American Bloody Labor History - Never Forget

[WillyT]

11. The Battle Of Blair Mountain...

The Battle of Blair Mountain was one of the largest civil uprisings in United States history and the largest armed rebellion since the American Civil War.[1] For five days in late August and early September 1921, in Logan County, West Virginia, some 10,000 armed coal miners confronted 3,000 lawmen and strikebreakers, called the Logan Defenders,[2]who were backed by coal mine operators during an attempt by the miners to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coalfields. The battle ended after approximately one million rounds were fired,[3] and the United States Army intervened by presidential order.

Sheriff's deputies during the battle


A group of miners display one of the bombs dropped by Chafin's airplanes.

The Battle of Blair Mountain was the result of economic exploitation of workers during a period of social transformation in the southern West Virginia coalfields.[4][5] Beginning in 1870-1880, coal operators had established a system of oppression and exploitation based around the company town system.[4][6][7] To maintain their domination and hegemony, coal operators paid "private detectives" as well as public law enforcement agents to ensure that union organizers were kept out of the region.[4] In order to accomplish this objective, agents of the coal operators used intimidation, harassment, espionage and even murder.[4][8] Throughout the early 20th century, West Virginia coal miners attempted to overthrow this brutal system and engaged in a series of strikes, such as the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike of 1912, and which coal operators attempted to stop through violent means. Mining families lived under the terror of Baldwin-Felts detective agents who were professional strikebreakers under the hire of coal operators. During that dispute agents drove a heavily armored train through a tent colony at night, opening fire on women, men and children with a machine gun.[9] They would repeat this type of tactic during the Ludlow Massacre in Colorado the next year, with even more disastrous results.[10]

By 1920, most of West Virginia had been organized by the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). The southern coalfields, however, remained non-unionized bastions of coal operator power. In early 1920, UMW president John L. Lewis targeted Mingo County for organizing. Certain aspects of Mingo made it more attractive to union leaders than neighboring Logan County, which was under the control of the vehemently anti-union Sheriff Don Chafin and his deputized army.[11] Mingo’s political structure was more independent, and some politicians were pro-union. Cabell Testerman, the mayor of the independent town of Matewan was one supporter of the union cause. He appointed 27-year-old Sid Hatfield as town sheriff.[11] As a teenager, Hatfield had worked in the coalmines, and was sympathetic to the miners' condition. He also claimed to be a member of the notorious Hatfield family of the Hatfield and McCoy "feud". These men provided union organizers an opportunity to gain a foothold, and unionizing accelerated rapidly in the county.[12]

In response to the organizing efforts, coal operators used every means to block the union. One of their primary tactics of combating the union was firing union sympathizers, blacklisting them, and evicting them from their homes. Their legal argument for evictions is best stated by S.B. Avis, a coal company lawyer; “It is like a servant lives at your house. If the servant leaves your employment, if you discharge him, you ask him to get out of the servants’ quarters. It is a question of master and servant.”[13][14] The UMW set up tent colonies for the homeless miner families, and soon a mass of idle and angry miners was concentrated in a small area along the Tug Fork River.[15] Even with the coal operators’ suppression, by early May 3,000 out of 4,000 Mingo miners had joined the union.[11] At the Stone Mountain Coal Company mine near Matewan, every single worker unionized, and was subsequently fired and evicted.[9]

On May 19, 1920, 12 Baldwin-Felts agents arrived in Matewan, including Lee Felts, and promptly met up with Albert Felts who was already in the area. Albert and Lee were the brothers of Thomas Felts, the founder and director of the agency. Albert had already been in the area, and had tried to bribe Mayor Testerman with 500 dollars to place machine guns on roofs in the town—which Testerman refused.[16] That afternoon, Albert and Lee along with eleven other men set out to the Stone Mountain Coal Company property. The first family they evicted was a woman and her children, whose husband was not home at the time. They forced them out at gunpoint, and threw their belongings in the road under a light but steady rain. The miners who saw it were furious, and sent word to town.[17]

As the agents walked to the train station to leave town, Sid Hatfield and a group of deputized miners confronted them and told the agents they were under arrest. Albert Felts replied that in fact, he had a warrant for Sid’s arrest.[18] Testerman was alerted, and he ran out into the street after a miner shouted that Sid had been arrested. Hatfield backed into the store, and Testerman asked to see the warrant. After reviewing it, the mayor exclaimed, “This is a bogus warrant.” With these words, a gunfight erupted and Sid Hatfield shot Albert Felts. Mayor Testerman fell to the ground in the first volley, mortally wounded. In the end, 10 men were killed, including Albert and Lee Felts.[18]

This gunfight became known as the Matewan Massacre...

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Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain