WEBVTT - Part Two: The Second American Civil War You Never Learned About 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:06.120 M. Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the podcast where 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:08.840 bad people are talked about, and in this case, the 0:00:08.880 --> 0:00:13.160 bad people are coal mining company executives in specific and 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:16.400 capitalists in general. And my guest for part two, as 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:21.160 with part one, is Spencer Crittenton. Spencer, the inventor of 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:28.000 Dungeons and Dragons more or less essentially um and uh 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:32.319 the the show runner for Harmon Quest. Um, even though 0:00:32.360 --> 0:00:34.920 your name is not Harmon. But we'll just we'll just 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:38.400 skip right past that. It's all marketing, you know, it's 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:42.479 all marketing. Yeah, Spencer, are you a how do you? 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.559 Are you a big fan of the First World War? You? 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:48.920 Are you a World War One stand? Yeah, I'm a 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:51.919 I'm a big World War One stand. You love trenches, 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.640 trench foot, oh my god, and like mustard gas. Oh 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.800 hell yeah, mustard gas, Oh my god, child soldiers being 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:05.320 massacred by the thousand, just pumping people into a meeting exactly. 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.240 World War One was awesome for everybody, but it was 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.720 a particularly good thing for coal miners and for unions 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.000 in general. Um, because the United States, right, we we 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.520 got involved in World War One. Spoilers, um and uh 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:21.600 it uh it it wouldn't. Um, we had to go 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:23.240 to like the the whole country had to get on 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:26.040 a war footing because the US military and on once 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:28.360 upon a time actually was weird the idea that we 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:30.640 would have a standing military that was bigger than just 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:33.440 a couple of thousand guys um. And so we had 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:35.880 to like really quickly make an army because we just 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.200 kind of didn't have one when World War One kicked off. 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:41.000 We had like a few thousand guys on horses who 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:43.000 were used to like shooting it out with Poncho Villa, 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:44.680 but that was about it. So we like had to 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:46.840 build this army up suddenly. And that's like that that 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.600 takes a lot of fucking coal, right, Like at this point, 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.800 all of your fucking industry bullshit is fueled by coal. 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:54.080 So we had to get a lot of coal real 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.880 fucking fast. Um. And the president also had to institute 0:01:57.920 --> 0:01:59.880 a draft because we didn't have a whole lot of soldiers, 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.240 and this constricted the labor supply. So US suddenly needs 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:05.520 a shipload more coal. And also there's a lot less 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:10.079 uh labor age men that you can hire to do it. 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:12.400 And this means, I don't know, if you understand if 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.280 you know much about economics. I do not, but I 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:17.480 know that when you have less of something, it gets 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.520 more valuable. So suddenly coal miners, which had kind of 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:22.919 just been treated like trash before this, as you might 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:24.919 have guessed from the fact that they machine gun them 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:29.640 from an armored train, Um, they're valuable. Now you can't 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.240 just machine gun them. Um. And so the federal government 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:36.239 actually kicks in some protections from miners and starts treating 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:39.120 them really well. Uh. The National War Labor Board, which 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:42.200 President Wilson instituted to help manage American industry, pushed for 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:44.840 the eight hour work day, granted raises to laborers, and 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:47.760 supported equal pay for women doing what was then still 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.320 considered to be men's work. Equal pay for equal work 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:53.640 was the idea, and where we are still not there. Uh, 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:55.760 but they start talking about it now right like it 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:58.560 stops being prior to World War One. Like if you're 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:00.480 kind of on the fringe, if you're saying emen should 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:02.280 get paid for doing the same job that a man 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:04.919 is doing, like that's a loony kind of like how 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:08.280 as soon as the fucking like everybody's laughing about basic 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.519 income being like a fringe position And then a plague 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:13.840 hits and everybody's like, oh, maybe this is actually a 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:18.480 normal thing that should exist. Yeah. Yeah, So all of 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:20.800 that ship starts to happen because of this whole, this 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:22.560 whole war thing, And I don't want to make it 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:24.640 out to like Wilson was like super pro labor because 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.560 the i w W, the Wobblies, the group who, like 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:29.079 one of their members wrote the song that been in 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:31.960 the last episode with Wilson brutally cracks down on them 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.640 because there are a lot of them are like fucking anarchists, right, Um, 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:38.080 they're very interesting group because like the the the guy 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:42.520 who wrote Solidarity Forever fucking hated the communist like governments 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:44.920 um that that came out of like the end of 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:49.120 World War One, and also hated capitalists. Interesting group, interesting 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:53.080 person worth reading about. But President Wilson fucking cracked the 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.320 ship down on those guys because, um, they were seen 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:58.920 as being like two politically radical and it's easy to 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:03.080 punish radicals during a wartime. But the actual union men working, 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:05.640 like the the UMW, like these coal miners, these were 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:08.960 seen as being like fundamentally pretty American and they were 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.080 also necessary. So Wilson did support miners war, and things 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.080 got more and things got a lot better for particularly 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:20.320 mine workers during this war. Um so yeah. President Wilson 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:22.560 declared at the outset of US involvement that a lack 0:04:22.600 --> 0:04:25.520 of coal was quote the most serious danger facing the 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:29.239 United States in this current crisis. He declared coal miners 0:04:29.279 --> 0:04:31.960 immune to the draft. And for the first time, these 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:34.080 rough and tumble rednecks who were used to being treated 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:37.000 like disposable assets, started to realize that they were actually 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.840 really valuable and kind of critical to the nation working. 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.119 Uh And they had to promise not to strike during 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.440 the war, but in exchange for this promise, they received 0:04:45.440 --> 0:04:48.440 a substantial raise. Now, the result of all this was 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:50.360 that by the time the war ended and the troops 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.279 started to return home, coal miners had started to get 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.040 used to the idea that they were valuable, skilled workers 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:01.599 performing a critical task. Now, if you're at Dusk Capital, Spencer, no, 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:06.920 that's fine, it's it's it's it's super boring, um and 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.920 and a real snooze fest. Uh So. Dust Capital is 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:12.880 a book written way back in eighteen sixty seven by 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.480 Karl Marx who Karl Marks was the founder of the 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:20.159 Marx Brothers. He invented uh comedy. Um, but he also 0:05:20.240 --> 0:05:22.640 had some theories about labor. Yeah, and the big mustache 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.200 and had some theories about labor to um. Lennon read 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.760 a book on him in the song American Pie Uh 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:34.320 anyway uh so um yeah, Karl Marks in Dust Capital 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:38.599 landed on something that's generally referred to as immiseration theory 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:42.440 and Admiseration theory is the idea that, um, because cutting 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:44.719 wages and benefits to workers is the easiest way to 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:47.480 increase profits. Right, So, like, if you operate a coal mine, 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:51.440 the cost of building um, you know, mine carts, the 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:54.080 cost of donkeys to like toe mine carts, the cost 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:56.840 of you know, electricity to light the minds. These are 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.680 all fixed costs, right, These things cost what they cost. 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.080 But you can cut what you pay the workers, you 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.040 can cut their benefits, and that will increase your profits. 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:09.320 So because doing this is the easiest way to increase profits, 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.560 Mars was like workers in capitalist societies are going to 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:16.080 be victims of a gradual chiseling away of their quality 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:18.560 of life. Um, so pay will get cut, you know, 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:20.880 and you know you you might you might say that 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:22.480 things in the modern day that would be an example, 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.760 this would be like monitored bathroom breaks, robotic trackers to 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:28.440 inform your boss when you're not loading Amazon packages. Enough 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.880 things that, in Marks's words quote, destroy the actual content 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:36.160 of his labor by turning it into a torment. Uh, 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:38.919 they transform his life into working time and drag his 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:42.200 wife and child beneath the wheels of the juggernaut of capital. 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:44.640 But all in production of surplus value or at the 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:48.280 same time methods of accumulation, and every extension of accumulation 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.279 becomes conversely a means for the development of these methods. 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:55.159 It follows therefore, that in proportion as capital accumulates, the 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.760 situation of the worker be his payment higher low must 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:01.719 grow worse. So this is this is This is a 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:05.640 big part of Marxist theory, and it suggests Marx kind 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.919 of suggested that amiseration is what helped tends to produce revolutions. 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:11.000 People get so fed up with being abused and chiseled 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.240 away at that they revolt. Um. Now, this is definitely 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:15.760 true in a number of cases, and you can point 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:18.640 to certain specific cases where like, this is what happened 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:21.640 to workers and it caused a revolt. But I think 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:23.360 one of the issues that kind of people who are 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:25.120 really in the market Marxist theory have is that they 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:27.240 kind of over apply it. And it is a fact 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.880 that that a miseration theory actually doesn't always hold true, 0:07:30.920 --> 0:07:33.880 and in fact often does not hold true. More than 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.239 a century of scholarly analysis has actually shown that living 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:41.400 standards for workers often raising time in various capitalist countries, 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.960 and yet those workers still engage in revolts. And so 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.440 the question is if if standards don't necessarily get chiseled 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:51.760 away at, but those workers still revolt, what is causing revolts? 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.080 And so there's alternate theories that have been proposed to 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.840 to explain this. James C. Davies, an American scholar, theorizes 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:01.960 that social revolutions often occur after what he calls needs satisfaction, 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.000 which is generally measured by income, has risen for a 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:08.360 period of time and then sharply drops. So this causes 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:13.000 a sudden and massive gap between expected and obtained satisfaction, 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:17.040 which provokes action on behalf of the aggrieved. So Marx 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:18.840 is saying that, like workers, things just get worse and 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:21.040 worse and worse and worse until they're forced into action. 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:25.680 Um and Davies is suggesting that social revolutions occur after 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:28.600 things actually get better for a while and then suddenly 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.880 get worse and people just are furious, and you can see, 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:34.600 like the strikes that we talked about in the last episode, 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.360 we're kind of the result of miners just getting chiseled 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:41.280 away at for so long that they got really piste um. 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:43.719 And what we're going to talk about today is more 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.480 an example of what Davies is talking about, is things 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:48.960 getting better, like during World War One, things get a 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:51.160 lot better for miners, and then after World War One 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:54.920 that changes sharply and people get really fucking piste off, 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:58.719 and everything that we're about to to talk about today happens. 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:01.640 So things were all sunshine and roses for labor during 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:03.880 the war. Woodrow Wilson crackdown, like I said on the 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.560 I w w UM, but the government was willing to 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.960 work with unions to express the proper amount of patriotism. Um. 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:12.320 That said, they were still terrified of anything that smelled 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:14.800 even a little bit like communism. And this fear only 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:17.720 increased is the Russian Revolution heated up and the Bolsheviks 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.680 got down to some serious Bolsheviking as soon as the 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:24.600 war I mean, it wasn't even a joke. As soon 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:26.439 as World War One was over and more young men 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:28.560 returned home, that opened up the labor market, and so 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.840 bosses began to correspondingly cut wages and benefits to their 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:34.640 workers again to try to claw back more control, power 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:42.560 and profit, and this led to immediate strikes. Obviously, m yeah, 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.280 the strikes started among the nation's steel workers, but in 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.000 over the course of like the fall of nineteen nineteen 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:52.280 early nineteen twenty, there were like several thousand strikes in 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:54.400 the United States from all sorts of different works, including 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:57.319 police officers. Cops have unions and they strike to they 0:09:57.360 --> 0:10:01.600 just also break up strikes by other unions. UM so again, 0:10:02.559 --> 0:10:06.040 maybe something to think about. So in September nineteen nineteen, 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:08.840 half of America's steel workers go on strikes and Woodrow 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:12.400 Wilson uses federal troops to violently break the strike, and 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:14.480 this for shadows how labor would be treated over the 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:17.160 coming years. But while the steel workers could be crushed 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:20.320 rather simply, mine workers were in a much better position 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:23.440 to resist. For one thing, they had more institutional support 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:26.000 within the government because of like systems that had been 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.200 set up during World War One, to support miners um 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:31.880 so they were also the best organized chunk of laborers 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:34.840 within the country. By this point, United Mine Workers was 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:37.880 more than half a million men strong, and the union 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.040 then possessed the ability to shut down almost the entire 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:44.160 coal industry. And if you shut down the coal industry, 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:48.400 you basically shut down the United States. Now, by September 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:50.959 of nineteen nineteen, when the u m W held their 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:54.920 annual convention, workers were pissed. Wages had been slashed and 0:10:55.080 --> 0:10:57.520 workers had been laid off as soon as the fighting stopped, 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.680 and demand felt this made miners eel as if they'd 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.000 been bait and switched, which they sort of had been, 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:06.560 and they Yeah, this particular chant was common among miners 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:08.160 at the time, and I think it gets across the 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:13.199 general feeling of many. We mind the cold of transport soldiers, 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:16.080 we kept the home fires all aglow, we put old 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.640 Kaiser out of business. What's our reward? We want to know. 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:25.800 So they're a little bit pissed. Yeah, So the union 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:28.520 calls a strike. Uh, and this was still illegal under 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.160 wartime laws which had not been lifted yet. In President 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:33.520 Wilson promised that the law will be enforced, which was 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:36.120 generally taken to mean that federal troops would be used 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:39.080 to shut down any strike, and a tedious game of 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.880 political back and forth followed, with the government issuing court 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:44.880 injunctions against the strike that rendered the union unable to 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:46.920 call for a walk off. So the unions like, we're 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:50.120 gonna strike. The government says, actually, that's fucking illegal, and 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:52.200 the union says, okay, we're not going to call for 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:55.640 a strike. But then four hundred thousand coal industry workers 0:11:55.720 --> 0:12:01.800 just walk off the job anyway, But it's not a 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:04.840 union strike. It's just four hundred thousand Americans being like 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.000 fuck you. Then like, what are you gonna do. You're 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:11.360 gonna come to our houses and kill us all, Like, all, 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:15.599 we gotta deliberate the coal mines. Yeah, reopened the economy, 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.280 Yeah exactly. Yeah, you can go in there and liberate them. 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:20.040 Do the job if you think it's so fucking easy. 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:22.760 So the problem with this was that winter had started 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:24.520 a hit by the point that all these guys come 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.720 off the job, and co shortages during the fall and 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:31.439 winter mean that a lot of Americans start suffering right 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.600 because they can't heat their homes um and this pisss 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:37.240 off a lot of normal American citizens who might otherwise 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:40.559 have sympathized with the union because like they're freezing in 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:44.600 their houses. Um. So, the union was ultimately stymied in 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:47.800 this nationwide strike by a mix of public disapproval and 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.240 the fact that there were still a lot of non 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:54.000 union mines in West Virginia, in Mingo County to be specific. 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.360 And these were very productive minds that put out enough 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.440 coal to keep critical US industry afloat. So normally Americans 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.160 are suffering, but the things that are necessary to maintain, 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.120 like the nation's existence, that ship keeps going because of 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:09.960 these non union mines in West Virginia. And eventually the 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:12.839 UMW is forced to cave and the miners have to 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.440 go back to work. And yeah, the bosses buy in 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.040 large one this round, and their victory made it clear 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:21.840 to the union men that they could not successfully execute 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:25.480 a nationwide strike without unionizing the minds of West Virginia. 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:31.440 Mm hmm. Yeah. So that's good and valuable lesson, a 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.920 valuable lesson. So to us, all, to us all, um, 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.120 As I have often said, Mingo County is the enemy. 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:46.760 Um still true to this day. So Mingo County was 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:49.200 the mine operators stronghold in West Virginia, and they fought 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:51.880 like devils to keep union organizers out and to clamp 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:54.360 down on any individual miners who might try to change 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:56.960 the status quo. They were aided in this by the 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:00.800 Logan County Sheriff's Department, which was wholly owned corporate interests 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:04.240 and dedicated to crushing worker organization. The cause of the 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:06.760 union was made all the more difficult by cultural factors 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:10.559 in Mingo County. Most of the miners there were farmers first, 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.520 men who saw coal mining as a temporary placeholder gig 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.559 when prices were lower crop yields were poor. They didn't 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:19.200 truly identify as miners, and so it was hard to 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.280 organize them. Mingo County remained resistant to the cause of 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:26.000 organized labor until early nineteen twenty. Now, in the wake 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:29.200 of that strike, the union goes to the table with 0:14:29.240 --> 0:14:31.880 the bosses and you know, they basically try to iron 0:14:31.880 --> 0:14:34.160 out what differences they can so that there won't be 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:37.240 another strike because it still hurts the mine company's profits. 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:43.359 And this arbitration commission like concludes by recommending a significant 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:48.360 raise for union miners twenty seven to avert future strikes. 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:52.760 So union miners get a raise. Non union miners, the 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:55.440 miners in Mingo County who had allowed the bosses to 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:58.240 in the strike, they don't get a raise because they're 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:00.520 not part of the union. So these guys just fucked 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:03.280 over the union and a strike, and then they immediately see, oh, 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:05.720 this is why we have a union, because it increases 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:09.880 the amount of money that we make. Um. Yeah, So 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.120 over on the other side of the holler, their union 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:15.280 neighbors were suddenly getting paid as shipload more Mingo County 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:18.000 miners started demanding raises from their bosses, pointing out that 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:20.520 they loyally kept working during the strike and this surely 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:25.160 meant that they deserved the increased pay. And this did 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:29.240 not convince the people who were their bosses. Shocking. Yeah, 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:34.520 I'm shocked. As Robert Shogun writes, quote the response of 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:38.120 the Howard Colliery at Chadowroy typify and management's attitude. The 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:41.760 Howard manager offered a modest increase, but then boosted prices 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:44.480 in the company store when some miners complained they were 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:50.160 pistol whipped by mine guards. Yeah. Not. This is actually 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:52.240 probably going to surprise a lot of people, but most 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:56.680 folks don't like to be pistol whipped. It's not great. 0:15:57.320 --> 0:15:59.480 I know, I know, I take some controversial takes, and 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:01.720 that's going to be one of them. But I'm generally 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:05.960 anti pistol whipping. I'm not gonna say there's a time 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.120 in a place for pistol whipping, but it's a bad 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.400 thing to receive. You know, you'd rather be the giver 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:15.120 of a pistol whipping than the receiver. Yeah, mm hmm. 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.000 So at Burnwell colon Coke, one impatient miner posted a 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.040 notice at the entrance to the miners of Burnwell Coal Company, 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:26.120 we shall have this raise. We want this raise which 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:28.800 the government had granted us. The response from the president 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:31.160 of Burnwell was not long in coming. He said, as 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:33.560 one of his employees recalled, he would let his mind 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.080 go until moss grows over it, until it falls in 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.480 the Huckleberry ridge before he would ever work a union man. 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:43.040 Eighty of the ninety two Burnwell miners walked off their 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:45.520 jobs and sent two of their number to Charleston to 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:48.720 ask District seventeen for a charter. Hundreds of other miners 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.280 elsewhere in Mingo did much the same thing. In accordance 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:53.520 with union policy. They were extructed by the head of 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:56.800 the union to return home, reclaim their jobs, and reopen 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:59.640 the minds. Then the union promise they would be welcomed 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:02.400 into the union. The discontents did as they were bidden. 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:04.920 As the last week of April began, the organizing drives 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:08.000 swept like wildfire through Mingo County. The union counted three 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:10.720 hundred new members in one day, and hundreds more than next, 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:14.119 And of course, true to form, the bosses fired every 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.520 single man who came into work with a union card, 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:19.200 and they then sent armed goons in to force these 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:22.920 men out of their company homes. So hundreds of workers unionized. 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:26.080 They wind up homeless, their families wind up homeless, and 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:28.399 the union has to set up and pay for miners 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:30.399 camps to put these guys up and keep them in 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:34.200 their families alive while they begin to unionize the minds 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:38.280 of Mingo County and start to strike. So, how how late? 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.760 How much later was this than the last episodes? This 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:45.840 is eight years later? This is nineteen nineteen twenty one 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:47.960 is when all this happens. So it's like enough time 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.320 to forget, but not like for the people who lived it. 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.919 They're like, oh ship not again. Yeah, yeah, and a 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:56.520 lot of the people, the people organizing this strike on 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:58.879 behalf of the union had also in large part taken 0:17:58.920 --> 0:18:01.640 part in the ship that happened in the last episode. 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:03.680 And also all of the folks cracking down on them, 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.200 like the people in charge of Baldwin Felts and everything. 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:08.640 All of these folks are a lot of these folks 0:18:08.680 --> 0:18:12.159 are still around, so both sides have more experience and 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:14.119 are bringing what they experienced at the last set of 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:18.560 strikes into this one. So um yeah. And one of 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:20.159 the things that's interesting to me about this is that 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.280 these workers had refused to unionize and it kind of 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:25.280 sucked over the union, but then the union basically spends 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:28.400 a shipload of money buying them tents and food and 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.240 helping to like take care of them as they begin 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.240 their strike, because that's just the way the ship works. 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.760 So the whole situation infuriated larger and larger sections of 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.480 the minor Mingo County minor population as they see their 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:44.320 friends and family members kicked out and made homeless. And 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:47.920 by May nineteen twenty three thousand of Mingo Counties four 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.919 thousand miners had been unionized. Now they were aided in 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.000 this by the fact that much of the local government 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:57.000 in Mingo County was pro union. The town of Mattawuan, 0:18:57.040 --> 0:18:58.440 which is like one of the big towns in the area. 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.480 The town of Mattawuan's mayor, cable Testerman had been elected 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:03.640 by miners and he was loyal to them rather than 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:09.199 the mind bosses. Yeah, it's a funny name, that's all. 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:11.600 It's a funny name. Yeah, a lot of great names 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:13.440 in this people didn't know how silly their names were. 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:18.320 Back in the day when the county sheriff's so so 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:21.760 not the county sheriff's the state police in West Virginia 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:23.240 were in the pay of the mind bosses. And like 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:26.000 the boss of the state police was a captain named Bracus, 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:29.520 and he was totally pro mine like corporate mind company. 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:32.120 But like a lot of the county sheriffs were very 0:19:32.160 --> 0:19:33.840 pro minor. Some of them were pro like. It kind 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:36.000 of depended on the county a lot like Logan County 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:40.240 was really shitty and pro mine company. Um, but Mingo County, 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:42.280 you know, things were a little bit more you you 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:44.600 had a lot more sympathy for the miners. And the 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:48.280 police chief of the town of mattawan was profoundly pro minor, 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:51.879 and his name was Sid Hatfield. Like the old governor 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:55.120 Doc Hatfield, Sid came from a family that was infamous 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:57.400 for fighting and feuding, and at twenty seven years old, 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.280 Sid was one of the best gunmen in the eight 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:03.360 Then as now, the redneck farmers of West Virginia were 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:05.480 all quick to brag about their handiness with a gun, 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:09.040 but even among a crowd of marksmen, Sid Hatfield stood out. 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:12.040 He always carried two pistols. He was known in duels 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:14.640 for shooting them through his pockets, sometimes just to kill 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:20.680 people faster he was. He was kind of a badass, um. Yeah. 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:23.320 He always carried two long pistols, and he was said 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:26.199 to be equally accurate using either hand. He had a 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:28.720 habit of showing off his skill by tossing a potato 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:30.840 into the air and splitting it open with a shot 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:35.480 from his gun. In nineteen fifteen, he had a semi 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:38.440 famous duel with a mine foreman that left the foreman dead. 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:43.000 Hatfield had claimed self defense and been cleared of all charges. Now, 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:46.640 in general, local law enforcement around Mingo County was unwilling 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:49.200 to help the mind companies evict union men from their 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:52.639 homes uh. The sheriff's department would only assist when proper 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:55.040