Hellraisers Journal – Friday December 23, 1910 Greensburg, Pennsylvania – Strikers’ Families Face Winter in Frozen Tent Colony
From The Labor Argus of December 15, 1910:
Thanksgiving at Greensburg Tent Colony
Pittsburg. Pa. Dec. 14.-Have you ever camped in a bleak and barren hillside in the frosty month of December with nothing to protect you from the biting winds but a flimsy tent, with the frozen ground for a carpet, and a hard wooden bunk for a bed? Can you imagine a more cruel punishment to inflict upon the most despised criminal upon earth? And yet this is exactly what thousands of people in the Irwin-Greensburg strike district are compelled to and they are not criminals either, but upright and honest, law-abiding people. The conditions which confront these poor mortals simply beggar description, no mind can picture nor pen accurately describe the situation.
And what have these people done to be thus punished? Is it a crime to revolt against merciless oppression, to prefer death by cold and starvation rather than a miserable existence in abject slavery. If it is then these people should be punished just like other criminals, but we know of no law they have violated, and hence society owes them some little consideration, at least an opportunity to live as others in this richly blessed land of ours live.
The stories of life in the mines as told by some of the strikers before the revolt took place, a life which some of them have for 20 years or more, reads more like stories of ancient and barbaric slavery days than a page from the book of our present day civilization. And slaves they certainly have been. But the shackles are broken and henceforth they are determined to live as free men. They have firmly resolved never to go back to work under the old conditions; they have suffered much but will grimly face even greater hardships and privation rather than surrender. Men, women and children are without shoes and even stockings to wear, many are otherwise scantily clad. One little fellow of about 6 years of age was picked up barefooted out of the deep snow in one of the camps by a member of the relief committee and his immediate wants supplied.
Everything possible is being done by the committee in charge to supply the wants of the most destitute, but it is inevitable that among such a large number of needy people some will be overlooked. Relief in the shape of clothing and money is coming in fairly satisfactory to the committee, but more is needed, particularly shoes and stockings of all sizes and for both sexes. While a large number of strikers have left the district there are still about 9,000 people to be cared for.
This strike is not lost by any means, statements to the contrary notwithstanding. The claim of the operators that the output is over 90 per cent. of the normal is greatly exaggerated, and made with the specific purpose of discouraging the strikers. Their statement that the number of men employed is nearly 9,000 is also overdrawn by more than one-half, and even if correct makes the claim regarding the output appear ridiculous as the number is less than half of those employed under normal conditions before the strike.
The truth of the matter, according to members of the committee on Policy is that not more than 4,000 men are working as against 20,000 before the strike occurred. The actual output is less than one-fifth of normal at a cost of 50 per cent. above normal. Neither is it true that the non-union men employed are satisfied with the conditions under which they are working. Hundreds of applications have been received for membership in the Union by men who express their to come out. All are held in abeyance as it is impossible to care for more than the number being for now.
It is true that most of the State Constabulary and Deputies have been withdrawn, and this only emphasizes the fact that they were never needed except to incite riot by their dirty insults even to the women of the strikers. That the Mining and Immigration laws are being flagrantly violated is also charged and just as soon as sufficient evidence is secured it will be laid before the Government Officials.
[Photograph, emphasis and paragraph breaks added.]
From The Seattle Star of November 24, 1910 -Thanksgiving at the Greensburg Tent Colony:
Report on Miners’ Strike in Bituminous Coal Field in Westmoreland County, Pa. in 1910-11 -prepared under direction of Charles P. Neill, Commissioner of Labor -June 22, 1912-referred to U. S. House of Representatives, Committee on Labor https://books.google.com/books?id=w6VOAQAAMAAJ
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