Labor Day Tribute to Coal Miners

[FreakinDJ]

The miner had free speech, but what happened after he spoke could give him serious trouble. Many companies employed the firm Baldwin and Felts to provide mine guards. These guards dispensed retribution against “rabblerousers” and “outside agitators” who came in talking about unions. One town even featured a Gatling gun mounted upon the front porch of a company official’s home.

Coal companies called upon powerful allies to help maintain control. In addition to the Baldwin-Felts agents, coal companies also enjoyed the benevolent cooperation of county sheriffs and their departments. Logan County Sheriff Don Chaffin could call upon a force of nearly 500, mostly paid for from coal company treasuries. Vigilantes from the middle classes took up arms and joined small detachments of state police and National Guardsmen.

The union targeted Mingo County first with a strike as it detected massive discontent amongst the miners. In 1920-1921, guerilla warfare broke out on a scale more often associated with Central America than the US. Miners and company men ambushed and killed each other on a regular basis in a fashion much like their Civil War ancestors. Many corpses showed signs of mutilation. At the governor’s request, the War Department dispatched regular troops on four separate occasions.
No one has ever ascertained the total number of people involved. Some estimates go as low as 5,000, others as high as 15,000. Whatever their number, they presented a fearsome sight to the state and local authorities who predictably appealed to President Warren G. Harding for assistance. Governor Ephraim Morgan even hinted at possible Bolshevik influence amongst their ranks. Harding hesitated, claiming that the United States Army could not function as a police force and that the state should be able to contain the problem. Morgan imposed martial law and directed local vigilance committees and state police to enforce it; these organizations bore a tremendous bias

Full Article

[lonestarnot]

1. Hell of a life.

[cosmik debris]

2. Please don't forget the coal miners of Colorado

The date April 20, 1914 will forever be a day of infamy for American workers. On that day, 20 innocent men, women and children were killed in the Ludlow Massacre. The coal miners in Colorado and other western states had been trying to join the UMWA for many years. They were bitterly opposed by the coal operators, led by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company.

Upon striking, the miners and their families had been evicted from their company-owned houses and had set up a tent colony on public property. The massacre occurred in a carefully planned attack on the tent colony by Colorado militiamen, coal company guards, and thugs hired as private detectives and strike breakers. They shot and burned to death 20 people, including a dozen women and small children. Later investigations revealed that kerosine had intentionally been poured on the tents to set them ablaze. The miners had dug foxholes in the tents so the women and children could avoid the bullets that randomly were shot through the tent colony by company thugs. The women and children were found huddled together at the bottoms of their tents.

http://www.umwa.org/history/ludlow.shtml

[alfredo]

3. You know Blackwater will be the new Baldwin-Felts and Pinkerton.

[FreakinDJ]

4. Yes Bushco is leading us into a Class War

It just boggles the mind to think of all the stupid Freepers believing if they just support these corrupt people it well some how allow them entry into the Elite Ruling Class.

Pyramid schemes always depend on the "Suckers at the Bottom"

[alfredo]

6. So true. bush did say they should "make the pie higher."

[Zomby Woof]

5. Mt great-grandfather was a coal miner

He immigrated from Poland when Taft was president, and worked the mines in northcentral Wyoming. He died before I was born, but his wedding band is now mine, and his memory lives on.

Thanks for this. :thumbsup: