I. ORIGIN AND CONTEXT OF THE MINE WARS

A. America's rise as the world's leading industrial power between the Civil War and World War I was a period characterized by labor-capital conflict at home.

1. There were hundreds of strikes and other forms of labor-capital conflict during this period throughout industry. To name but a few of the most famous: Railroad Strike 1877; Haymarket Affair 1886; Homestead Lockout 1892; Pullman Strike 1894; Lawrence Strike 1912; Steel Strike 1919.

2. Also, there were numerous major strikes in the coal industry in other states: Tennessee Convict War 1891; Pana-Virden, Illinois War 1898; Anthracite Strike 1902; Colorado Mine War 1913; Harlan County, Kentucky Strike 1930s.

3. In West Virginia there numerous strikes during this period as well, some of such magnitude as to qualify as the "mine wars": Paint-Cabin Creek War 1912-13; Mingo-Logan Mine War 1919-21; Northern Coal Field War 1925-31.

B. The West Virginia Mine Wars grew out of the struggle over who would control and profit from West Virginia's natural resources:

1. As we discussed in Unit 10, the company town as the center of social organization in the West Virginia coal fields resulted in the company domination of life as well labor.

2. There was little civic life in company towns. Miners and operators confronted one another at multiple points of conflict: as employer and employee; consumer and merchant; landlord and tenant, or more accurately "master-servant." There was little opportunity for political expression in such towns since the company provided many of the services associated with local government, and controlled access to alternative political opinions.

3. With most aspects of life dominated by the companies whose interests were reinforced by county, state, and federal government, coal miners could only look to themselves for resolution of their grievances.

a.) The effectiveness of the company town system curbed unity among the miners in the short-term, but in the long run insured the development of a sub-cultural identity and a class consciousness based on work.

b.) The company town which began as a physical necessity, soon became a system for cutting company costs, and then degenerated into a machine for keeping out the union.

c.) The closed system of the coal fields insured that any rebellion would begin with the miners themselves, and focused their discontent on the operators.

 

C. Miners also had an array of specific work-related grievances which grew out of the company's power to use the company town system to cut costs:

1. Among these grievances were: docking pay for "dirty" coal; non-payment for "dead work"; company store markups; short-weighting of coal; wages were reduced when the demand for coal was low; scrip or company money; "black-listing"; safety.

II. THE PAINT-CABIN CREEK MINE WAR, 1912-13

A. The company town precluded the development of a social hierarchy based on social status or race, and dissolved old cultures brought in by the mountaineers, southern blacks, and European immigrants. A class-consciousness based on mining, and organized into effective action by the union, was the only alternative for miners.

B. The first evidence that this had occurred was the Paint-Cabin Creek Strike of 1912-13. The operators, and the state government, also were convinced that this was no mere strike, but an armed insurrection and therefore hired private army to protect their interests.

1. The companies had always hired a few private guards, primarily from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, which had been founded by William G. Baldwin and Thomas L. Felts in the early 1890s. The company headquarters were in Roanoke, VA. and Bluefield, WV. From its Bluefield and Thurmond offices, the company could deploy its agents quickly to trouble spots along the N&W and C&O lines.


2. At first Baldwin-Felts agents were hired by the companies because law enforcement was seriously lacking in the rural sections where new mine towns were proliferating. The county sheriff had insufficient manpower, and guards were easily deputized by the sheriff; all that was required was the sheriff's signature and a badge to turn the private guard into an officer of the law as well.


3. The guards were used for a variety of reasons prior to the major strike which occurred in 1902. They maintained order in the camps; collected rent; carried out evictions; guarded payrolls; and prevented "undesirables" from entering the camps.


4. During the 1902 strike, Justus Collins hired Baldwin-Felts agents not only to maintain order, but also to serve as professional strike-breakers by protecting the non-union men hired to replace strikers. Thereafter, it became the custom for non-union operators to hire them to fight the union.


5. Operators also hired Baldwin-Felts men as under-cover agents to spy on labor "agitators" by infiltrating the local, district, and even national union organization to acquire privileged information so the companies could more effectively counter the union.


6. The 1912-13 strike on Paint-Cabin Creeks posed a serious challenge to the agency's ability to control the miners for the companies.

C. The Conflict Itself erupted over local work grievances:

1. On Paint and Cabin Creeks 96 coal mines employed 8,000 men and supported a population of about 45,000. Large numbers of Baldwin-Felts guards were hired. They evicted families who had to live in tent colonies.


2. At the Battle of Mucklow 300 guards confronted union men in a gun battle. In a fusillade of an estimated 100,000 shots being fired, 4 guards and 12 miners were killed.


3. The national guard was sent in to collect weapons and maintain order. The national guard was sent in three times during the conflict; martial law (Document) was declared, and miners were tried, convicted, and sent to prison by a court martial. This was the first known episode where such proceedings occurred even though the civil courts were still in session.


4. On February 7, 1913, in one of the most reprehensible episodes of many, a train, the "Bull-Moose Special," with an armored car carrying mine guards passed by the miners' tent colony at Holly Grove and opened fire on the sleeping colony killing one man. No one was ever brought to trial. Subsequent guerrilla warfare resulted in at least 4 more dead.


5. Mother Jones (Document), the 80 year old "miners' angel," came to help organize the union. She was placed under arrest and confined at Pratt on charges of incitement to murder, and attempting to blow up a train.


6. Gov. Hatfield imposed a settlement on the miners which essentially put them back into the same position they were in before the strike. .

D. Results of the Paint-Cabin Creek War:

1. The miners learned from the Paint-Cabin Creek War that the government supported industry not them; operators asked for protection and the state sent in the national guard, seized the miners' weapons but not the guards' weapons, and imposed a solution which gave the operators what they wanted.


2. The operators came to believe that there was a "conspiracy" between the United Mine Workers of America and the Central Competitive Field (above the Ohio River) operators to bring the union to Appalachia in order to undermine their ability to compete in the Great Lakes coal markets. This was true to the extent that the UMWA wanted to organize the West Virginia miners, and the northern operators had agreed to recognize the union if it would organize the non-union fields of Appalachia. Anti-unionism turned to paranoia, and southern West Virginia operators contributed to a "million dollar defense fund" to fight the union.


3. As a result, life in the southern West Virginia coal fields entered its most oppressive phase after the 1912-13 strike. Inevitably, tensions escalated until they became intolerable and another mine war broke out in 1919-21.

III. THE MINGO-LOGAN MINE WAR, 1919-1921

A. By the end of the World War I, West Virginia miners saw the operators as the "Great Satan," the UMWA as their "Savior," and themselves as the "crucified." From their perspective the circumstances of life seemed to support that conclusion.

B. During World War I the nation's coal miners had agreed to a government plan that recognized their union but held wages in check.

1. By 1919 inflation had seriously eroded the miners' wages. That year the UMWA called for a national shutdown to regain lost wages, and refusing a federal court order to return to work moved into tent colonies.

2. The post-war recession made things even worse because operators cut costs to stay in business, and many grievances built up among the miners.

3. In 1919, a minority of miners in Mingo County were union; by 1921 90% of them were union members. Miners who fought in World War I to make the world "safe for democracy" equated conditions in Mingo and Logan counties with dictatorship.

4. Miners who lived in company towns and joined the UMWA were fired and evicted from company houses. They set up tent colonies where they and their families lived. These colonies were targets for company thugs. One episode at a tent colony just outside of Williamson illustrates the point.

a.) The West Virginia State Police was established in 1919. These police were immediately put to use as strike-breakers.

b.) On June 14, 1921, a state police car was fired upon from the hill near this tent colony.

c.) The troopers drove into the colony, wrecked and burned tents, and as a warning to others ordered bystander Alex Breedlove: "hold up your hands, God damn you, and if you have got anything to say, say it fast." All he had time to mutter was, "Lord, have mercy," before the policeman shot him in cold blood.

d.) To the miners, the episode demonstrated that the state had joined forces with the operators in using "gun thugs" to break their struggle for a union.

e.) That was not the end of the episode, however. Alex Breedlove's body was tossed into the bed of a pickup truck and paraded through the streets of Williamson. According to a witness, Fred Mooney, "several of the crowd sat on the last remains of their victim holding his body in such position that his feet dragged the pavement."

5. There were a few independent towns, and officials and the public often sympathized with the miners.

a.) Matewan was such a place. In May 1920 company Baldwin-Felts guards arrived to evict miners.

b.) Matewan's police chief, Sid Hatfield, stopped them at the railroad station and demanded to see the court order. The guards did not have court authority, but said they would leave when they came back would have it.

c.) The guards came back, but instead of serving papers a gunfight broke out which left 7 guards including Albert Felts, the brother of the Baldwin-Felts Agency owner, and 3 miners dead or dying including the town's mayor. This episode in known as the "Matewan Massacre."

 

6. From that day Sid Hatfield was marked for Baldwin-Felts revenge. A trial by jury in January 1921 acquitted Hatfield of murder charges, but in August 1921 Hatfield and Ed Chambers mounted the steps to the McDowell County courthouse in Welch to answer trumped up charges that they had shot up a coal camp. At the top of the steps leading up to the courthouse both men were assassinated by two company guards in full view of a crowd of onlookers. The court ruled that they fired in self-defense even though the men were unarmed. No one stepped forward to tell the truth.

7. The Jury Bill, January 1921: Miners depended on one important protection against King Coal--the right to trial by a jury of their peers.

a.) Such a trial acquitted Sid Hatfield and others for the murder of Albert Felts. That same month, January 1921, Joseph Sanders, a state legislator from Bluefield, introduced into the legislature the Jury Bill.

b.) The Jury Bill allowed a presiding circuit judge in a criminal case to call a jury from another county.

c.) In opposition, UMWA District 17 officials presented a "Manifesto of Labor in West Virginia" which asserted workers' rights, and opposed the Bill. In this Manifesto it is apparent that miners now believed that the interests of government and industry were virtually identical.

d.) The Jury Bill was explicit proof that government was the right arm of the coal industry. The Manifesto called on all workers in West Virginia to resist any further encroachment on their civil rights and constitutional liberties.

8. Meanwhile, sheriff Don Chafin ran Logan County like his own fiefdom. Chafin was rough with people who got in his way. With the railroad the only way in or out of Logan, he posted company-paid "deputies" at the railroad station to control who came and left Logan.

a.) The First "March on Logan" 1919: thousands of union men gathered at the mouth of Lens Creed near Montgomery to form an army to "liberate" Logan. Gov. Cornwell talked them out of it.

b.) The Second March on Logan 1921: Thousands of miners reassembled in the same place almost immediately after the assassination of Sid Hatfield.

c.) The armed miners confiscated cars, trains, and simply marched to the base of Blair Mountain which separated Boone and Logan Counties.

d.) At the top of Blair Mountain were Don Chafin's guards, deputies, and state militia sent in by the governor. Below was an army of miners and their symphizers advancing toward the top.

e.) Estimates of the number of men involved in the Battle for Blair Mountain vary widely, from 8,000 to 20,000. The number of deaths remains unknown.

f.) Confronted by the U. S. Army the miners turned away and returned home. They were not prepared to declare the national government their enemies too.

g.) Gov. Ephriam Morgan called on the federal government to send federal troops to end this "insurrection." General Bandholtz arrived in Charleston to take charge; Billy Mitchell, the future general and founder of the air force, exhibited several planes which were used in World War I as a demonstration of power.

h.) A number of union men were tried for "treason" in the same Charles Town courthouse where John Brown was tried; the irony was noted at the time.

i.) The Battle for Blair Mountain spelled the end of the Chafin machine in Logan County. He had become too disruptive to business and the state.

IV. THE NORTHERN WEST VIRGINIA MINE WARS, 1925-31

World War I ended in 1919, and with it government regulation of the coal industry which had, as a compromise to insure continued production during the war, recognized the United Mine Workers of America as the miners' bargaining agent in exchange for a cap on wages.

A. In northern West Virginia coal operators adhered to a non-union policy prior to the war, and when the war was over awaited their opportunity to return to that policy.

1. One obstacle blocking the return to the non-union policy was Clarance Watson, the president of region's largest coal producer Consolidation Coal Company. In 1918 he recognized the UMWA in a failed effort to win election to the U. S. Senate.

2. Demand for coal declined after the war, and in 1922, President Warren G. Harding lifted federal regulation of the industry opening the way for a return to the non-union policy.

3. In 1924 the UMWA and the mine operators from the fields above the Ohio River, known as the Central Competitive Field, the chief competitors of the West Virginia companies, signed the Jacksonville Agreement which maintained the 1922 wage scale.

a.) Shortly afterward, the Northern West Virginia Coal Operators' Association also ratified the same agreement. Both contracts were to last until 1927.

b.) But the northern WV operators were alone among the state's operators in recognizing the UMWA and agreeing to the union wage.

c.) They believed that they could compete with non-union mined coal from the southern part of the state, but as prices dropped in the 1920s they found that they could not. Therefore, in 1924 the northern operators reneged on the agreement and declared their operations non-union.

d.) The result was a seven year mine war, the longest strike in the state's colorful history of the coal industry.

e.) The long strike brought destitution and misery to mining families who were evicted and forced to live in make-shift barracks like those built by the union in Marion County.

f.) The operators paid the price too, however, with many of them being forced into bankruptcy.

4. To make matters worse, the UMWA was wracked by internal divisions during this period which brought the union to the brink of extinction by 1928. The once mighty union of 600,000 at the beginning of the 1920s was reduced to 600 to 1,000 paying members by the end of the decade.

5. The northern mine war ushered in poverty for the coal miners in this section of the state even before the stock market crash of 1929, the traditional starting point of the Great Depression. Declining prices, and cutbacks in coal production after World War I meant low pay and poor living conditions for miners throughout West Virginia for years before the Great Depression gripped the nation during the 1930s.