https://news.yahoo.com/matewan-massacre-century-ago-embodied-134945624.html
What unrestricted capitalism brings.
JOHN RABY
,Associated Press•May 18, 2020
The bullet holes in the brick wall of a former post office serve as a reminder of how Appalachian coal miners fought to improve the lives of workers a century ago.
Ten people were killed in a gun battle between miners, who were led by a local police chief, and a group of private security guards hired to evict them for joining a union in Matewan, a small “company town” in West Virginia.
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“The company town system was extremely oppressive," said Lou Martin, a history professor at Chatham University in Pittsburgh and a board member of the West Virginia Mine Wars Museum in Matewan. "The company owned the houses, the only store in town, ran the church and controlled every aspect of the miners’ lives.”
Company towns were particularly prevalent in remote areas like southern West Virginia, which had the nation’s largest concentration of nonunion miners in 1920. And when the United Mine Workers came to town, coal companies retaliated.
The Stone Mountain Coal Co. hired Baldwin-Felts Agency detectives to evict union families from company-owned homes. Executive Albert Felts brought a dozen men to Matewan, including two who had been involved in violent strike-breaking efforts six years earlier in Ludlow, Colorado.
The detectives removed the families and were headed out when they were confronted by a group led by Matewan Police Chief Sid Hatfield. Killed in the gunfire were Albert Felts, his brother, Lee, five other Baldwin-Felts detectives, Matewan Mayor Cabell Testerman and two bystanders.
Fifteen months later, Hatfield was gone, too, gunned down by Baldwin-Felts detectives on the McDowell County courthouse steps. He was 28.
More determined than ever to organize, miners marched by the thousands, leading to the 12-day Battle of Blair Mountain in the summer of 1921. Sixteen men died before they surrendered to federal troops.
The UMW's campaign in southern West Virginia then stalled, along with labor setbacks in steel, meat packing and railroads following World War I. Appalachian coal operators felt they needed to remain nonunion in order to survive, Martin said.
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In her 1925 autobiography, union organizer Mary Harris “Mother" Jones said she witnessed multiple conflicts between “the industrial slaves and their masters” during visits to West Virginia.
State officials were reluctant to challenge the coal operators.
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In her 1925 autobiography, union organizer Mary Harris “Mother" Jones said she witnessed multiple conflicts between “the industrial slaves and their masters” during visits to West Virginia.
State officials were reluctant to challenge the coal operators.
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David Hatfield, who operates a Matewan bed-and-breakfast and is Sid Hatfield's great nephew, said Americans today benefit from what the miners strived for, including better working conditions.
"It's important to me because my family helped bring that about in some part," he said.
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