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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.
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