Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday December 12, 1922 Striking Miners in Southwestern Counties of Pennsylvania Face Sever Hardships
From the Hazleton Plain Speaker of December 8, 1922:
SOME MINERS ARE STILL IN WANT ———-
United Mine Workers Journal of December 1, 1922
Hard coal [anthracite] field miners have received word that in the Berwind fields of Somerset and Fayette Counties [miners] are still in want.
Those are union miners who are in non-union districts, their cause was not included in the Cleveland agreement and forty-five thousand miners are still on strike.
Fayette County, where many former Hazleton people are located, has a record of 1,500 evictions by the sheriff.
Logan Union 5,220 of the miners’ organized during the strike has sent out an appeal for bread to feed their hungry children. They say that their local has “suffered 384 evictions, of which 200 have been since the Cleveland agreement.” They also say that “the agreement was signed against their wish and special plea that their Coke fields should not be left out,” and that the Hillman company has been allowed to sign up for former union miners near Pittsburgh without being required to sign up in Fayette county.
This is also the case with the Consolidated Coal Company-the Rockefellers‘ property. As they have done their bit “suffering evictions, exposure in tent colonies, typhoid fever and other hard ships,” they demand of the international organization that it send them relief.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday July 29, 1911 Paul Kellogg on the Defeat of the Westmoreland Miners’ Strike
From The Survey of July 29, 1911:
WESTMORELANDSTRIKECALLEDOFF
PAULU.KELLOGG
After sixteen months, during which their strike was kept up in the heat of summer and the cold of hillside camps in winter, the men have given in in the Irwin-Greensburg field of western Pennsylvania. The main causes underlying this remarkable struggle, which President Hutchinson of the Westmoreland Company called civil war, were described in The SURVEY for December 3, 1910. Since then articles have appeared in Grit, Collier’s, the Philadelphia North American, and elsewhere, and this spring a hearing was held before the rules committee of the House at the instigation of Congressman Wilson.
The hearing did not lead to a federal investigation as the labor men had hoped, and this may have had some influence on the action of the international executive board of the United Mine Workers of America at Indianapolis on June 27. The board voted that there were no longer funds to continue sending $20,000 each week to Greensburg. According to a correspondent, two factors decided this action: the slack coal market has cut down mine work all over the country, and the members have been slow in sending in the tax which supports the striking miners and their families; in the second place, “a million dollars has already been expended here, with no immediate hope of settlement, and by losing this strike they will not endanger the miners’ chances in other strike zones, in Colorado especially, where another expensive strike is on .”
Following the action of the international board, a meeting of leaders was held in Greensburg and the strike was declared off on July 5.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday July 20, 1911 Mother Jones News Round-Up for June 1911, Part II Found Pleading Cause of Striking Miners of Westmoreland County
From The Indianapolis Star of June 28, 1911:
WOMAN PLEADS FOR MINERS ———-
“MOTHER JONES TELLS TALE ———- Describes Hardships of Pennsylvania Strikers, but Urges Board to Encourage Men to Continue Fight.
Following an address by “Mother” Jones, known to all miners of the country, members of the executive board of the United Mine Workers of America yesterday adopted resolutions relative to the strike in the Irwin district in western Pennsylvania, where about 6 000 mine workers have been out for a year and a half.
Mrs. Jones, who is 79 years old, has spent most of her time in the strike region during the past year and is thoroughly familiar with conditions there. She told the members of the executive board of the hardships which the miners and their families have endured during the strike and urged the board to adopt resolutions commending the strikers and advising them to continue the fight.
Her address had the desired effect upon the members of the board, and a committee was appointed to draw up resolutions.
PLEDGES CONTINUED SPPORT.
The resolutions provide that the executive board indorse the strikers and urge them to continue their fight, and the board pledges its continued support to the miners. It is also provided that a general meeting be held in the region, at which a vote is to be taken to ascertain if a majority of the miners favor the continuance of the strike
The miners organization is spending about $90,000 a month to support the families of the strikers. It is said that the operators refuse to recognize the organization in the district and will not consider any compromise.
Francis Feehan president of the Pittsburg district and a number of organizers also appeared before the board yesterday to present their views on the strike.
“Mother” Jones expects to return to the Irwin district soon to continue her work among the families of the strikers.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday June 4, 1911 Greensburg, Pennsylvania – Miners’ Wives Sing on Their Way to Jail
From the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader of June 2, 1911:
MINERS’ WIVES ARE JAILED WHEN THEY SHOUT AT WORKERS ———- Eleven Torn from Families on Complaint of Coal Company Officials at Greensburg. ———-
TWO WERE CARRYING BABES —– Prisoners Will Have to Spend Thirty Days in Jail Unless Judge Changes Mind. —–
GREENSBURG, Pa., June 2.-With tearful faces, but defiant in their stand for their husbands, who are striking miners in the Irwin coal fields, eleven women were torn from their husbands and children, who had accompanied them to the Westmoreland county jail, and locked up to serve thirty-day sentences, imposed for disorderly conduct.
The women are from Westmoreland City, and it was alleged by the prosecutors, who are officers of the coal company, that the women had made the night hideous for the inhabitants with their shouting and had been a menace to the men who were working for the company [scabs].
They were arrested on warrants issued before Squire H. A. Meerhoff, of Irwin, who sentenced them.
Two of the prisoners, Mrs. Margaret Means and Mrs. Dot Smith, carried babies in their arms. A crowd gathered around the jail when it became known that a band of strikers wives were being locked up.
Judge A. D. McConnell ordered twenty strikers who were brought before him from Latrobe and Bradenville, charged by the Latrobe Connellsville Coke Company with violating the court’s injunction, to pay the costs or stand committed. They were also ordered to remove their camp at Superior No. 2 within the next five days or be sent to jail.
This is the second bunch of strikers who were ordered to pay the costs for violating the court’s injunction issued a year ago restraining them from marching “by or near” company property. There is some talk among the United Mine Workers of making an appeal from the court’s decision, especially in the matter of ordering them to remove their camp, which is located on private property which they have leased.
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[Newsclip added from Pittsburg Post of June 2, 1911]
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 7, 1911 Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania – Sheriff Paid to Recruit Private Army
From the Appeal to Reason of February 4, 1911:
A PRIVATE ARMY. ———-
Investigations at Greensburg, Pa., showed that the coal companies paid Sheriff Shields $143,147.42 for deputy service during the coal strike. Deputies were paid from $3 to $15 a day each. While the constitution says that no private army shall be maintained, these coal companies hired a private army and gave it official sanction by hiring it through the sheriff. The deputies were all thugs from the outside, hired like Hessians, used as Hessians, and they acted like Hessians.
Had the coal miners wisdom enough to elect a Socialist sheriff, that sheriff would have protected the property of the mines, yes-but he would have hired every striking miner, paying them three dollars a day each, armed them, and kept them so long as the strike lasted. The miners, getting three dollars a day could have waited a long time for the strike to end-as long as the operators. But the working people votes for the capitalist sheriff and judges, and they get just what they vote for.
How long, O Lord, how long will you workers vote to be the beasts of burden for corporation. Socialism will give you freedom, will give you a living that free men deserve, will make you masters instead of wage slaves. Wake up.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday October 4, 1910 Irwin Coal Field, Pennsylvania – Report from Strikers’ “Starvation Camp”
From the Duluth Labor World of October 1, 1910:
Keystone State Awakens to Hunger-Driven Peonage Practiced Within Its Confines
PITTSBURG, Pa., Sept. 30—Thousands of Pittsburg women, influential club women as well as the wives of storekeepers and mechanics, are signing a petition to Governor Edwin S. Steuart asking that he intervene and compel the coal companies to arbitrate the strike in the Erwin [Irwin] and Greensburg coal fields.
Piloted by the “Angel of the Camp,” Miss Emmeline Pitt, committees from various women’s clubs have visited the frail tents in which are huddled the thousands of miners’ wives and children, and, after hearing the stories of eviction and brutality committed by the deputies, have gone back to their organizations burning with indignation against the coal barons and determined to force action from the state authorities.
[Asserts Francis Feehan, president of district No. 5:]
The operators could settle this strike, settle it and give the miners all that they demand and then operate their mines at 20 per cent less than it is costing them now. It’s the strike-breakers that cost. They’re paying them $2.50 and $3 a day with rations—and that’s more than the skilled union miners ask.
Experienced miners say that the United Coal company is paying at the rate of $3 a ton to have its coal mined, while the market price is just half that amount.
Three things the striking miners want: 1. Recognition of the union. 2. Check-weighmen on the tipples. 3. Payment of the Pittsburg Scale.
And these three things the miners will win, coal barons or no coal barons, for the entire power of the United Mine Workers of America is gathering behind them.
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GAUNT MOTHERS, THEIR BABES STARVING, HERE ——-
Special Correspondence of Labor World.
NEW ALEXANDRA, Pa., Sept. 30.—Three hundred puny babies, thinly clad and underfed by half-starved mothers who have nothing to give, live beneath canvas roofs and within canvas walls these chilly days and shivery nights in the Erwin coal regions of western Pennsylvania.
A thousand other little children, barefoot and almost barebacked, “live” on bread and water in that starvation camp among the foothills of the Alleghenies.
Hellraisers Journal – Friday September 23, 1910 Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania – Cossacks Terrorize Irwin Coalfield Strike
From the International Socialist Review of September 1910:
Cossacks vs. “Black Hundreds.”
Brutal as the state constabulary have shown themselves on numerous occasions the testimony on all sides is overwhelming that compared with the thugs and bums engaged as deputies by the coal companies the State Police are gentlemen.
One of the odd developments is the cordial dislike of the State Police for the deputies. The State Police are not backward about declaring that practically all of the rioting and killing has been caused by the deputies. You must understand that economic interests are at the bottom of this feeling of these two forces for each other. The rank and file of the Police get $60.00 a month and board, no matter what is doing. When all is quiet they get their pay for patroling some country road on a well groomed saddle horse. If there must be a strike they would much rather see a nice quiet orderly one where there are no riots.
But the deputies are in a different boat. If all were quiet they would have no occupation. So to make their jobs secure they must keep something doing all the time. They explode a charge of dynamite under the corner of an unoccupied house, fire a lot of shots some night or when they meet an unarmed striker on the highway slug him or arrest him. When there is any real duty to perform, when there is a batch of strike breakers expected who must be prevented from talking to the strikers the first thing they do is fill up with whiskey. At one hotel where a bunch of them stopped, six drinks of whiskey in their stomachs and a half pint in their pockets was the regular ration, before going out on any special duty.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday September 22, 1910 Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania – Class War Continues in Irwin Coal Field
From the International Socialist Review of September 1910:
[Part I of II.]
HE Strike” are the words most appropriate to designate an article dealing with the situation in the Irwin coal field, because it is the strike of the year if not of the decade. There was nothing out of the ordinary about any of the other strikes that have occurred so far this year. The biggest strike in point of numbers and duration is that of the Illinois miners. It has been since its inception strictly orthodox, including the conflict of authority between the district organizations and the National Board and President Lewis. In Illinois both sides were, and had for years, been organized. All of the arts of diplomacy and bargaining were exhausted before the strike was declared. It is warm, pulsing stomachs against steel safes full of gold.
The Irwin strike is rashly unorthodox. Excepting the formal declaration it has all of the characteristics of a violent revolution.
More persons have been killed, injured and taken prisoners than in many of the bloody uprisings in the Balkans or South America which are so regularly exploited on the front pages of the “Joinals.”
Fifteen persons, two of them women, have met violent bloody deaths. Some of these were killed in open conflict, others in skirmishes, but most of them were brutal, cold-blooded murder of men who dared to tell a prospective scab that there was a strike on.
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