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Hellraisers Journal – Sunday July 16, 1922
The Miners’ Strike in the Non-Union Coke Regions of Connellsville, Pennsylvania
From the United Mine Workers Journal of July 15, 1922:
Tent home of an evicted miner at Tower Hill, No. 2,
in the Connellsville Coke Region, Pennsylvania
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Miners’ Union Has Brought the Light of Freedom
to the Non-Union Coke Region around ConnellsvilleBy VAN A. BITTNER, Personal Representative of President John L. Lewis
———-July finds the 40,000 miners in the coke region of Pennsylvania more determined than ever to win the great industrial struggle in which they are engaged against the might coke corporations headed by Frick and Rainey. It is, indeed, the most stupendous struggle that has ever taken place in any non-union coal field in this country and is only over-shadowed by the gigantic national strike of the coal miners of America. After thirty years of industrial slavery, without a single attempt being made to free themselves from the yoke of bondage, these miners and their families have awakened to a realization of their hopes and dreams of engaging with the organized miners of America in their battle for industrial freedom. They have implicit faith in the United Mine Workers of America and are in this fight to do or die.
The real spirit of unionism is found here. These men and their families are not asking for any relief. They realize the fact that the men who made the United Mine workers of America did so by sacrificing their very lives for the principles upon which our great union stands, and these men are willing to and are going forward, realizing it is the opportunity of a lifetime and they are making the best of it…..
