When Miners March

by William C. Blizzard

  Bishop Donahue quotes the beatitudes freely, pointing out that “our Lord does not say ‘Blessed are the poor.’ He says ‘Blessed are the poor in Spirit.'” He reminds the Senatorial body before which he is testifying that his commission found “that if a man in W. Va. chose to work with ordinary industry he could make his $3 or $4 a day without any trouble.”

  Senator Martine then asks: “Do you mean that net…?”

  And Bishop Donahue replies: “Why no, Senator…. The net would be nothing in most cases, or the net would be about $25 a month debt.”

  It can be seen that if Martine had not had the keenness to ask this question the Bishop might have left a false impression. It may not be polite to accuse the distinguished Bishop and his commission of deliberately misrepresenting the truth in their report, but Martine’s question seems to have convicted the Bishop with his own tongue.

  Bishop Is Frank

  The good churchman is frank in his bias. The idea of Unions of workingmen is appalling to him and he says so thusly: “It is the function of the Church to get some of these horrible ideas worked out of them (the miners) like whiskey and beer are worked out of a man at Carlsbad. They have the most horrible leaders in the State, and other States in the Union, and I think this strike, unless some radical remedy is applied, only represents the first indications of the awful storm that is coming in this country.” The envisioned storm, it will be noted, has not yet arrived.

  To cure the West Virginia miners of striking the Bishop said that “first of all I would make them all go to Church twice on Sunday.” Then he would make them hang up the eight beatitudes in their houses, with emphasis on “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom” and “Blessed are the meek.” “And what would be the consequence of following such a program?” asks Senator Borah. “If,” says Borah, “these men were not struggling and contentious and aspiring, the reverse of it would be, finally, industrial slavery, would it not?”

  “Yes", answers Bishop Donahue. “It would.”

  Let it be noted before going further that the writer of this little history is in no sense any sort of religious bigot, and is not attacking the Bishop because he is a Catholic, any more than he would attack anyone else because he is Protestant, Jew or Shintoist. But an individual member of any religion, or none, is fit subject for attack if he proves himself the enemy of workingmen fighting to improve their living standards. That is the writer’s touchstone and high position in religion or lay hierarchy has no bearing on the matter.

  Commission Overlooks Facts

  This commission, while engaged in lyric praise of the W. Va. coal miner in 1912, overlooked a few figures which are interesting. The table below shows a comparison for a four-year period of the number of employees per thousand killed in coal mines in four states. During these years the states of Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania were, by and large, unionized. West Virginia was overwhelmingly nonunion. Note the West Virginia figures:

  For a ten-year period ending in 1912 West Virginia had a coal miner death rate per thousand of 5.71, Illinois 3.04, Ohio 2.89, and Pennsylvania 3.39. It was almost twice as likely that you would have been killed in those ten years if you had worked in a W. Va. mine instead of a mine in another state. Percentage-wise, in that 10-year period the West Virginia mining death rate exceeded Pennsylvania by 68.4%, Illinois by 87.8% and Ohio by 97.6%. By these figures Unionization is proved to be, quite literally, life insurance for the coal miner. Governor Glasscock’s commission did not mention this.

  Baldwin Brutality Cited

  Nor did the Bishop attempt to recite to the Senatorial body the numerous instances of the brutality of the “brave” Baldwin-Felts guards which were recorded by his own commission. They are many, but just one will give the reader an idea: This is the testimony of Gianiana Seville, the wife of a Union miner, as it was taken by the Glasscock commission:

  “Q. Have you had any experience with the guards on Paint Creek?

  “A. I know that there were guards up there and they beat me up.

  “Q. Explain to the Commission the circumstances attending this beating?

  “A. My husband was going down to the store and then he got arrested by the guards and the guards were going to take him away. I went close to tell the guards to let my husband alone; that I thought he had an excuse. My husband had never hurt anyone or done anything. When I went close and told them, they beat me up and threw me down on the track. They tore my shirtwaist from my arm.

  “Q. What else occurred?

  “A. About the 5th of June, I was washing in the house early in the morning and the guards came to the house and broke in the house and they punched me in the face and then went and threw the things upside down in the house searching for firearms. They were all mad. On the bed there was a little baby and they kicked me in the stomach and they called me bad names and used profane language.

  “Q. What other assaults were made on you or what other blows were struck, if any?

  “A. When they kicked me, I fell down on the floor and they picked me up and said: ‘give me the keys to the trunk.”

  “Q. Did they strike you only once?

  “A. I was pretty near fainted and I do not know. They were dragging me around.

  Woman Was Pregnant

  “Q. What was your condition at that time?

  “A. I was pregnant six months.

  “Q. What effect did those blows have upon your condition; what was the result?

  “A. The effect was that since that time I felt sick all the time until my baby was born dead. I never heard my baby since the blow was struck.

  “Q. How long was it after the assault before the child was born?

  “A. I was struck on the 5th day of June (1912) and the baby was born dead in the hospital on the 19th day of August. The doctor told my husband that the baby was dead nine weeks before it was born.

  “Q. What was the name of the doctor?

  “A. It was two doctors. One is G.S. Schafer at Cannelton and the other at the Paint Creek Hospital, but I don’t know his name.

  “Q. Was it Dr. Hunter?

  “A. I do not know.

  “Q. Was the birth a natural one?

  “A. No. I felt awful sick and they called the doctor and the doctors gave me some medicine, morphine of something and they carried me to the hospital on a cot.”

  Is it any wonder that the coal miner hated the guards and that some of them were found shot through the head in circumstances that did not look like suicide?

  12/2/1952 (Tenth)

  The Baldwin-Felts men were also spies and snoopers, who for years had built up files of the names of Union men which went to all operators. If you opened your mouth to talk Union in West Virginia you were not only fired but you couldn’t get a job in the mines anywhere in the state. Below is a copy of one of the shorter letters blacklisting only one man, evidently considered a dangerous character:

  “General Manager, Or Superintendent.

  “Dear Sir:

  “James L. Taylor, white, age about 29, height 5 ft. 10 in., weight about 170 lbs., smooth shaven, sandy hair, blue eyes, was dismissed by the Mill Creek Coal & Coke Company a few days ago account of shooting coal on the solid and being a strong Union man.

  “This is the same party who was dismissed from the Empire Coal & Coke Company in June, 1906, on account of being a Union man and writing articles to the United Mine Workers Journal, at which time all operators were notified.

  “Yours truly,

  “/s/

  “Sept. 20, 1909.”

  While this humanitarian commission with the Bishop at its head was in the coal fields, Governor Glasscock had decided that not even the army of private thugs and state militia could cope with the situation. Iron law and iron enforcement were needed to keep the coal miner from winning his strike. As has been stated, the civilian population in general was favorable toward the strikers. Capt. S. B. Avis of the National Guard, later a coal operators’ attorney, was then prosecuting at
torney of Kanawha County and was complaining that he couldn’t get a grand jury to indict or a petit jury to convict the miners.

  The obvious answer was martial law, although this had never before been used in West Virginia. So martial law was proclaimed for the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek area on Sept. 2, 1912.

  Miners Dislike Militia

  Glasscock maintained that Tom Cairnes, the president of District 17 of the UMW, was agreeable to the imposition of martial law when told that it was the only way to get rid of the mine guards. There is no way to check this, but the attitude of the coal miner in general toward the militia, with or without martial law, is pretty plain. As a Captain Levy of C Company, Second Infantry, National Guard, said under questioning:

  “I think they thought us just about as bad as Baldwin guards.”

  The miners had every reason to think so. The Baldwin men did leave when martial law was declared. But there were three periods of martial law, and just as soon as a period was declared ended the militia would change their uniforms and hire themselves to the company as private guards. Frequently they didn’t even change uniforms. This procedure was advised by state officials, and was approved by the Governor.

  Confronted with the above charges, Adjutant General Charles Douglas Elliott said plaintively: “An officer buys and pays for his own uniforms, yet we are not supposed to wear them in our other avocations!” With this setup, no Baldwin men were needed, and it was probably less expensive for the coal operator to break the strike in this manner.

  Captain Levy testified that when the first martial law was lifted he was “practically ordered” by Adjutant General Elliott to take a job as a “watchman” for a coal company on Paint Creek. He worked under a Captain Lester of the National Guard, and they chose the other militiamen who were to remain as privately-hired guards. Then when martial law was declared again on Nov. 15, 1912, Captain Levy changed his shirt and payroll connection (the latter was a very slight change), and was back with the “yellowlegs!”

  Militia Were Strikebreakers

  It was an efficient system but not one that endeared the militia to the miners. It was quite clear that the National Guard was being used as a strike-breaking agency. A mine guard under any other name smelled just as much like gunpowder.

  On the same day that Governor Glasscock proclaimed martial law he set up a military commission to serve in lieu of the civil courts. George S. Wallace, a Huntington lawyer and lieutenant colonel in the National Guard, was made the judge advocate of the military tribunal. That is, he acted in the capacity of a prosecuting attorney. A newspaper report quotes the Governor as saying of his commission: “For this duty I have selected men in whom I have the highest confidence, because their power is almost limitless, and they may impose such punishment, including death, as they deem proper in the situation.” Yes, indeed, the Governor said “including death!”

  Whatever the military tribunal “deemed proper” was not disclosed to the public. The trials were held in secret. But some of it came out later. A miner named Frank Nantz swore at Capt. A.C. Wood, who attempted to arrest two miners who had a fist fight. This was eight days before the second martial law was declared, so the Guardsman was a privately-hired coal company policeman at the time. Nantz swore and told the officer that he had no right to arrest anybody. Then when martial law went into effect a few days later Nantz was arrested and sentenced to five years in the penitentiary on the technical charge of interfering with an officer. He was tried by a military court and sentenced to the penitentiary for a “crime” committed before martial law was in effect!

  Courts Call It Legal

  The Nantz case was appealed to the State Supreme Court by Attorney Harold W. Houston in an attempt to invalidate the whole proceeding. But Governor Glasscock was upheld by a decision of four to one. Judge Ira E. Robinson had the courage to dissent in both this and a similar case involving Mother Jones:

  “That the Governor has constitutional and statutory power to so use the militia and thereby arrest persons so far as reasonably necessary, no one will deny. But because the Governor has this power, must judicial construction run random and thrust upon the citizens of this state military courts for the trial of civil offenses, in the very face of the direct inhibitions against such procedure contained in our constitution, and regardless of constitutional guarantees?”

  Judicial construction, despite Judge Robinson, did just that. Nantz was killed in late 1914 by a man named Matt Jarrell whom he was trying to arrest while serving as a Socialist Marshal at Eskdale. He had filed suit on Sept. 16, 1913, against Governor Glasscock for $50,000 because of his arrest and sentence, but it was still pending at his death.

  Lawrence Cepreant, an Italian miner who scarcely understood English, was found guilty of perjury and sentenced to the penitentiary for seven and one half years. The severe sentences were usual and miners were tried in groups of 80 or more, being confined without bond while awaiting trial in an impromptu “bullpen” at Pratt, near the mouth of Paint Creek. Until the defendant was taken to jail, he didn’t even know the decision of the so-called court. Parenthetically, this writer would like to note that his own grandmother, a miner’s wife, was hauled before this tribunal.

  Martine is Correct

  Senator Martine put the matter correctly when he asked in amazement. “You did not apprise him – you gave him no opportunity or knowledge to know whether you had convicted him of a felony, and the first the poor devil knew was when he was gobbled up and went to the penitentiary?” Major James I. Pratt of the Second Infantry, an employee of the adjutant general’s office, had to admit that this was true.

  The military court was ruthless and highhanded. Union organizers – including the octogenarian Mother Jones – and an undetermined number of striking coal miners fell victim of the Glasscock dictatorship and were arrested and summarily thrown into jail. The right to bond, to habeas corpus, was suspended, the state and federal constitutions ignored and flouted. And the State Supreme Court gravely pronounced the whole procedure legal!

  It is an inescapable conclusion that the coal operators owned the state machinery of West Virginia, – executive, legislative and judicial – almost in total, and that this machinery was being used in its full power to break the strike of the miners. The West Virginia coal miner, despite his proud state motto, was just about as free as a serf in Czarist Russia. He knew it, too – recorded speeches are full of comparison – and he was determined that there was going to be a change.

  So he was beaten up and saw his family hungry and went to the penitentiary, but the strike continued. So, too, did the drumhead court, grim terror weapon of coal operator oppression.

  12/3/52 (Eleventh)

  In connection with this military court there was set up a system of “conditional pardons.” Here is the way it worked: A man was put in the penitentiary for a trivial offense, as has been described before, the military tribunal’s decision being secret, known only to the Governor and subject to his approval. Somewhat later Governor Glasscock would grant the miner a pardon, providing he would sign his name to a contract stipulating that he would, in effect, no longer associate with the strikers or help their cause.

  If the miner signed the pardon and was released he could not again participate in Union activity. If he did so, the pardon was automatically revoked and back to the penitentiary he went. This was indeed a new twist on the “yellow-dog” contract!

  Here is the “yellow-dog” clause in one of the pardons signed by Glasscock. (The prison term here was mild – only six months in the Mason County jail – as the victim was tried during the first period of martial law. The second military tribunal, as Glasscock himself said, used lengthy penitentiary terms as more effective “correction.”)

  “This jail sentence is remitted, however, upon these terms and conditions only, to be assented to hereon in writing by the said Archie Tyler: That if the said Archie Tyler shall by threat, force, menace, or otherwise intimidate, or attempt so intimidate, any miner or
other person who desires to work or who is seeking employment, or if he shall combine or conspire, together with any other person or persons for said purpose, or for any unlawful purpose, or if he shall violate any of the laws of this state, or fail, or refuse to conduct himself as a peaceable and law abiding citizen, or for any cause satisfactory to the governor, the governor may cause him to be arrested and returned to the jail of said county to serve out the remainder of the sentence imposed upon him aforesaid.”

  The victim signed this contract, and if ever a man was tied hand and foot that man was Archie Tyler!

  Hatfield Grants Pardon

  When Governor Henry D. Hatfield succeeded Glasscock, he pardoned some of the men sent to prison by the military tribunals. We quote one of these pardons in full in order that the facts may be made clear about the “pardon” system.

  “To All to whom these presents shall come, greeting:

  “WHEREAS, in November, 1912, Dan Chain, alias Few Clothes, was arraigned before a military commission convened at Pratt, Kanawha County, West Virginia, charged with obstructing a railroad company in the use of its property in violation of section 31, Chapter 145, Code of West Virginia, 1906; was tried upon charge before the said military commission and found guilty, where upon the said military commission sentenced him to confinement in the penitentiary for the period of five years, and

  “WHEREAS, on the 3rd day of January, 1913, William E. Glasscock, governor of the State of West Virginia, granted and issued to the said Dan Chain, alias Few Clothes, a conditional pardon, the terms and conditions of which were assented to in writing by the said Dan Chain, releasing him from further confinement in the penitentiary by reason of said sentence imposed by said military commission, and

  “WHEREAS the said Dan Chain, alias Few Clothes, having violated the term and conditions of said pardon, William E. Glasscock, governor, on the 19th day of January, 1913, issued a warrant addressed to Bonner H. Hill, sheriff of said Kanawha County, revoking the said conditional pardon and directing said sheriff to rearrest the said Dan Chain, alias Few Clothes, and return him to the penitentiary to serve out the remainder of the sentence imposed upon him as aforesaid, and “WHEREAS, I am of the opinion that the said Dan Chain, alias Few Clothes, should again be granted a conditional pardon: