It was at this time that Governor Morgan asked President Harding for federal troops and martial law and was notified of Harding’s refusal on May 17, 1921. The next few days were exceedingly full of activity. Coal operator “volunteers” were inducted into the state police. District 17 officials went to Washington to ask for a federal investigation of Mingo County, and C.F. Keeney issued a call to all nonunion miners in Mingo to strike, and he would promise Union benefits and care.
And, on May 19, Governor Morgan issued a proclamation of martial law.
This proclamation will be given rather fully as it is a most amazing document. The miners of Mingo were rather bitter toward the man who just a few months before had campaigned on this platform:
“We deplore the abuses that have grown up under the so-called private guard or Detective System in this State, and we pledge a Republican Legislature to enact laws that will correct these abuses…”
No such laws had been enforced. Instead, in his martial law proclamation the Governor gave the miners of Mingo more bitter regimentation than they had ever before experienced. After stating that a state of war and insurrection existed in Mingo County, Governor Morgan set up the following rules for the miners to live by:
1/8/1953 (Thirty-fifth)
(Yesterday’s installment told of Governor Morgan’s proclamation of martial law in Mingo County in 1921. The following were Morgan’s directives.)
“1. No person or persons shall compose or take part in, or encourage, aid, abet or assist any riot, rout, tumult, mob or lawless combination or assemblage, or violate, or encourage, abet or assist in the violation of any of the civil laws of the state of West Virginia.
“2. No public assemblages or meetings will be permitted in city, town or village, or in any enclosure or open air place within the county, except by special authority.
“3. All processions and parades, except by special authority, are prohibited, as well as demonstrations against the authorities and officers.
“4. No persons, except the constituted municipal, state and federal authorities, militia, troops, police, and other officers of the law, are permitted to carry or have arms or weapons of any character or description or equipment, explosives, ammunition or munitions of war in their possession or at any place, except at their own homes or places of business.
“5. All military and other officers shall have the right of way in any street of highway through which they may pass.
“6. Any person or persons entering or remaining in said Mingo County for the purposes of interfering in any manner whatever with the rights of citizens or property of said Mingo County shall be arrested, detained and imprisoned.
“7. All persons are admonished to observe and carefully and rigidly comply with the civil laws of the state of West Virginia and with the letter and spirit of this proclamation and these rules and orders; and any person or persons violating the same in said Mingo County shall be arrested, disarmed, detained and imprisoned.
“8. Any person or persons, except the constituted municipal state and federal authorities, militia, troops, police, and other officers of the law, carrying or in possession of arms or weapons of any character or description, or equipment, explosives, ammunition or munitions of war, at any place other than at their own homes or places of business, shall be arrested, disarmed, detained and imprisoned.
Suppression of Press
“9. No publications, either newspaper, pamphlet, hand bill or otherwise, reflecting in any way upon the United States or the state of West Virginia, or their officers, or tending to influence the public mind against the United States or the state of West Virginia, or their officers, may be published, distributed, displayed or circulated in said Mingo County, and the publication, distribution, displaying or circulation of such publication above specified is prohibited, and any person or persons violating this paragraph shall be arrested, detained and imprisoned.”
Major Thomas B. Davis was appointed the director who was to enforce the Governor’s ukase. On the same day UMW President John L. Lewis told the country: “Peace will not be attained in Mingo County until the operators recognize the fundamental and recognized right of the miner to belong to a Union and to meet in peaceful assembly to discuss the problems and to bargain collectively.”
And the Buffalo, N.Y. Commercial, like many another newspaper, editorialized.
“The West Virginia miners have no doubt been easy prey for the Bolshevik propaganda of the labor demagogues. It should not be long before even the men lying in ambush in the hills realize that they are merely playing a dangerous game for enemies to their country.”
Attorneys for the UMW were quick to point out that the only military “force” in West Virginia was the Adjutant General. For the National Guard had been incorporated into the armed services during part of the regular Army. And the lawyers asserted that the martial law proclamation was invalid without a military force. The State Supreme Court considered the problem, and meanwhile the dictatorship in Mingo County continued. Morgan’s first proclamation was evidently not invalidated, but on June 27th the Governor issued another proclamation which fortified the first by creating a “West Virginia Enrolled Militia.” This, simply stated, was a draft of enough men to police Mingo County.
Specifically, Morgan’s second martial law proclamation authorized the drafting of 130 men in Mingo County, to be made into two military companies of 65 men each. Martial law continued, and under provision No. 9 of Morgan’s pronunciamento, the whole of which had the effect of suspending the state and federal constitutions in the affected area, miners were arrested for reading or being caught with copies of the United Mine Workers’ Journal or the Federationist, a labor publication from Charleston.
Shortly after the first in Mingo, Senator Johnson of Colorado introduced a resolution in Congress asking for an investigation of the Tug River area. Johnson evidently took this action at the request of the District 17 officials and attorneys who traveled to Washington for the purpose of securing such an inquiry. It will be noted that it was not the operators who asked that the real facts be brought to light. They were well content with the picture the outside world was receiving via the money-press whose owners were in sympathy with the coal barons.
Senator Johnson’s resolution was adopted on May 26, 1921, and a subcommittee of the Senate Education and Labor Committee was designated to visit West Virginia the following week. The Committee actually began hearings on July 14th, and this history could not have been written without a close study of the evidence it procured.
PHOTOS
The following images are rightly viewed as William C. Blizzard’s family album. The Blizzards – Ma, Timothy, Rae, Bill, and no few number of their kin and friends – did the heavy lifting for the United Mine Workers in West Virginia for nearly a half century. Without “young” William C. Blizzard who died in 2008 at the age of 92, they would be forgotten. Yet these hard working ordinary folks rose to the challenge to end the ruthless exploitation of the miners. They provide a critical beacon to future generations that leaders grow from the grass roots and are rarely, if ever, imposed from above.
Each of the following photos is from the William C. Blizzard Collection archived at Appalachian Community Services, unless individually noted.
Timothy and Rebecca Blizzard
Timothy and Rebecca Blizzard
Timothy worked in the mines of Cabin Creek for several years with his son Bill, only later to spend years suffering from black lung (also called “miner’s asthma”). Sarah Rebecca was known to join other women in tearing up railway track during the Cabin Creek/Paint Creek struggles in order to prevent coal operator’s gunmen from attacking their men folk from handcars. As a result, the women were penned up in a military confinement area.
Years later, to survive during the hard times of the ‘20's and ‘30's, she ran a roadside restaurant known as “Ma Blizzard’s". Back then hot dogs could be purchased at two for a nickel, including chili and slaw. Granddaughter Margie w
ould visit during her early teens and was instructed on how to pour the beer with lots of foam. This arrangement came to an abrupt halt as soon as father Bill Blizzard learned of his daughter’s new “skill.”
Timothy Blizzard (right) with brother Reese.
Bill Blizzard at about age 17 on Cabin Creek
Already active in UMW affairs, young Bill was also
“trapping” and performing other mine operations.
Lava Rae Cruikshank circa 1914
Future wife of Bill Blizzard
Young Bill and Rae out for a stroll
The Blizzard Family in the early 1920’s
Bill and Rae enjoying each other’s company
From the Collection of Dana Spitzer
Blizzard at the Bat-UMW defendants’ baseball team. Taken in Ranson, West Virginia, during the Charles Town trials. Umpire is Frank Snyder, team manager and also a defendant. He was also editor of the Labor Argus.
Original typewritten notes for photo on previous page
Blizzard breaks ground for a new Union hospital.
Bill Blizzard and other UMW officials as they leave Charleston, W.Va. to visit hospitals in the coalfields.
Bill and Rae Blizzard, Feb. l, 1941, on the day they became grandparents. Photo by William C. Blizzard.
William Blizzard, 65
William Blizzard, retired former President of UMW A District 17 with headquarters in Charleston, W. Va., died July 31 in Memorial Hospital, Charleston. He was 65.
He had been a patient in the hospital for five weeks. His death ended a two-year fight against cancer.
William Blizzard
The Internat ion al officers, President John L, Lewis, Vice President Thomas Kennnedy and Secrelary-Treasurer John Olsens, sent the following message of condolencc to Mrs. Blizzard:
“We are saddened to learn of the tragic passing of your distinguished husband and appreciate the burden of grief that it brings upon you and the members of your breaved family. He gave a lifetime of service lo the United Mine Workers of America and helped in the great work of perpetuating it as an enduring institution that has brought great rewards to countless numbers of the men engaged in the mining industry, The severance of the ties of a lifetime are hard to bear, but hope that the grief of you and your family may be lightened to some degree by the knowledge that your husband’s friends and associates grieve with you,”
Born in Kanawha County on September 19, 1992, Mr. Blizzard went lo work in the coal mines of the Mountain State when he was only ten years old. The Charleston Gazette, in a front page story on Mr. Blizzard’s death, referred to those early days as “a time when operators of many coal companies treated their employes as chattels.”
‘A Tough And Articulate Spokesman’
Mr, Blizzard became active in UMWA affairs when he was still a teenager. When he was still in his 20s he had taken his place
“As a coal miner, and as a union official, he was, as a newspaper described him, ‘a tough, articulate spokesman of workers’ demands'. As parent and as friend, he was gentle, kindly of temperament and generous. In the piomotion of the fundamental rights of labor he exhibited the spirit of a warrior; and the achieved and recognized rights of the laboring man and his Union in West Virginia will ever stand as a monument to his integrity, courage and tenacity of purpose and objective.
“A poet once aptly stated that:
‘To sit in silence when we should protest
Makes cowards out of men. The liuman race
Has climbed on protest. Had no voice been raised
Against injustice, ignorance and Just,
The Inquisition yet would serve the law
And guillotines decide our least disputes.
The few who dare must speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many…
’ William Blizzard was one of those who dared to
‘…. speak and speak again
To right the wrongs of many.’ ”
Above are the closing paragraphs of the glowing full page tribute to beloved Bill Blizzard, clipped from the August 15, 1958 issue of the United Mine Workers Journal.
Away with pious references
To patiriotism and prayer,
As the naked child is born
Let the truth lie warm and bare! If there is a thing to tell
Make if brief and write it plain.
Words were meant to shed a light,
Not to cover up again!
by Don West
Don and Connie West were longtime friends of author William C. Blizzard.
Chapter Seven: Liberty Will Yet Arise
1/9/1953 (Thirty-sixth)
The reaction of the coal miners to the unilateral action of Governor Morgan can be shown no better than by quoting fully from a letter signed by Fred Mooney, Secretary-Treasurer of the UMW District 17. According to the information this writer has received Mooney later developed into a “bad actor” and died a suicide. Nevertheless, this letter, written in early June, 1921, exemplifies perfectly the fighting attitude of the miners, as well as being informative in many other ways:
“TO THE LOCAL UNIONS OF DISTRICT NUMBER 17:
“Greetings:
“We take this method of keeping you informed concerning the recent development in Mingo County.
“Following the declaration of military dictatorship set up by Governor Morgan at the instigation and behest of a few coal operators, wholesale arrests and imprisonment of miners followed. Today the Mingo County jail is filled and eight or ten have been transferred to Huntington jail.
“A.D. Lavender and seven other miners have been taken to Welch in McDowell County. This is the same jail from which Frank Ingham was taken at midnight by Baldwin thugs in the guise of deputy sheriffs, beaten into insensibility and left for dead.
Cites Miners’ Enemies
“Every charge made against the politician prostitutes now misgoverning the state has been substantiated and in addition thereto, more atrocities are being committed than anyone ever predicted. Governor Morgan in a speech to the Rotary Club of Charleston sometime ago said that the uniformed body of Private Kackley who was killed in a drunken brawl in Mingo County, ‘was worth more than all the agitators in Mingo County.’ This was insinuating that the lives of four thousand Union men were worthless compared to the life of one man because he wore the uniform of the state.
“No one regrets that Private Kackley met death in the manner he did, more than we, but we disagree with the gentleman who had kicked the Constitution and Bill of Rights into discard. One miner is worth a thousand men in uniform because a miner produces and the man in uniform does not.
“In this struggle, the political prostitutes have the advantage of the workers because they have their publications through which they obtain publicity for their rabidly biased and corporation controlled opinions. These publications are closed to the workers. No expression of your side of the controversy will be admitted to the columns of the daily press. In addition to the support of the daily press, the pawns of coal and steel now ravishing the state are supported by the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Clubs, the American Legion, the Y.M.C.A., the Kiwanis Club, the Steel Combine, and in many instances, self-styled ministers of the gospel ally themselves with the open shoppers as some did in Williamson. One minister declared in the law and order meeting that he did not know much about a rifle, but he knew he could use one like a baseball bat.
Daily Mail Attacked
“The editor of the Charleston Daily Mail spouted at length in his ‘At This Hour’ column on May the 25th, concerning labor leaders and the decency of his paper. This editor of Alaskan effigy fame (Mooney here refers to the late Charleston Daily Mail owner Walter Eli Clark, who was Governor of Alaska from 1909 to 1913. It was asserted by many that Clark had left Alaska in something of a hurry, and that irate citizens of the Territory had burned him in effigy after his departure – -Ed.) should look up the word ‘decency’ in the dictionary and learn its meaning before he attempt
s to criticize even the physically deaf, mentally dumb, or morally blind, and he should tell the people that he was run out of Alaska between two suns for participation in graft. Now he is here in the state of West Virginia assuming the role of a dictator. Let him clear up his own record before he assumes to criticize people whom he knows nothing about. Let the miners hold their forces intact whatever happens and remember that sham battles do not make good soldiers and a point fought for and gained is worth everything in the world (rather than) if it be handed down to us on a silver platter, and even though the strikers of Mingo County are shot down in cold blood by the hirelings of the Coal Operators and the Steel Trust as they were at Stanaford Mountain in 1902, Holly Grove in 1912-1913, Ludlow, Colorado, in 1913, and even though these corporation hirelings and murderers are supported, protected and defended by pawns of the interests in state government, we will win. The spirit of the strikers in Mingo County cannot be broken by military dictatorships set up by corporation hirelings. Expect anything! For if they think they can get by with it, these ravishers of liberty will commit the same atrocities in Mingo County that were committed at Stanaford Mountain in 1902, Holly Grove and Ludlow in 1912-1913, and no one is responsible but the workers. These corporation dupes only do what you empower them to do with your ballot, and every injustice heaped upon the workers as a class is brought about by themselves. Every abuse of power by men who are supposed to administer the law in an impartial manner is attributable to the negligence of the working class.
“President Keeney, Secretary Mooney, Board Member Workman, Sid Hatfield, and many others will face the federal court in Charleston on June 21st for the alleged violation of an injunction.
When Miners March Page 14