Post by wvpeach1963 on Aug 21, 2008 1:06:53 GMT 9.5
The West Virginia Coal Mine Wars
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the expansion of railroads and development of coalfields fundamentally and permanently changed the social and economic fabric of the central Appalachian Mountains. These changes included major economic and social relocations and dislocations that often sparked violence. While conflicts arose in other states, such as Pennsylvania, only in West Virginia did they lead to a concentrated insurrection.
www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/coal-mine.htm
Insurgents In West Virginia ........................Imagine that?
Although WEst Virginia was created and ruled by Republicans, by 1871 Democrat “redeemers” had gained control of the state. They purposefully rewrote the state constitution, adding provisions that fatally weakened its power to respond to a crisis of any kind. It reduced government to a bare minimum of budget and bureaucracy and emasculated the office of governor. The government lacked the power to battle against the temptations offered by companies interested in the state’s resources, causing much of the political system to fall into the pockets of these corporations.
The complete isolation also encouraged companies mining in West Virginia to take more liberties with their miners’ civil rights.
A coal miner in West Virginia generally lived in a company town. He woke up in a company bed situated in a company house. He washed himself with water drawn from a company well and ate breakfast prepared with food bought at the company store. Everything consumed or used by his family came from the company, purchased on credit. The credits used during the pay period only rarely failed to add up to less than the paycheck (paid not in United States currency, but company script.) In debt from his first day on the job, the entire system was geared towards keeping him and his family that way.
The miner had free speech, but what happened after he spoke could give him serious trouble. Many companies employed the firm Baldwin and Felts to provide mine guards. These guards dispensed retribution against “rabblerousers” and “outside agitators” who came in talking about unions. One town even featured a Gatling gun mounted upon the front porch of a company official’s home. Companies figured that they could increase their control by importing miners from a variety of areas such as Russia, southern Italy, and Austria-Hungary.
West Virginia’s problems required the repeated intervention of federal forces due to the large numbers of people involved and the feebleness of the state’s coercive power.
Coal companies called upon powerful allies to help maintain control. In addition to the Baldwin-Felts agents, coal companies also enjoyed the benevolent cooperation of county sheriffs and their departments. Logan County Sheriff Don Chaffin could call upon a force of nearly 500, mostly paid for from coal company treasuries. Vigilantes from the middle classes took up arms and joined small detachments of state police and National Guardsmen.
The last of the four deployments occurred after an event known as the Matewan Massacre. In May, 1920 Matewan Mayor Cabell Testerman and Chief of Police Sid Hatfield ( a relation of the famous “Devil Anse” Hatfield from the Hatfield and McCoy feud.) attempted to restrain Baldwin and Felts agents from carrying out eviction orders a few miles out of town. When the agents executed the evictions anyway, Testerman and Hatfield met them at the train station as they returned to town. History does not record who fired the first shot, but the mayor fell in the first exchange of gunfire. Suddenly rifle shots rained down upon the Baldwin and Felts agents from several buildings in town. Several agents fell in the skirmish and it provided even more impetus to the general level of violence in the area as civil rule broke down completely.
Interestingly enough, the courts waited for federal forces to restore order before investigating the incident, rather than imposing martial law as the Constitution would have allowed. The first half of 1921 featured bands of armed men firing into several towns, killing (according to the estimate of union leader Frank Keeney) over one hundred people.
In August of 1921, as Hatfield went to Welch, the county seat of McDowell County, to appear for reasons unrelated to the incident a Baldwin and Felts agent assassinated him in broad daylight on the courthouse steps. The unwillingness of the civil authorities to bring Hatfield’s killer to justice created an impression in the minds of coal miners in many parts of the country that American law and justice no longer existed in those counties.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the expansion of railroads and development of coalfields fundamentally and permanently changed the social and economic fabric of the central Appalachian Mountains. These changes included major economic and social relocations and dislocations that often sparked violence. While conflicts arose in other states, such as Pennsylvania, only in West Virginia did they lead to a concentrated insurrection.
www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/coal-mine.htm
Insurgents In West Virginia ........................Imagine that?
Although WEst Virginia was created and ruled by Republicans, by 1871 Democrat “redeemers” had gained control of the state. They purposefully rewrote the state constitution, adding provisions that fatally weakened its power to respond to a crisis of any kind. It reduced government to a bare minimum of budget and bureaucracy and emasculated the office of governor. The government lacked the power to battle against the temptations offered by companies interested in the state’s resources, causing much of the political system to fall into the pockets of these corporations.
The complete isolation also encouraged companies mining in West Virginia to take more liberties with their miners’ civil rights.
A coal miner in West Virginia generally lived in a company town. He woke up in a company bed situated in a company house. He washed himself with water drawn from a company well and ate breakfast prepared with food bought at the company store. Everything consumed or used by his family came from the company, purchased on credit. The credits used during the pay period only rarely failed to add up to less than the paycheck (paid not in United States currency, but company script.) In debt from his first day on the job, the entire system was geared towards keeping him and his family that way.
The miner had free speech, but what happened after he spoke could give him serious trouble. Many companies employed the firm Baldwin and Felts to provide mine guards. These guards dispensed retribution against “rabblerousers” and “outside agitators” who came in talking about unions. One town even featured a Gatling gun mounted upon the front porch of a company official’s home. Companies figured that they could increase their control by importing miners from a variety of areas such as Russia, southern Italy, and Austria-Hungary.
West Virginia’s problems required the repeated intervention of federal forces due to the large numbers of people involved and the feebleness of the state’s coercive power.
Coal companies called upon powerful allies to help maintain control. In addition to the Baldwin-Felts agents, coal companies also enjoyed the benevolent cooperation of county sheriffs and their departments. Logan County Sheriff Don Chaffin could call upon a force of nearly 500, mostly paid for from coal company treasuries. Vigilantes from the middle classes took up arms and joined small detachments of state police and National Guardsmen.
The last of the four deployments occurred after an event known as the Matewan Massacre. In May, 1920 Matewan Mayor Cabell Testerman and Chief of Police Sid Hatfield ( a relation of the famous “Devil Anse” Hatfield from the Hatfield and McCoy feud.) attempted to restrain Baldwin and Felts agents from carrying out eviction orders a few miles out of town. When the agents executed the evictions anyway, Testerman and Hatfield met them at the train station as they returned to town. History does not record who fired the first shot, but the mayor fell in the first exchange of gunfire. Suddenly rifle shots rained down upon the Baldwin and Felts agents from several buildings in town. Several agents fell in the skirmish and it provided even more impetus to the general level of violence in the area as civil rule broke down completely.
Interestingly enough, the courts waited for federal forces to restore order before investigating the incident, rather than imposing martial law as the Constitution would have allowed. The first half of 1921 featured bands of armed men firing into several towns, killing (according to the estimate of union leader Frank Keeney) over one hundred people.
In August of 1921, as Hatfield went to Welch, the county seat of McDowell County, to appear for reasons unrelated to the incident a Baldwin and Felts agent assassinated him in broad daylight on the courthouse steps. The unwillingness of the civil authorities to bring Hatfield’s killer to justice created an impression in the minds of coal miners in many parts of the country that American law and justice no longer existed in those counties.