A reprinted editorial from the Huntington, West Virginia Socialist and Labor Star on the end of the Paint Creek–Cabin Creek strike of miners in the Kanawha Valley. The imposed settlement of the conflict, which saw dozens of deaths including by starvation, met only some of the miners’ demands, but did bring the U.M.W.A. into the coal field.

‘The War is Over’ from the International Socialist Review. Vol. 14 No. 3. September, 1913.

THE Cabin Creek strike is settled. After months of struggle, which at times assumed the character of civil war, the miners have laid down the rifle and taken up the tools of production. This revolt was born of want and oppression, and the miners fought with the grim determination of men who are driven to bay. Every means and agency that could be conceived by the scheming capitalist mind was employed in a fierce, merciless attempt to drive the miners back into the mines. The conflict was of such nature and the issues involved of such character that the attention of the entire world was focused upon West Virginia. The power of organized wealth and capitalist government were met by the solidarity and bulldog tenacity of the miners As long as the operators fought fair, the miners answered with argument and logic. When the operators hired Baldwin thugs and mine guards and enlisted the militia, then the miners stood erect and faced the issue like men.

The midnight assassin, armored trains, the dregs of the city slums were sent into the hills to crush the spirit of the striking miners. Laws and constitutions were trampled upon; courts of justice reduced to a hissing and a by-word; judges and lawyers forever sold their honor before an altar of Gold; and not an editor in West Virginia, save the Socialists, was man enough to tell the truth. Martial law was invoked and used in such a manner that even the capitalist administration at Washington did not dare countenance it. Even the staid old Senate was shaken by the roar of the protest from the Socialist and radical press.

One ex-governor and the present governor of West Virginia have been shown up as malignant enemies of the working class. Glasscock is already buried deep in a dishonest political grave while Mr. Hatfield three years hence will receive the most crushing rebuke ever administered to a West Virginia official.

The disregard of constitutions reached such a stage that a federal investigation was forced, and, although this was done in the face of West Virginia opposition, and heaven and earth is now being moved to suppress what the Senate Investigating Committee discovered, yet the truth will be published or the present administration at Washington will be branded as the most subservient tool of capitalism that ever disgraced America.

But, best of all, the miners today know their power. Having matched their class consciousness and marksmanship against the class consciousness and marksmanship of the operators and their thugs, they rest triumphant in the knowledge of their power. Without the labor power of the miners the operators are helpless. Without the votes of the miners the capitalist system is doomed. Industrially and politically the miners of West Virginia will henceforth stand solidly together. And none realize this more thoroughly than the operators themselves. And the strike is won! With their lying prostituted capitalist press held up to public contempt; with the full light of national publicity turned on their murderous deeds; with George Wallace and Tin Horn commission kicked into their proper place—the operators have all unconditionally surrendered.

The Cabin Creek miners now enjoy the Kanawha scale, recognition of the union, the guarantee of “no discrimination,” the eight hour day and semi-monthly pay day.

Comrades of the revolution, we salute you! Knowing you as we do, we rest assured that the miners of Kanawha county will continue to exhibit that spirit of invincible solidarity in the struggle for complete industrial and political emancipation.—Socialist & Labor Star, Huntington.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v14n03-sep-1913-ISR-gog-ocr.pdf