“Dagos are cheaper than props.”
-Mother Jone Quoting a Mine Manager
Hellraisers Journal, Thursday February 21, 1907
West Virginia Coal Mines: “Catastrophe Follows Catastrophe”
From Indiana’s Evansville Press:
Amazing Death List in West Virginia Coal
Mines Forces Sensational Inquiry
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Astounding revelations of the cheapness with which human life is held in the coal mining regions of the little state of West Virginia are here given to the world for the first time.
Catastrophe follows catastrophe, lives by the hundreds are snuffed out from year to year, man’s greed overshadows his sense of the value of his brother’s life and the frightful, pitiful conditions continue to exist unchanged. Here is the situation in West Virginia:
One hundred and twenty four dead in three accidents in the last seven weeks. Thirty more killed in single accidents.
In 1906 more than 250 men killed in mine accidents.
In the last six years 2563 killed or injured. In the last 10 years 1275 killed.
WHY WEST VIRGINIA IS A
STATE OF HORROR.Unenforced laws, corporation disregard of the sacredness of human life, official indifference, inspection which does not inspect, inefficient laws.
There are 740 mines, and only one third of them are inspected every year. There are 55,000 miners. To safeguard them only $15,000 is spent every year by the state.
GRINDING EXISTENCE OF A
WEST VIRGINIA MINER.Low wages, long hours and prohibition against even discussing unionism and better conditions.
Children compelled to work at an early age.
Compelled to live in company houses, rent company furniture and buy groceries from the mine company.
Then death-sudden, terrible-a prospect.
Shabby, forgotten-maybe unknown graves-on the hillside.
Hundreds of widows and orphans mourning in the midst of privation.
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They Don’t Sue Any More in West Virginia
“Will any of you sue the company for damages?” a survivor of a West Virginia mine disaster was asked.
“No,” was the answer.
“Why?”
“It isn’t any use,” he explained. “I never hear of anybody getting anything by suing a mining company in this state. They don’t sue any more.”
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THE DISGRACE OF WEST VIRGINIA
(Copyright, 1907, by the Newspaper Enterprise Association.)
BY H. G. SALSINGER.
CHARLESTON, W. Va., Feb. 20.-West Virginia’s wealth from its principal industry is amassed at the price of human lives. West Virginia is appalled at the cost.
In this year-since Jan. 1, less than two months-the known death list in the coal mines of West Virginia is 124. Over six score of bread-winners have been immolated.
They were killed in blocks of 12-25-87. There is no accurate or definite list of single deaths.
Here is a list of the three biggest West Virginia mine disasters of 1907:
Jan. 26-Explosion in Pennsylvania Consolidated Coal Co.’s mine at Lawrence. Twelve killed.
Jan. 29-Explosion in Stuart Colliery Co.’s mine at Stuart, Fayette co. Eighty seven killed.
Feb. 4-Explosion in Thomas Drift mine. Thomas, Tucker co. Twenty-five killed.
The total death list, 124, is all that has been published. It is estimated by State Mine Inspector Paul that more than 30 men have met death by falling roofs. These deaths are only infrequently reported. Few deaths by accidents in mines are hardly ever made known unless it is a big disaster. The largest portion of mine victims are buried without public knowledge of their death.
CARELESSNESS OF LIFE.
Carelessness is the verdict in the Stuart disaster. It is blamed directly upon Dick Lee, 61, colored, a miner of many years’ experience. But he was working in a one-shaft mine, in which the state law allows no more than 20 men to be employed at a time. Yet, like his employers ands scores of fellow workmen, he saw over 100 men working in it day after day. He knew that the mine at times was full of coal dust. He went in, and in the course of his work made an extra large blast, carelessly prepared. The blast set the coal dust in the mine afire immediately and the entire mine was wrecked. Of course, Lee is dead. His was one of the many bodies blown to fragments. Some of the 87 bodies of men and boys are still down there. Rescue was slow because the air fan was wrecked.
Ten minutes before the explosion 15 men came up the shaft. These survivors have been working doggedly day and night to recover the bodies of their fellow workmen. Widowed women and fatherless children still linger before the company store awaiting news of their dead.
HUSHING IT UP.
Immediately after the explosion the whole population of the little town hurried to the scene of the disaster. One hundred feet from the mine they were driven back by guards. Canvas screens were being hoisted around the shaft. Visitors were kept away. No trains came in for two days. The mine operators did not care to have the extent of the horror known. One reporter, who trudged 12 miles over the mountain, ventured inside the line and was ejected. The bodies were buried on the hillside as fast as they could be carried from the mine.
VIOLATION WAS KNOWN.
Greek and Slav, Hungarian and Roumanian, Italian, American and Afro-American, died alike, horribly.
Now widows and orphans huddle round the pitiful stoves in the cold, frame company houses, wondering what is to become of them.
STATE INSPECTOR PAUL’S DUTY WAS TO KNOW THAT THE LAW WAS BEING VIOLATED AT THIS MINE. HIS RECORDS OF THE MINE SHOW THAT 73 MEN WERE EMPLOYED THERE. HAD THE LAW BEEN ENFORCED, AT LEAST 60 LIVES WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED.
FELT DEATH’S APPROACH.
Here is the story of the Thomas mine. The mine was closed down Saturday night. A gas well had been struck and gas accumulated over Sunday for 24 hours. The gas continued accumulating as a result of no inspection and no warning was given to the miners of the danger that existed inside the mine. Twenty-five men walked to death the following Monday morning.
Sandy Deandry, 29, was the only survivor. The men started into the mine, lamps lighted. Deandry says the men were all silent that morning. He, too, felt nervous. He didn’t know why. He brought up the rear of the file. Slowly they wended their way into the cavern of death. They had gone several hundred feet. The leader detected gas. He turned and screamed. It was his death cry. The others halted. Then came the terrible blast. Deandry was shot toward the opening like a cannon ball, a human torch. He had life enough to crawl out. His blistered lips murmured the fate of his companions.
Twenty-three of the victims were foreigners. Another victim was a sturdy lad of 17, Oscar Allen. The little pine slabs on the hillside mark the resting place of the foreigners. Even now news of their death has not been received by their loved ones across the sea.
DUTIES UNPERFORMED.
THE CORONER’S JURY HELD THAT THE EXPLOSION WAS DUE TO FAILURE OF THE FIRE BOSS AND THE MINE FOREMAN TO PERFORM THEIR DUTIES, AND THE FAILURE OF THE COMPANY TO PLACE COMPETENT EMPLOYES IN CHARGE OF THE OPERATING MACHINE.
Arthur Stuart, 66, had been appointed fire boss a long time ago, because the law required a fire boss. Later on Stuart was made assistant superintendent. No one was appointed to succeed him as fire boss. Therefore he didn’t actively act as fire boss. Four days after the accident the company appointed him fire boss.
These are mine accidents typical of West Virginia’s carelessness of human life. In the meantime disaster upon disaster multiplies the list of dead. Living martyrs toil on, awaiting their fate. Negligence, indifference to the first law of Christian duty, “Love they neighbor as thyself,” is on every hand. The mine owners violate the laws. It lines their pockets with gold, although it lines the hillsides with graves. Yes, and the miners also violate the law.
They must to exist.
The West Virginia legislature is in session, but it was not until after the staff corespondent of the Newspaper Enterprise Association appeared at Stuart and began an inquiry into the disaster there, that a resolution was introduced and adopted, providing for an official legislative investigation of the mining catastrophes in this state.
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SOURCE & IMAGES
The Evansville Press
(Evansville, Indiana)
-Feb 20, 1907
https://www.newspapers.com/image/138579830/
See also:
Hellraisers Journal: Three Horrific Disasters Within Ten Days Claim Lives of More Than 100 West Virginia Miners
https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-three-horrific-disasters-within-ten-days-claim-lives-of-more-than-100-west-virginia-miners/
West Virginia Coal Mine Disaster – Beatrice Lehman
WE NEVER FORGET
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