorney named Thomas West took a Judge Bailey, an assistant prosecuting attorney named Breese, and a photographer to Lick Creek in order to verify the damage to the tent colonies. While they were on the spot a car drove by, occupied by two armed state police. West and his part were mistaken for miners and the police yelled: “If you damn rednecks haven’t got enough we will give you some more of it.”

  Operators Starve Miners

  This excess of patriotic zeal was reported back to Captain Brockus, but nothing, evidently, was done about it, and these true-blue Americans continued in the employ of the State of West Virginia.

  The rumblings of discontent in the Union coal fields of West Virginia to the north of Mingo County were growing louder by the day. The miners wrote letters to state officials, passed stirring resolutions and assembled in mass meetings in protest over the treatment of their fellow miners in Mingo, but the state machinery of West Virginia was deaf to the miners’ complaints and demands.

  And the coal operators in Mingo struck yet another blow. The striking miners were being fed by the UMW, the relief being dispensed by International Representatives in conformity with the Union constitution. It was unlawful, under martial law, for two or more strikers or UMW members to congregate together. If they did so they were subject to arrest.

  It happened that there were FIVE of these International Representatives who were responsible for distribution of food, clothing and medical supplies and attention to the thousands of men, women and children in tents in the Tug River area. They were stationed in Williamson. As these five men had to get together in order to make reports as to relief distribution they were, ipso facto, in violation of Governor Morgan’s edict. At least that is the way Generalissimo Tom Davis interpreted the matter, and he had Capt. Brockus arrest the five UMW representatives on a charge of unlawful assembly!

  They were housed in Williamson jail that night and then rushed to the Welch jail in neighboring McDowell County. One of them named John Brown (a very brave, intelligent man, incidentally, who had fought unbelievable battles for the miners for many years,) was not even given time to put on his coat by the arresting gendarmes. The thought of having five UMW men meet together was intolerable to the freedom-hating West Virginia authorities. Unless, of course, it happened to be in a jail cell.

  This maneuver of the coal operators was designed to cut off all food, clothing and medicine from the striking miner, and their women and children. And it did, of course accomplish this purpose for a time.

  Hard Times for Union

  The UMW instituted habeas corpus proceedings in order to get its members out of jail, and the Union stated its case before the West Virginia Supreme Court on Thursday and Friday, July 14 and 15, 1921. The Supreme Court remanded the miners to jail, declared that a state of insurrection and riot existed in Mingo County, and decided that Governor Morgan’s proclamation of martial law was not only legal but necessary.

  The rumble of miner protest became more ominous. The smoky air of West Virginia was heavy with the foreboding of a coming storm.

  And still the coal operators continued to act as if their employees were docile sheep, to be herded this way and that by gunmen shepherds. It is an odd fact that the civil courts in Mingo County continued to function insofar as the trials of bootleggers and thieves were concerned. They had their rights as citizens. But striking coal miners had no rights. They were subject to the military. It was a SELECTIVE martial law, which applied only to one class of people: strikers and their representatives. The close tie between the coal operators and the state, county and municipal governments was now a naked thing, unclothed by democratic platitudes.

  District 17 was reeling from these blows. The following letter to the president of UMW Sub-district No. 2, which took in Mingo County, is self-explanatory:

  “June the twenty-eighth,1921

  “Mr. Wm. Blizzard,

  “Box 600,

  “St. Albans, W.Va.,

  “Dear Sir and Brother:

  “I am writing you concerning action taken by the District Executive Board on date of June 28, 1921, which was as follows: That all resident officers, District Board Members, Field Workers, Organizers and Auditors accept half salaries during the depression and until the District Organization is in financial condition to assume its full responsibilities.

  “You being the head of the Sub-district, I was instructed to communicate with you and request that the Sub-district officers comply with this same ruling and accept half salaries with their legitimate expenses.

  “Fraternally yours,

  “Fred Mooney, Sec. – Treas.

  “District No. 17.”

  UMW International Vice-President Philip Murray hurried to Charleston, West Virginia, in order to look into the relief situation in Mingo County. For the strikers simply had to have food and medical care. Murray visited Governor Morgan on July 18, protested the arrest of the relief men and asked for reinstatement of the relief system in Mingo County. Governor Morgan passed the buck by saying that Major Davis was the man to see, that he, the Governor, could not change a decision of Major Davis.

  1/14/1953 (Thirty-ninth)

  Murray saw Davis and got a promise that the strikers’ relief would be started again; that UMW representatives would be protected in the martial law area, and even extended courtesy. These were sweet words, but let Phil Murray tell of what happened when he personally visited Mingo County:

  “Upon my arrival in Williamson – just got off the train – a member of the State Police accosted me at the station. I never met the man before or since, and do not know who he was, except that he was a member of the State Police. He insulted me in very insulting language; told me that the presence of a mine worker representative in Mingo County was positively repulsive and that I could not expect to be permitted to remain within the confines of that county more than forty-eight hours. Of course, I appreciated the circumstances that surrounded me, and I did not utter to him the faintest murmur of protest, fearing the possible consequences, I journeyed on to the Shumate Hotel, registered, and got a room. was hounded to my room by a member of the State Militia or State Police. They came to the room, looked in the door, and hollered vile language at me.

  “I left my room and went to the restaurant to have lunch and he followed me to the restaurant and stayed outside of the restaurant while I was eating lunch. He followed me around everywhere I went all day, and that night when I retired, on going to my room, they came and knocked on my door about one o’clock in the morning. They did not want in at all, but just simply to annoy me. The following morning I got out of the hotel and went to Major Davis and protested. I said, ‘Major, this situation here is very bad. I do not know that you know of its existence, but I tell you frankly and candidly the experience I have underwent since coming to Williamson leads
me to believe the stories that come to us about the members of the State Police and the State Militia in Mingo County, and I will urge you not only for the United Mine Workers of America but for the sake of the country as a whole that you lend whatever assistance that you can to put an end to any such practices.’

  Miners’ Terrible Anger

  “Major Davis promised to have the matter investigated; he said a lot of these things happened that he could not be held responsible for. I went back to the Shumate Hotel. I was followed back to the hotel; I was followed to my room; then I checked out of the hotel and went to a rooming house, feeling that I could occupy the privacy of my own room without the necessity of being disturbed constantly by outsiders. I stayed in Williamson from Monday, the 18th, until Wednesday, the 20th, the 18th, 19th, and 20th. I never visited anywhere in the city of Williamson that I was not followed, hounded and cussed at by members of the State military.”

  The amount of confidence which could be placed in the words of Governor Morgan and Major Davis are thus demonstrated. There seems no doubt that the labor career of Phil Murray was in danger of being closed in the hills of West Virginia in the year 1921. For it was only 12 days after Murray’s visit, on August 1, that C.E. Lively and the other Baldwin men killed Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers on the courthouse steps at Welch.

  This incident has been treated earlier in this work in some detail. At that time it was mentioned that these killings had an important effect on the coal miners of the state. They did. The news went out to every hamlet and coal camp and miners already furious could contain themselves no longer. The air rang with curses upon the heads of every coal company flunky in public office, from Governor Morgan down to the lowliest justice of the peace. Angry words of condemnation of the State Police, impromptu militia, Baldwin men and their coal operator employers thundered and shook the walls of hundreds of Union halls.