Hellraisers Journal: Labor World: Samuel Gompers on the Fight of West Virginia’s Miners Against Government by Gunthugs

Mingo Co Sprigg Local Sec E Jude re Gunthugs, UMWJ p14, Aug 15, 1920 —————

Hellraisers Journal – Monday September 12, 1921
Gompers on Fight of West Virginia Miners Against Government by Gunthug

From the Duluth Labor World of September 10, 1921:

WASHINGTON, D. C., Sept. 8.—Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, in a statement issued this week sets forth the fundamental facts in relation to the situation in West Virginia. He declares that in the mines there an unrestrained, unlimited greed absolutely dominates.

“The appetite of this private greed is upheld by a private army of killers the like of which exists in no other state,” says the labor chief. He shows how the state government has crumbled under the rule of the mining interests and declares the federal government must destroy the rule of gunmen by restoring civil government.

Information Lacking.

[Says Mr. Gompers in his statement:]

With the situation in West Virginia at a most critical juncture it is almost beyond belief that there has not been placed before the public complete and accurate information regarding the events leading up to the position taken by the President of the United States.

There are certain basic facts which must lie considered before there can be fair and proper judgment of the West Virginia situation. These facts have not been presented adequately and in most cases not at all.

The public press has been negligent and the federal government has been equally so in not presenting to the people the full underlying truth.

Prejudice Miners’ Case.

The great mass of news relating to West Virginia conveys the impression that lawless bands of miners are roving the state without reason except an unjustified bitterness against the mine owners. “Uneducated mountaineers,” they are called.

There are four basis facts which are consistently ignored and which it is the duty of government and press to present. These are:

1—The mines of West Virginia constitute the last refuge of autocracy in the mining industry. In these mines an unrestrained, unlimited greed dominates absolutely. Absentee owners hold immense tracts of rich mining land, demanding only dividends.

Private Army of Killers.

2—T’he appetite of this private greed is upheld by a private army of killers the like of which no longer exists in any other state. This private army is paid by the mine owners and naturally seeks to justify its presence by making “business” for itself in the form of trouble. The Baldwin-Felts detective agency recruits this army, but the mine owners pay the bill. Deputy sheriffs, paid by mine owners, form another wing of the private army, equally dangerous.

A Direct Protest.

3—The present strike is a direct protest against the action of the mine owners of West Virginia in refusing to abide by the award of the United States coal commission. If the United States government at this time defends the mine owners and does not destroy the private armies of the mine owners the government is in the position of sustaining a defiance of an order issued by its own authority.

4—The state government of West Virginia has broken down, not because the miners have protested against lawlessness, but because it has failed to stop the mine owners from enforcing law as a private business at the hands of privately paid and privately directed gunmen.

All Are Ignored.

These four paramount truths have been almost totally ignored. To neglect to present these facts is, in my opinion, a breach of a public trust upon which the integrity of the whole newspaper world must rest its claim to confidence and belief.

These paramount truths have been found to exist by representatives of the United States government. The government itself, through the United States senate, established these truths. It found them after long and painstaking inquiry. They are indisputable. They are as they have been.

The Federal Bituminous Commission rendered its report on March 10, 1920. It carried with it an award of 24 cents flat on pick and machine mining to the bituminous miners of the United States. The coal operators of Mingo county, West Virginia, refused to apply the award, and instead they arbitrarily applied five, ten and fifteen cents on each mine car rate, there being no coal weighted through out that field.

The capacity of these mine cars varies from two to five tons, and the highest rate paid per car was 1.40. This price for five tons of coal represented and included all dead work and tonnage rates.

Owners Ignored Award.

When the award was granted the bituminous miners by the commission, the miners of Mingo county sent committeemen to the operators and requested that the award be granted in full, and the companies refused it. The miners contended that the award was granted, them by their government and they were going to insist on it. Every plea to the operators was met with refusal, and finally the miners of Sprigg, Stone Mountain and Red Jacket went on strike, called meetings and sent a committee to Charleston to interview the Officials of District 17, U. M. W. of A.

They were told plainly by the Miners Union that the union would not organize them while they were on strike, to return to work, put all the mines in operation, and then if they desired to become members of the union, they would be given the opportunity.

Many Joined Union.

These instructions were carried out. Again the committees were returned and about 800 miners allied themselves with the union at once. Following this the miners flocked into the union and as a result were all discharged and served with eviction notices.

The discontent had become very acute in the month of April, 1920. By this time the Baldwin-Felts detectives appeared in Matewan to evict the miners, their wives and children. At this time practically all the miners had joined the union.

In the report of the last senatorial investigation of which there is public record, that of 1914, Senator Shields in his section of the report refers to the mine guards as “generally lawless and desperate men.”

Inasmuch as the conditions then under investigation exist today in an intensified form, it is informing to read from the report of Senator Kenyon the following extract:

The Senate’s Report.

“It is well to inquire as to the reasons for such deplorable conditions. Many things appear on the surface which might be deemed causes, but they are only surface indications of a deeper trouble. A reading of the record will lead one to the belief that there were many causes for the conditions existing.

“Among them might be related the employment of mine guards, high prices charged the miners at company stores, mine guards acting as deputy sheriffs, post offices located in company stores, private roads to the schools and stores, no opportunity to purchase supplies, cemeteries upon company grounds, attempts to unionize the miners, alien ownership of large tracts of land—in one instance 21,000 acres. All of these various things appearing in the testimony might be cited as causes leading up to the conditions which the committee investigated. However, it is the opinion of some of the committee that the cause of all this trouble is deeper and more fundamental. The basic cause is the private ownership of great public necessities such as coal this coupled with human greed, incident to such ownership, has brought about the deplorable and un-American conditions in the West Virginia coal fields under investigation.”

The Rule of Gunmen.

In relation to the hired gunmen who have brought the administration of law in West Virginia to the point of absolute collapse and whose most recent activities have been brutal and lawless beyond description, Senator Martine reported:

“In no spirit of malice or hatred, but with a view that the country, through knowledge of the true conditions, may right the wrong, I charge that the hiring of armed bodies of men by private mine owners and other corporations and the use of steel armored trains, machine guns and bloodhounds on defenseless men, women and children is but a little way removed from barbarism.“

Civil Law Broke Down.

In 1914 senatorial committee found a complete breakdown of civil law in depicting the lengths to which coal mine autocracy was carried officially reported that during the period of martial law the court martial before which offenders were tried, “deemed itself bound only by the orders of the commander in chief, the governor of the state, and in no sense bound to observe the Constitution of the United States or the statutes of West Virginia relative to the trial and punishment of parties charged with crime.“

The senators found that during this high-handed reign the civil courts were open and holding their regular terms, it also was found that the court martial inflicted punishments “unknown to the statutes or in excess of the punishment provided for such offenses under the laws of the state.”

Not to Print Report.

The report of the most recent senatorial committee has not been printed and I understand is not to be for reasons of which I am unaware. It is a fact, however, that this recent investigation strengthened the findings of the earlier inquiries and sustains every contention as to the conduct of the mine owners of West Virginia and their complete disregard for the Constitution of the United States and the laws of their own state.

The trouble in West Virginia will not be cured by forcing men into submission while allowing continuance of the evils against which they have so desperately protested. I join with all Americans in deprecating the violence in that state, but while allowing the deep, underlying plutocratic criminality to continue uninterfered with and unchecked.

Uncle Sam’s Opportunity.

The United States government can do a great service by destroying government gunmen, by restoring civil government uncorrupted by coal mine autocracy and by giving to the miners an opportunity to secure justice and to be free from persecution in enjoying their constitutional rights.

Unless the government does this it adds to the shameful record and helps to perpetuate the era of crime and brutality.

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[Emphasis added.]