Hellraisers Journal: “The Cabin Creek Victory” by James Morton & Photos of Life in Tent Colonies by Paul Thompson, Part I

—————

Hellraisers Journal – Friday January 3, 1913
Cabin Creek, West Virginia – Miners’ Victorious, Is Report from Strike Zone

From the International Socialist Review of January 1913:

THE CABIN CREEK VICTORY

By JAMES MORTON

Photographs by Paul Thompson.

[Part I of II]

THERE is rejoicing after many months in the Kanawha district in West Virginia. In spite of the subserviency of the Big Bull Moose governor to the interests of the coal barons, in spite of the steady flux of scabs into the coal district, the plutocracy has gone down to ignominious defeat before the splendid solidarity shown by the striking miners.

Twice the REVIEW has attempted to give its readers word pictures of the terrible brutalities of the thugs that have faithfully served the interests of the mine owners. But words fail to convey any idea of the conditions in the Kanawha district.

More than once the women and children were openly attacked and an attempt made to drive them off company grounds and into the river. It was thought such methods would drive the men into overt acts that would justify the soldiers in shooting down the rebels. And the miners did not sit down tamely and permit their wives and children to be murdered before their eyes. In some instances, it is reported, they started a little excitement all their own so that the troops might be drawn off to protect the property of their masters. We have even read that some mine guards mysteriously disappeared.

Then, with wonderful dispatch, tents began to appear and were flung up in nearby vacant lots and the miners and their families settled down in grim determination to “stick it out” and win. They say that many women were provided with guns in order to protect themselves and their children from the armed thugs that came to molest them.

Every train brought hosts of scabs and again recently martial law was declared. The troops were on hand to protect the scabs and incidentally to see that they remained at work. But the rosy promises of soft berths made to the scabs failed to materialize. They found coal mining anything but the pleasant pastime they had expected. They found they were required to dig coal and work long hours for low pay, and one by one, as the opportunity arose, they silently faded away for greener fields and pastures new.

The miners showed no signs of yielding. In spite of low rations constant intimidation and cold weather the strikers gathered in groups to discuss Socialism and plans for holding out for the surrender of the bosses. During the fall election the miners voted the Socialist party ticket almost unanimously. The strike brought home to these men the truth of the class struggle in all its hideousness.

And the scabs came and went. Individually and collectively they struck by shaking the dust of the Kanawha district from their feet. Probably the mine owners discovered that it would cost a great deal more for a much smaller output of coal than it would to yield all the demands of the strikers.

It is reported that the men are to go back after having secured a nine-hour workday and a 20 per cent increase in wages.

The Kanawha fight has been one of the most inspiring in the history of the American labor movement. It has shown that when even a small group of workers in an industry learns to act as one man, they may sometimes wrest a little more from the exploiting class. And the Kanawha miners have learned that when the workers fight together as a class on the political, as well as on the economic field, they will be invincible.

In writing up the report of the commission appointed by Governor Glasscock to investigate the conditions of the miners and the situation in the Kanawha district, the Huntington Socialist and Labor Star says:

The commission, composed of a catholic priest, a tin soldier and a politician (note the absence of any representative of miners on it). after several months of junketing at the expense of the state, reports the following wonderful discoveries:

That every man has a right to quit his employment
But-
He has absolutely no right to try to prevent any other man from taking his job.
Labor has the right to organize-
But-
Its organization has no right to induce people to become members of it.
That the miners are clearly in the wrong in trying to induce others not to work on the terms they themselves reject.
That the miners seek to destroy company property.
That the effort to arouse the workers by public speeches be condemned with emphasis.
That it is “imperatively necessary” that the hands of the governor be strengthened so that he may compel local peace officers to perform their duty.
That the chief cause of the trouble on Paint and Cabin creeks was the attempt by the United Mine Workers of America to organize the miners into unions in order that they might act co-operatively in bettering their hard conditions.
That the West Virginia coal miners receive the lucrative sum of $554 per year and there was absolutely no reason in their demand for higher wages.

Taken all in all the report is just what could have been expected from the Coal Operators’ Association-or from the men who made it. It proudly points to the fact that the average miner receives nearly $600 for a year’s hard labor-but touches lightly on the cost of living as per coal company commissary prices.

As for the “guards,” the inhuman hyenas which camped in the kennels of the coal operators-the commission recommends that they be called “watchmen” in the future.

The report says:

“Mild-eyed men, seventy-five per cent of them with usually cool Anglo-Saxon blood in their veins and with instincts leaning to law and order inherited down through the centuries, gradually saw red, and with minds bent on havoc and slaughter marched from union districts across the river like Hugheston, Cannelton and Boomer, patrolled the woods over-hanging the creek bed and the mining plants, finally massing on the ridges at the headwaters and arranging a march to sweep down Cabin creek and destroy everything before them to the junction.

“Meanwhile the operators hurried in over a hundred guards heavily armed, purchased several deadly machine guns and many thousands of rounds of ammunition. Several murders were perpetrated and all who could got away; men, women and children fled in terror and many hid in cellars and caves.”

You would naturally suppose that the commissioners would have found some cause which would make mild-eyed men grab a Winchester and charge an operator’s battery of machine guns-they did. It was the attempt of agitators to inflame the minds of the prosperous coal miners that caused all the trouble, and the commission recommends:

“That the efforts to inflame the public mind by wild speeches is to be condemned with emphasis.”

The commission ends its report by pointing out that in many instances the coal miners have been able to purchase farms and even go into business for themselves. All that is necessary for a miner in West Virginia to do in order to wax fat and rich is to stop his ears to the “efforts of agitators to inflame him” save a part of his munificent $554 yearly salary for a year or two and purchase a farm-or a seat in the United States senate.

The Huntington Socialist and Labor Star is doing great work, and has helped very materially to show the public just what condition the miners have been fighting in the Kanawha district and how to improve them and abolish them altogether.

[Emphasis added.]