2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe Second Civil War
This weekend marks the anniversary of the most brutal confrontation in the history of the American labor movement, the Battle of Blair Mountain. For one week during 1921, armed, striking coal miners battled scabs, a private militia, police officers and the US Army. 100 people died, 1,000 were arrested, and one million shots were fired. It was the largest armed rebellion in America since the Civil War.
This is how it happened. In the Twenties, West Virginia coal miners lived in company towns. The mining companies owned all the property. They literally ran union organizers out of town or killed them.
In 1912, in a strike at Paint Creek, the mining company forced the striking miners and their families out of their homes, to live in tents. Then they sent armed goons into that tent city, and opened fire on men, women and children there with a machine gun.
By 1920, the United Mine Workers had organized the northern mines in West Virginia, but they were barred from the southern mines. When southern miners tried to join the union, they were fired and evicted. To show who was boss, one mining company tried to place machine guns on the roofs of buildings in town.
In Matewan, when the coal company goons came to town to take it upon themselves to enforce eviction notices, the mayor and the sheriff asked them to leave. The goons refused. Incredibly, the goons tried to arrest the sheriff, Sheriff Hatfield. Shots were fired, and the mayor and nine others were killed. But the company goons had to flee.
The government sided with the coal companies, and put Sheriff Hatfield on trial for murder. The jury acquitted him. Then they put the sheriff on trial for supposedly dynamiting a non-union mine. As the sheriff walked up the courthouse steps to stand trial again, unarmed, company goons shot him in cold blood. In front of his wife.
This led to open confrontations between miners on one hand, and police and company goons on the other. 13,000 armed miners assembled, and marched on the southern mines in Logan and Mingo Counties. They confronted a private militia of 2,000, hired by the coal companies.
President Harding was informed. He threatened to send in troops and even bombers to break the union. Many miners turned back, but then company goons started killing unarmed union men, and some armed miners pushed on. The militia attacked armed miners, and the coal companies hired airplanes to drop bombs on them. The US Army Air Force, as it was known then, observed the miners positions from overhead, and passed that information on to the coal companies.
The miners actually broke through the militias defensive perimeter, but after five days, the US Army intervened, and the miners stood down. By that time, 100 people were dead. Almost a thousand miners then were indicted for murder and treason. No one on the side of the coal companies was ever held accountable.
The Battle of Blair Mountain showed that the miners could not defeat the coal companies and the government in battle. But then something interesting happened: the miners defeated the coal companies and the government at the ballot box. In 1925, convicted miners were paroled. In 1932, Democrats won both the State House and the White House. In 1935, President Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act. Eleven years after the Battle of Blair Mountain, the United Mine Workers organized the southern coal fields in West Virginia.
The Battle of Blair Mountain did not have a happy ending for Sheriff Hatfield, or his wife, or the 100 men, women and children who died, or the hundreds who were injured, or the thousands who lost their jobs. But it did have a happy ending for the right to organize, and the middle class, and America.
Now let me ask you one thing: had you ever heard of this landmark event in American history, the Battle of Blair Mountain, before you read this? And if not, then why not? Think about that.
Courage,
Alan Grayson
brush
(53,863 posts)Last edited Mon Aug 27, 2012, 10:24 AM - Edit history (1)
Alan Grayson is a truth teller and we need him in a more prominent position in the Democratic party. I've been pro union forever but I've never heard of this battle. It's certainly not taught in history classes and I'm guessing the reason for that is it would open peoples' eyes to what union members in the past sacrificed to help build the once proud and strong middle class that had good jobs that paid living wages. The repugs, starting with Reagan, sat out to break the unions and they've been successful, with the help of many uninformed workers voting for them against their own economic interests.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Indeed, there's a reason for that. If you listen to the corporate media talking heads like Friedman at the NYT, until lately Americans have always been Centrists and gotten along in bipartisan bliss. It's those socialist Europeans who squabble and create Welfare States. Unity under authority, everyone in their place - that's what made us The Greatest!
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)I have been trying to get through that book for years, and I'm sure to read it now.
I had not previously heard of this fascist led atrocity until this time! It would appear that this should be added to the history on which I'm "brushing up"!
We all remember the 150 anniversary of the Civil War, and certainly should remember this "Second Civil War".
Also, we cannot let votes be suppressed, which I view as a 3rd civil war coming...
JourneyAmerica
(2 posts)Here's a link to the photos I got last summer in Blair during the anniversary re-creation of the original march. http://tinyurl.com/bqtnwa6
Blessings
Jerry Nelson
JourneyAmerica.org
peacebird
(14,195 posts)rosesaylavee
(12,126 posts)that told at least part of this story. Matewan was the title. And I don't think I have seen this replayed for years despite the all star cast it had.
http://dvd.netflix.com/Search?v1=Matewan&ac_abs_posn=1&fcld=true&ac_rel_posn=1&ac_category_type=movie&raw_query=Matewan&raw_query=Matewan
Good point. Why is this information not in the standard history books?
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)"History is written by the conquerors"
a phrase attributed to Churchill but of unknown origin.
xtraxritical
(3,576 posts)Maybe it was in our history books because I'm from Chicago and we were well aware of Haymarket Square and union organizing. I used to be in the Retail Clerks union, I don't know if that even exists anymore. I wish unions could make a come back.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)The story of the miners strggle for decent working conditions back in 1920. Culminating in the Matewan massacre.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101751767
rosesaylavee
(12,126 posts)NoMoreWarNow
(1,259 posts)Maybe the only way to wake people up.
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)heaven05
(18,124 posts)yes I had. My union organizer friend told me about it over coffee in Gratzi's in the 80's in Ann Arbor. I hadn't thought about that in years, and he was always enraged because of the one telling line in your writing, "the GOVERNMENT sided with the coal companies". always has, always will. Those shot down men, women and CHILDREN could not stand in the way of PROFIT AND CONTROL OF THE MASSES. Robme and aynryan will try to take us back to those glorious days of yesteryear.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)scandal makes Halliburton and Blackwater (AKA 'Xe') look like choirboys by comparison.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teapot_Dome_scandal
LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)Now the company owners are destroying those hard-won rights, step by step, negotiation giveback by negotiation giveback. Most Americans don't even realize the benefits they enjoy thanks to the martyrs of the labor movement.
Labor's losses began with Ray-gun's destruction of the air traffic controllers union, and have worsened ever since.
One of the biggest disappointments was the inability to organize computer and information technology workers across the U.S. If they had joined unions on a massive scale, I think we would not have seen the corporate outsourcing and insourcing of these jobs to cheap foreign workers, which resulted in lower salaries and widespread job insecurity in the IT field.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)In California, the government went so far as to write special wage and hour regulations for programmers that gave companies the ability to require things of that group of employees that they could not have demanded from other workers.
But the computer workers just accepted that. What a huge mistake. Now so many of them are out of work or underpaid and underemployed. And the jobs have been outsourced.
Failing to join a union is hubris at its most self-defeating.
NeeDeep
(120 posts)against the very people they are sworn to protectthis is what you get. A book could be written on jaw-dropping republican decisions to not care about the human condition. Let's see: obstruction and delay in preparedness for WWII, obstructing every significant piece of federal legislation that would help Americans lives - social security, medicare, medicaid, equal rights. Why do they march in lock-step obstructing empathetic expression thru democracy? Because they have no ability to experience empathy, never developed, no hardware or software running! And we just keep treating them as if they were fully human, big mistake.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)All they needed was the fable of "Free Trade", fancy marketing, and smooth talking politicians to destroy Organized LABOR and the American Middle Class.
QED
The Giant Invisible Hand HATES Human Rights and Environmental Protections,
but LOVES him some RICH People.
Sigh.
That was all we needed.
Another religion demanding Blind Faith Obedience to an Invisible Deity.
[font size=3]The Graven Image on the altar of the Church of the Invisible Hand[/font]
[font size=5 color=firebrick]Solidarity99[/font]
zeemike
(18,998 posts)And how true that is...and so dovetails with the story of the golden calf and the worship of Mammon.
And so totally ignored by the religious right wing.
James48
(4,440 posts)Which side are you on?
fascisthunter
(29,381 posts)The poor little rich man, and his establishment are the victims.
This bit of history is the "Tip of the Iceberg", leading listeners and readers to a more oppressive truth, that they have been lied to, and that they too are the victims of the poor little rich man and his establishment.
hue
(4,949 posts)truth2power
(8,219 posts)probably get it from Amazon; I'll look.
Anyway, I don't think your average American has heard about Matewan/Blair Mountain.
I suppose one should ask why American high school students don't learn about the history of the American labor movement in their social studies classes.
I can pull the social studies curriculum off our school district's website and I'd bet there's no unit on the above.
Here's the Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/MATEWAN-John-Sayles-Widescreen-Version/dp/B001USQU4G/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1345996468&sr=1-2&keywords=matewan
There are several versions - some possibly cheaper. Don't have time to check it out now.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,040 posts)abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)Heather MC
(8,084 posts)Did have Jerry Falwell in them but no Malcolm X and the only contribution of blacks was slavery and the civil rights movement
and Africans didn't have a culture they needed the Whiteman to bring them God Religion and Civilization
Yep that's what I was taught in Lynchburg VA!!!
Dustlawyer
(10,497 posts)get our Democracy back. We have seen with the OWS that they will have the Goons (cops) bash heads again. They have both parties and the Judiciary and have made it legal to buy them. They write the laws to suit their needs. The powerful rarely go to jail or even get charged. They own the media so the truth only goes out to those with the ability, resources and motivation to go online and check. They move to consolidate incrementally so that we get used to it. Right now they have come out with their hearts desire, tax cuts for them and our social welfare money, including SS, and even more military! They know they cannot take it all yet so they scare us with Rmoney/Ryan so we will be grateful for Obama, even though he mysteriously has kept Gitmo, rendition, conceded single payer before he came to negotiate, etc. He is there throwing a few bones around to stay somewhat believable, but they will keep the House so he has an excuse. Wonder why Harry Reed did not take away the Filibuster when he had the chance? Wall Street has been stealing us all blind for decades and no one goes to jail. Dodd/Frank is not Glass /Stegal. There is too much freaking money for them not to keep going! Wake the F up!
ancianita
(36,133 posts)I highly recommend Sayles' movie, "Matewan."
leftyohiolib
(5,917 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)Generic Other
(28,979 posts)even today. Thank you so much for commemorating.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)so that no one may follow their example.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)Roosevelt sent his wife to deal with the bonus army.
Thanks for the reminder Alan!
iamthebandfanman
(8,127 posts)from coal permits.
we risk losing all this history PERMANENTLY
Martin Eden
(12,875 posts)Indeed.
philly_bob
(2,419 posts)Mosaic
(1,451 posts)Hide this stuff. We must eradicate the cancer of secret societies. Will you lead the way Grayson? Some one must.
tclambert
(11,087 posts)Thought I was pretty well educated, too.
Duppers
(28,127 posts)But I think DUers are far better informed than the average John Q.
AllyCat
(16,222 posts)takes my breath away.
gopiscrap
(23,765 posts)in fact there should be a required course at both high school and college levels on labor history IMHO
AsahinaKimi
(20,776 posts)Thank you for posting it. I am sure there must be a lot of events home and abroad that have been kept silent down though the years. I have always loved the subject of History when I was in high school. It was my best subject. Its important too these kinds of events are put out there, so people learn from them.. so the mistakes of the past, are not repeated in the future.
GEOpix
(65 posts)In 1975, at Rutgers - Newark (NJ) my labor history professor - Prof. E.R.Mc Kinney - told us first hand about the battle. He was already in his 80's at the time, but he told us the story of how he took part in that battle, and others in Pennsylvania when he worked as a union organizer during that period. It has been claimed by some labor historians that more Americans have been killed in labor strife than in the Civil War. The bloody history for workers rights bears witness to that fact.
Citizen Worker
(1,785 posts)Everett Massacre, the lynching in Chehalis, WA, the Palmer Raids following WW I and led by a democrat, Bloody Tuesday on the westcoast waterfront and there was the Seattle General Strike to name just a few of the massacres perpetrated by corporations with government troops and support.
stlsaxman
(9,236 posts)Maw Kettle
(41 posts)I heard about this a few years ago on the History Channel's documentary called "Hillbilly: The Real Story," narrated by Billy Ray Cyrus. They actually went to the site of the battle and gave details of the battle and told the story in great detail. I had never heard of it in history class, though, when I was in high school.
The Wizard
(12,547 posts)but the corporate elites own the megaphone. A two tiered system of lords and serfs will ultimately fail. Slavery whether the slaves are owned or rented by the hour is immoral and will lead to civil unrest.
Let's hope the wealthy elites come to their senses before there are guillotines and head baskets in every city, village and hamlet.
A government of, by and for the corporate elites will perish from the Earth. A fair distribution of the wealth through living wage jobs will grow the middle class and ensure we can sustain as a culture and a country. The alternative is anti American and unacceptable.
And we though the brownshirts were defeated in WW II.
happyslug
(14,779 posts)I went to a Suburban School in the late 1960s and early 1970s and always wondered why I was exposed to more African American subjects in that school then when I moved into the Pittsburgh Public Schools when I was in High School. I always explained the difference on my suburban school district getting the African American subject matters free from the state (This was right AFTER the 1966-1968 Race riots in Pittsburgh).
Recently I found out I had been wrong the reason was internal to that School District. During the 1928 Coal Strike, my suburban school had been a rural mining area with several coal patches (I lived in one when I was in that Suburban School District, by the time I lived in the coal patch, suburban track housing had long become the norm and where most of my fellow students lived). The Grade School I had attended had been built in 1929, do to the fact the old school had been shot to pieces during the 1928 Coal strike.
The incident is unclear, the only reports I have read was Newspaper accounts from the Pittsburgh Press Which I found on line (I was looking for something else when I ran across the subject). I have NOT found any other source, but it is clear a shooting took place, that it was between strikers who were in the school and African Americans who were walking along the railroad tracks about 100 yards away from the school. Bullets hit the school, and these had to be fired by the African Americans, but the real issue where the African Americans defending themselves from gun fire from the school (The mine owners position) or did the African Americans open fire on the strikers first (The position of the Strikers AND the County Sheriff in addition to the Local Justice of the Peace who presided over the subsequent legal action involved).
Without getting into details, such incidents were common during that strike. The Children of Striking Coal Miners were denied the right to go to schools in most schools where the strike was occurring (Children of Miners NOT on strike were permitted to go to School). In Broughton, it appears the Striking Miners wanted the School open to their children so their occupied it to make sure it was open to EVERY CHILD. The Mine owners resented this and hired people to drive them out (Most such thugs were more then ready to kill people, but were NOT about to risk being killed). The tension between the Strikers and the Coal Mine Owners were at a breaking point when African Americas appear on the scene as Strike Breakers. The Strikers viewed the African Americans as allied with the hired goons of the Mine Owners and treated them the same. Thus the incident occurred, who shot first is unknown and unknowable today.
The FIRST Report of the "Riot" on 2-2-1928
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=djft3U1LymYC&dat=19280203&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
2-4-1928 Report on the School Shooting:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=rjkbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MUoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4546,3386103&dq=broughton-school+shooting&hl=en
More on the Broughton Affair:
Article from the 2-12-1928 Piitsburgh Press:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=s0gbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Q0oEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5042,241013&dq=broughton-school&hl=en
On 2-1-1928 The Press even reported on the Governor, who is reported as an "Coal Operator" i.e. coal mine owner, but he even aknowledged that the Coal and Iron Police had to much power for a Police force paid for by Mine owners and other business (It also explains why on 2-12-1928 the Governor reports said the Strikers did it while all the witnesses said it was the Strike Breakers):
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=djft3U1LymYC&dat=19280202&printsec=frontpage&hl=en
The Broughton riot was so bad, the US Senate ever held hearings on it, but mostly on how bad the conditions were among the miners:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=JQRXAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0kINAAAAIBAJ&pg=1587,6565791&dq=broughton+%26+bruceton&hl=en
Such incidents were common throughout the coal strike area. Most times it was miners being fired on for trying to get their Children to school. As noted above after the Strike the White Coal miners tended to stay and the African American being forced out. The memories of that strike reinforced any latent racism among such white coal miners, and it was extensive among in the old coal patches.
The late 1960s was only 40 years after the 1928 strike, roughly the same time between the late 1960s and now. We have people today who remember LBJ and the Vietnam war. We have people who remember the Civil Right marches of the 1960s. The same level of knowledge existed in 1968, they remembered the 1928 strike AND the huge increase in racism it produced in the old Coal Patches. Thus the people in control of the School District remembered the Strike and the Racism it produced and tired to address it WITHOUT bringing up the Strike.
Thus I NEVER heard of the Strike or the School Shooting while in that school, and students in that School still probably never hear or read of it. No one ever mentions what happen in Strikes, for then you have to address why people were on strike AND why the Strikers were fired upon.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)... but f***ing-A, representative Grayson.
My grandfather was a Molly Maguire. I agree in the strongest possible terms and I'm sure he would too.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Hissyspit
(45,788 posts)Big John Sayles fan back then.
DFW
(54,437 posts)Only when a country has completely moved on from a dark period does it show the maturity to completely examine its history.
Texas wanted to practically purge Thomas Jefferson from its history books. Apparently many of Jefferson's writings didn't square with their version of what the Texas School Board wanted history to be. An ancestor of mine, I found out, much later, defended the Triangle Shirtwaist Company after the deadly fire of 1911. I never found out what this was all about in history class, had to hear from my parents what scoundrels my ancestor was working for.
By contrast, here in Germany, where my daughters were born and went to secondary school, they learned all about the Nazis and all the horrors committed in their country's name. Indeed, their elementary school, housed in the building that had served as the local Gestapo headquarters during the Nazi era, is now the "Anne Frank Elementary School."
We do learn about the Civil Rights movement in the USA now, and we do hear of the National Labor Relations Act, but we still have a long way to go before we learn much of the background of why the NLRA came into being. We name airports after Reagan and Bush, but not after FDR or LBJ. We are not there, yet.
malthaussen
(17,216 posts)Which doesn't negate the point that it should be taught as part of the core curriculum in every secondary school in the land.
-- Mal
Lasher
(27,638 posts)The best of luck to you. We need you back in the House.
ProfessionalLeftist
(4,982 posts)...as well as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire PBS docu. ODD how no one now has ever heard these stories, isn't it? The history books lie. Either by omission or commission, they lie. As does the media. Because that's how propaganda works.
The ONLY example we see of the media actually doing its job is HBO's "Newsroom" (and a few gems like Rachel Maddow).
tavalon
(27,985 posts)While Newsroom is fictionalized, I see much there that mimics the change that occurred at MSNBC starting with Olbermann who mentored Maddow. I think I've already figured out which character will rise to stardom on the coattails of Mackavoy.
oldsarge54
(582 posts)I didn't have your details at hand, but I was aware of the labor struggles. This is why I am so uncomfortable with the Republican efforts as well as Ron Paul's efforts to undo the entire 20th century. Keep up. I'll support when I have something to add.
WCGreen
(45,558 posts)I went to the theater to see it because my maternal grandparents lived in a little coal town in Pennsylvania, close the Wes Virginia border line.
The a love hate relation with the mines and the miners. My Grandpa was dentist and a decorated lieutenant from the Army fight the Kaiser.
I love the rural, mountain, parts of the country, it's stark, not quite filled in like it is now.
The pricks in this movie played the parts well, too well, and it was enough to make your blood boil it, that is, you are a compassionate and caring person.
Recommend watching it but be careful, the casual, controlled violence is like nothing you have ever seen. It's far more brutal when it come nonchalantly after the crime.
secondvariety
(1,245 posts)Never a mention in school, though.
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)This wasn't the only instance where people fought and died for labor. When people forget this, they forget that it wasn't all that long ago when the middle class didn't exist in America. You were either a have or a have not, and there weren't that many haves. The labor movement literally made the middle class. In the process even the rich got richer and America as a whole prospered. The truly ironic part is that so-called conservatives long for the 50's when the middle class truly came into being, yet the dipshits support the rich who did everything in their power to prevent it. If they really wanted a return to the days when the middle class prospered, they would support the cause of labor.