Sun man in sending it in. "I went to West Virginia absolutely
unprejudiced, with the idea of telling the truth about the situation. I
found conditions I did not believe could exist in America, and I am no
novice in the newspaper game, having seen some pretty raw things in my
time. I told the truth about them, and am afraid I have gotten myself
disliked."_
_The fairness of the article is disputed by Neil Robinson, secretary of
the West Virginia Mining Association. His protest is published in the
forepart of the magazine._--Ed.]
For nearly a year a state of turmoil amounting in practical effects to a
civil war has existed in the coal fields of West Virginia. The situation
centers in the Kanawha Valley, hardly more than twenty miles from
Charleston, the capital of the state.
The military power of the state has been used with only temporary
effect; martial law has been declared and continues in force; the
governor of the state has been defied and denounced from the state house
steps and within his hearing; men and women have been thrown into prison
and are still there for espousing the cause of the miners, and the grim
hillsides of the canons in which the mines are situated are dotted with
the graves of men who have been arrayed against one another in this
conflict between capital and labor.
Of course, there have been errors and excesses on both sides. The men in
the mines are not angels by any means, and neither are the men for whose
profit they work. But there has been no profit on either side for the
last year and it looks as if there would be none for a long time to
come. The men of both sides are pretty good fellows away from the mines
and the subject of mining; on the matter of mining, they show the
obstinacy of men who look at a proposition from but one point of view,
who see no justification of the position of those who oppose them and
who seem to have lost absolutely the sense of proportion.
If the efforts made by William B. Wilson, former Congressman from
Pennsylvania and former secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers
of America, to have a federal investigation of the situation early in
the struggle, had been successful, the whole matter might have been
settled long since. But his resolution calling for a congressional
investigation was buried at the last session of Congress and was never
resurrected.
Wilson charged that a condition of peonage existed in the mines and that
men were held there by force and compelled to work against their will.
The coal operators denied this vehemently, at the same time fighting
bitterly a federal inquiry. Evidence I was able to gather on a trip of
investigation to the mines convinced me that a form of peonage does, or
did, exist; that the miners were oppressed; that the rights guaranteed
under the constitution were denied them; that the protection of the law
of the state was withheld from them and the law openly defied and
ignored by the coal operators. These things were done, apparently, not
because the operators were cruel, but--the old story of
dividends--because they thought it necessary that a balance be shown on
the right side of the ledger, and because competitive conditions in the
coal fields were such that more of this balance had to be produced from
the men themselves than from the bleak hills in which they toil.
The investigation is bound to come. Wilson is a cabinet member in the
new administration, and could of his own volition carry it on under the
broad terms of the act creating the new federal Department of Labor. But
there is another agency which may look into the situation. When fellow
members of the lower house balked Congressman Wilson's proposal, he
interested Senator Borah of Idaho and the latter promised to introduce
into the Senate, at the coming special session, a resolution calling for
a full and complete investigation, by a committee of the Senate, of the
whole situation in the West Virginia coal mines, including the question
of peonage, the use of mine guards and other means of oppression. This
would be a Senate resolution, it would not have to be concurred in by
the House of Representatives, and it is understood that Secretary Wilson
has votes enough pledged to pass it.
Even the close of the strike which has been rumored the past fortnight
would not make such a fundamental inquiry during the spring and summer
inopportune, but rather a measure of precaution in anticipation of
future labor conflicts in the region. The fact that such an inquiry has
been actively contemplated is not generally known; information about it
has not been published in the newspapers, but has been given me for use
in THE SURVEY.
_Backward View of the Trouble_
The Kanawha trouble dates back about ten years. At that time the miners'
condition was good, as things go for men in the coal fields, and the
miners along Cabin Creek were organized. An ill-advised strike was
called then, and it resulted in a disastrous defeat for the miners. This
strike was ordered by officials of the union against the desire of the
miners directly affected and it is charged by Cabin Creek miners that it
was declared in the interest of the Ohio operators who desired to
cripple their West Virginia competitors. Some of these operators have
since admitted that they helped finance the strike. As long as the
trouble lasted, operators in competitive fields could gobble the
business of operators whose plants were shut down. Of course, after the
men had been beaten and the strike broken and non-union conditions and
wage scales went into effect, the competition was more bitter than it
had been before, yet the pickings were good while they lasted. That,
however, is all ancient history.
Ever since the strike of a decade ago the men on Cabin Creek have been
restless. Conditions were burdensome although they were not so bad on
Paint Creek which was organized. The operators were out after business
and they cut prices on coal to the limit in order to meet the
competition of Illinois, Ohio and western Pennsylvania operators and get
a share of the "lake trade." For the driving force behind this civil war
in the hills of West Virginia is to be found in the coal bins of 10,000
factories of the Middle West and beyond whose managers and workmen know
little or nothing of the struggle.
By "lake trade" is meant the coal that goes to ports on Lake Erie for
transportation by steamer and barge to Detroit and as far as Duluth and
Superior for distribution throughout the Northwest. All the trade that
passes over the lakes, no matter what its ultimate destination, is known
as the "lake trade." The Pittsburgh operators have held that the opening
of the West Virginia fields was an economic blunder, that the lake
demand was no greater than Pittsburgh and Ohio could supply, and that it
was a mistake for the West Virginia operators to enter that field. The
latter took the position that they had the coal, and did not propose to
let it remain undeveloped because it would interfere with the market of
the operators of other fields. They would mine their coal and would sell
it wherever they could, and if they could grab a big share of the lake
trade they proposed to do it. It has been a battle of millions.
To strengthen their position the Pennsylvania operators have bought
large blocks of West Virginia coal lands. The Lackawanna Coal Company
has, for example, secured control of the principal operations on Paint
Creek.
The operators in the Ohio, Illinois, and most of the Pennsylvania
fields, get out their coal under terms as to hours and wages imposed by
their agreements with the United Mine Workers. In order to be in a
position to meet the growing competition of the West Virginia fields on
an even footing in the matter of labor, it is an open secret, that they
have given aid and comfort to the union in the effort to organize the
West Virginia field. They have been fighting on the other hand for a
reduction in their own freight rates or an increase in those of their
West Virginia competitors, they did not care which, as the consumer
finally pays the bill. Until a comparatively recent time, the rate from
the Pittsburgh district to Ashtabula and Cleveland has been 88 cents a
ton, while to Toledo and Sandusky, the rates from the West Virginia
field have been 97 cents and $1.12 a ton.
Something more than a year ago the pressure on the railroads became so
great that a meeting of the officers of the coal carrying roads and the
operators from the Pittsburgh and the West Virginia districts was held
in New York in an effort to settle the difficulty. No agreement could be
reached and the roads, unable to resist the pressure of the Pittsburgh
operators advanced the rate from the West Virginia fields 9-1/4 cents,
making the differential in favor of the Pittsburgh field 18-1/4 instead
of 9 cents.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Underwood and Underwood._
CONFISCATED ARMS AND AMMUNITION
The revolvers and rifles were taken from both mine guards and strikers]
The West Virginia operators appealed to the Interstate Commerce
Commission for an investigation, and an order suspending the rate was
granted. Then John W. Boilleau, a big operator in Pennsylvania, demanded
a reduction of 50 or 55 cents a ton from the Pittsburgh district,
further complicating the situation. Early last year, the Interstate
Commerce Commission handed down a decision reducing the rate from the
Pittsburgh district 10 cents and held that the Chesapeake and Ohio and
the Kanawha and Michigan rates should remain as they had been but that
the Norfolk and Western rate might be increased. This decision resulted
in increasing the differential in favor of Pittsburgh to 19 cents.
With this handicap in freight rates, the operators on Paint and Cabin
creeks say that it is impossible for them to pay the union scale and
submit to union conditions and keep going. It is a fact that although
the average price of coal in West Virginia for 1911 was a cent above the
price in 1910, many coal companies failed. Some mines have been operated
by receivers while others have been closed down on the ground that coal
cannot be produced at the mouth of the mines and put on the cars at the
price it brings in the market. Others are just about coming out even
while some are making money.
_Profits from Mine or Men?_
The strikers answer by charging that the losses and difficulties
incident to competition are many of them paper losses and paper
difficulties, that the mines would pay well under union conditions and
rates of pay if the mines were not working on an inflated capitalization
and were not endeavoring to earn money on a lot of watered stock.
In one of the talks which I had with Neil Robinson, secretary of the
West Virginia Mining Association, he went into the cost of production
and told of the efforts of the Pittsburgh operators to shut the West
Virginia coals out of the lake trade. He produced the calculations of G.
W. Schleuderberg, general manager of the Pittsburgh Coal Company, which
were given in the lake rate cases before the Interstate Commerce
Commission, showing that the average cost of production in 52 mines,
including general office expenses, depreciation, royalty, fuel,
supplies, and labor, was 99.09 cents per ton of coal on cars.
As against this, he showed a generalized statement, which he said was
based on actual working conditions in the Kanawha splint coal mines
indicating a cost of 99.11 cents on cars, a difference of two hundredths
of a cent in favor of the Pittsburgh operators.
The Schleuderberg figures showed a total labor cost of 72.16 cents a
ton while Mr. Robinson's figures showed for the Kanawha fields a labor
cost of 65.66 cents a ton, a difference in favor of the Kanawha fields
of 6.5 cents, and if superintendence and certain other costs be
included, a cost of 63.78 cents, which is a per ton difference in favor
of the Kanawha fields of 3.38 cents. This would more than cover the
increase asked by the miners which is half of the Cleveland compromise
scale or approximately 2-1/2 cents a ton.
[Illustration: _Courtesy of the Coal Age_
ON GUARD
A Cabin Creek rifle-woman before her tent.]
Of course, there is the railroad differential in favor of Pittsburgh to
be considered. In spite of the differential of 9 cents against the West
Virginia field, which existed up to the time of the settlement of the
lake trade cases by the Interstate Commerce Commission, the West
Virginia operators shipped in 1910 to lake ports more than six million
tons of coal, a growth of over four million tons since 1906; or 125 per
cent and even with the differential spread to 19 cents, they are
shipping coal as rapidly as they can mine it.
The explanation of the Kanawa Valley miners is that in their efforts to
capture the Lake Trade the West Virginia operators in competing with the
Pittsburgh district operators have been selling coal at less than cost
and making their profits out of their men.
The miners told me that ever since the fight began their condition has
been becoming harder and harder to bear. One of the men, answering my
statement that the operators said they were barely meeting expenses
said: "Damn it, I know there is no money in coal at 80 cents at the
tipple; any fool knows that, but by God, they've got no right to take it
out of us."
And that in my judgment is about the truth of the situation. Or, as Neil
Robinson explained to me in all seriousness: "Labor is simply a pawn in
the game."
Yet the game has cost the state, the operators and the miners millions
of dollars and many lives, has caused untold hardship to women and their
children, has engendered a bitterness that a generation in time will not
heal and hatreds that will last a lifetime.
In making that statement, I am convinced that Mr. Robinson did not know
how it would sound to one who puts the well-being of men, women and
children above the necessity of capital for dividends. He was simply
stating a business fact. I had several talks with him in the course of
my stay in the mine region and found him a cultivated, courteous man. I
think I got his point of view which coincides with that of the operators
generally. They seem to look upon labor as material, to be bought as
cheaply as possible and to be utilized in the manner which will be most
profitable to the mine investments.
Whenever I went in to see him to discuss the situation he immediately
produced account books, and books of statistics and began giving me
figures. The whole case of the operators, he seemed to think, could be
shown by the books and the balance sheet. He told me of tonnage, cost of
production, railroad freight rates, yield on investment, the yield of
competitive fields and the cost of operation in those fields,
capitalization and rates of dividends. But of the human side, he had
substantially nothing to say. Of the outrages of the miners--and they
have been numerous--he spoke with bitterness, but of the outrages
committed upon them he was silent.
Of course, figures such as Mr. Robinson produced are important but they
are not everything. The trouble is that the operators do not seem to be
able to see beyond them into those desolate little cabins under the
everlasting hills, to the rights of men, to the causes that make for
anarchy--that have made for anarchy, in this very region.
_The State at Stake_
It is hard to tell just how many men have been out in recent months.
Five thousand would be a fair estimate. And remarkable as it is, these
men have been able to hold out through a winter--and winters are severe
in those West Virginia mountains--and they enter the spring and the long
season, when cold does not fight them from the ranks of their opponents,
full of cheer and determined to continue the industrial war in which
they have engaged.
It must be remembered that this fight is not simply one between miners
and operators on Paint and Cabin Creeks. It is localized there, but
every miner and every operator in the state is involved more or less
directly. It is really a fight for the unionizing of the entire coal
fields of West Virginia, now largely non union.
If the operators stamp out the effort to restore unionism on Paint and
Cabin Creeks and prevent its going further than it has already gone on
Coal River it will mean the checkmating of unionism in the coal fields
of the state. Fights will be made, one after another, in places where
the United Mine Workers have organizations and they will be broken up as
they were broken up on Cabin Creek ten years ago. Once broken, they will
not be permitted to be formed again.
If, on the other hand, the miners win, their organization will be pushed
first into one field, then into another, until the whole state shall
have been unionized. It will take them years to do this. This explains
the extreme bitterness of the present fight, each side practically
staking its all on this one throw. Of course, the operators do not admit
that they are battling to crush out unionism in the state and the
officials of the mine workers' organization do not talk much about
extending the fight to other fields if they win in this. That is their
purpose, nevertheless.
The miners are receiving assistance from other operators in non-union
parts of the state. All the resources of the United Mine Workers of
America are being thrown behind the miners. As explained to me by
perhaps the most prominent man in the organization a few days ago, there
is now no big fight on hand anywhere else in the country, and there has
been none for a year. This has enabled the mine workers to collect a big
fund and they are still collecting. The organization's war chest is kept
in good shape by contributions from every mining district in the nation
and all this will be poured into the Kanawha field if necessary. In
addition to this, the miners again have the sympathy, if not the active
co-operation, of the operators in the Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio
fields where the union scale is paid.
In fact, the operators in the fields which are organized look upon their
brothers who have been able to prevent the union getting a hold in their
operations very much as the union laborer looks upon the non-union
laborer, although the operator is not so frank in expressing his
opinion. He is perfectly willing to upset the labor conditions in his
competitors' operations and aid the laborers in making their fights. And
the operator in the unorganized field is perfectly willing to see his
competitors' fields organized to the limit.
The country in which this war between the miners and the coal companies
is taking place is as wild as any that lies out of doors. Cabin Creek
Junction is sixteen miles east of Charleston and Paint Creek Junction is
seven miles further east. On Cabin Creek the railroad runs south along
the bed of the creek sixteen miles to Kayford while on Paint Creek the
road extends for twenty-two miles. These creeks are little streams,
ordinarily, which sometimes reach the proportions of torrents, flowing
along the bases of the mountains. The elevation of the creek beds above
tide ranges from 800 to 1,000 feet, while the tops of the hills which
rise abruptly on both sides of each creek are from 1,000 to 1,500 feet
higher. The sides of these hills are so steep that only an experienced
mountaineer can climb them, yet here and there near the creek beds the
miners have raised little patches of corn and vegetables.
[Illustration: MOTHER JONES]
The workable veins of coal lie high up on the sides of these hills, and
from each mine mouth a track leads to the coal tipple below from which
the coal is dumped from the mine cars to the cars of the railroad which
runs beneath the tipple. Here and there at the base of either of these
ravines is a narrow strip of flat land, and on these flats, the mining
villages are located. At places the bottom of the ravine is so narrow
that there is not room for the railroad track, the creek bed and the
county road, so the road runs along the bed of the creek and is
impassable at times of high water and oftentimes in the winter.
It is estimated that before the strike began, there were approximately
10,000 men, women and children living along Cabin Creek and somewhat
more than half that number along Paint Creek. A train runs up each creek
in the morning and there is another in the afternoon and if you happen
to miss the afternoon train out there is no way out except to walk, and
walking is very difficult in that country.
[Illustration: MINERS' HOMES LEASED FROM MINE OWNERS
_Courtesy of the New York Sun_]
For that reason little real news of the exact condition of affairs has
reached the outside world. Newspaper men are decidedly unwelcome along
the creeks; that is, their presence is distasteful to the mine owners.
Few strangers had been allowed to enter the creeks for a long time prior
to the entry of the militia last summer, without explaining their
business to some man, and usually a man with a gun. Ordinarily a
stranger would not get beyond the junction of the main line and the
branch road. If the explanation of his business did not happen to be
satisfactory, he was told to get out. If he demurred or showed a
disposition to argue he was frequently beaten up. If he got up the line,
his chances of getting beaten up were largely increased. One labor
organizer told me that a couple of years ago he was pulled off a train
and kicked into insensibility by the mine guards and when he recovered
was made to "walk the creek" in water up to his waist because he had
gone up Cabin Creek to see what the labor conditions were.
_The Mine Guards_
These mine guards are an institution all along the creeks in the
non-union sections of the state. They are as a rule supplied by the
Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency of Roanoke and Bluefield. It is said the
total number in the mining regions of West Virginia reaches well up to
2,500. Ordinarily they are recruited from the country towns of Virginia
and West Virginia, preferably the towns in the hill country, and
frequently have been the "bad men" of the towns from which they came.
And these towns have produced some pretty hard characters. The ruffian
of the West Virginia town would not take off his hat to the desperado of
the wildest town of the wildest west.
These Baldwin guards who are engaged by the mining companies to do their
"rough work" take the place of the Pinkertons who formerly were used for
such work by the coal companies. Since the Homestead strike in the steel
mills years ago when the Pinkertons fired into the strikers and killed a
number of them, this class of business has gradually drifted away from
the Pinkertons and much of it has been acquired by the Baldwin-Felts
agency.
In explanation of the employment of these guards, the operators say that
their property must be guarded, that the state does not give them
sufficient protection. Men who do service as mine guards cannot be
expected to be "ladylike." They deal with desperate characters and are
constantly in peril. The guards act on the principle that they must
strike first if they are to strike at all, and evidence shows that they
have not the slightest hesitancy about striking first. The operators
also say that it is necessary to require explanations of strangers in
order to keep out labor agitators and to prevent the miners from being
annoyed and threatened by them.
No class of men on earth are more cordially hated by the miners than
these same mine guards who are engaged to "protect" them from annoyance
by outsiders. Before the state troops went into the region and took
their rifles away from them, the mine guards went about everywhere, gun
in hand, searching trains, halting strangers, ejecting undesirables,
turning miners out of their houses and doing whatever "rough work" the
companies felt they needed to have done. Stories of their brutality are
told on every hand along the creeks. Some are unquestionably
exaggerated, but the truth of many can be proved and has been proved.