Since WV is my birthplace and a battleground state, I thought I'd show you
this.
It's a brief history of the coal mine wars in West Virginia and it offers some pretty relevant lessons. I just want to cover a couple.
West Virginia presented a special case. Its creation as a war measure by Abraham Lincoln often raised doubts as to its legal legitimacy. Although 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.
Although done by Democrat "Redeemers" the weakening of the government led to a situation where the state was virtually ruled by corporations who valued profit over people. If nothing else, this should ring some alarm bells when we hear Republican rhetoric about "big government."
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. They came from countries with oppressive systems; also living in a strange country with different customs and languages increased their isolation. In fairness, company towns ran the spectrum from benevolently paternalistic societies to absolutely dictatorial rule. Increasingly the system turned its aims towards preventing unions from organizing the region.
This kind of reinforces my negative image of Republican ideology taken to its extreme. If they had their way, they would love to replace some government functions with private enterprise (probably with little regulation). The problem with little or no regulation in an environment where profit maximization is king, is self-evident.
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.
I think this also shows the danger of "security firms" trying to keep the peace. First was the weakening of the government, then the corporate takeovers, which ultimately led to a breakdown of civil rule.
By the way, I was born in Mingo County which is why I find this so interesting.
Finally, the President sent General Henry Bandholtz who arrived on August 25. Bandholtz came with encouraging words from Harding as well as threats that the state UMWA leadership would assume responsibility for any trouble the marchers caused. The union leaders met the marching miners at the Boone County seat of Madison and addressed them in a baseball field. This meeting successfully convinced the miners to call off the march and they began to arrange for transportation to take everyone home.
Foolishly, state police descended upon nearby Sharples in force to apprehend a large number of union miners whom they accused of interfering with police business. A firefight broke out that left two miners dead and filled the miners at Madison with rage. Violence became an inevitability. Headlines appeared at the top of the New York Times as they sent veteran war correspondents to cover the unrest. Logan County mobilized to stop the invaders by fortifying a twenty to thirty mile long ridge marking the border between Boone and Logan Counties, paying special attention to passes. One section of the ridge, called Blair Mountain, would give the engagement its name. Logan County sent to the barricades between 1200 and 1300 men armed with rifles, machine guns, and whatever else the people could bring to the fight. One airplane with homemade bombs even took part briefly. The battle lasted four days as the miners unsuccessfully tried to force the passes.
Federal forces finally ended the battle. The Secretary of War ordered Brigadier General Billy Mitchell (later called the father of the United States Air Force) and his 88th Light Bomber Squadron to Charleston complete with chemical weapons and the authorization to use them. Luckily, the Martin MB-2 bombers encountered technical problems and air power never became necessary. The 2,100 troops from Fort Thomas, Kentucky proved decisive because the miners chose not to confront federal power. No accurate count of losses amongst the union marchers ever was made, but the Logan County defenders only lost three killed and forty wounded.
Emphasis mine.
Now that's union busting. Who on earth would use chemical weapons against their own people?
The resulting trials of hundreds of miners for treason against the state never resolved the fundamental issues for which the miners fought. It did attract national scrutiny, especially from the government. However, nothing changed as people's attention drifted elsewhere. The coal operators maintained their right to run their mines as they wished and the union did not offer them a serious challenge again in that decade. Only in the 1930s did President Franklin D. Roosevelt get legislation passed that outlawed many of the company practices that caused such consternation.
Again, emphasis mine.
This is the party of Roosevelt and hopefully we won't soon forget that.
hinky dink