The anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania saw a campaign of murders by the John L. Lewis U.M.W.A. bureaucracy against militant miners as it sought to gain control of the national union, centralizing previously autonomous regions, largely under radical control, and expelling the left in 1928. A particular target was the radical Local 1703, of which 21-year-old progressive miner Jacob Loyack, shot down on the streets of Pittston by a Lewis loyalist, was a member.

‘Militant Miner Killed’ by Emil Gardos from Labor Defender. Vol. 4 No. 1. January, 1929.

THE name of Jacob Loyack, 21 year old rank and file miner is added to the death list of murdered miners in Pittston, Pa., the hotbed of gunman rule of the Lewis-Boylan contractor machine. A bullet in the abdomen, fired by his namesake and distant relative, the secretary of the administration faction in colliery number 14, bled him to death. His brother Mike, 24, a progressive miner, also from the famous local 1703 is lying in the hospital with a wound in the left thigh, made by the same revolver which killed his younger brother.

This latest murder, recalling the slaying of Campbell, Lillis and Reilly in their car last February, is one more bloody episode in the years long struggle going on between 12,000 miners and the handful of the coal-operators and contractors, who, protected by the Lewis-Boylan machine and the city government, are exploiting the men in direct violation of the union agreement. The last strike was called Nov. 8 by the grievance committee in the Penn. Coal Co., colleries, controlled by the separate Anthracite group of Frank McGarry, former insurgent president of District 1, U.M.W.A. The separatists, in deeds proved to be a job seeking and weak-kneed leadership, and were no better than the Lewis reactionaries. They kept on negotiating with Lewis and the coal operators and threw cold water on the militant rank and file, which wanted action, not words. When the officials of the Anthracite Mine Workers Union found one day that their committee was not recognized by the company they called the strike. This strike on the one hand displayed the splendid militancy of the miners and on the other the lack of organization and leadership on the part of the officials of the anthracite union.

Throughout the strike the most brutal terror of state troopers, company thugs and the government headed by mayor Gillespie, the little Mussolini of Pittston, was indulged in. All meetings were broken up, fake bombs exploded, pickets and bystanders on the streets beaten up, strikers terrorized and sentenced by the servile courts of the anthracite coal barons.

Added to all this terror, as a reminder to the rest of the strikers, the contractors showed their bloody fist and carried out the premeditated murder of young Jacob Loyack, one of the many thousands of loyal rank and filers in the struggle. The crime was a well prepared act of violence, something that is not new in the anthracite. Jake Loyack, the murderer, came home very nervous that afternoon, hardly touching his meal, and playing with his gun. Shortly after, the father of the victims was attacked by a scab. As soon as this occurred, the gunman ran out of a store, revolver in hand, terrorizing bystanders. The Loyack boys, seeing their father in trouble, came out of a pool room unarmed, and tried to make peace. When they got within good aiming distance, the fatal bullets were fired into them. The workers came out many thousands strong to pay last honors at the funeral, the biggest demonstration Pittston has had since Campbell Lillis and Reilly were laid to rest.

The company and union lawyers are working feverishly to get the slayer out of the jail, and are helped by the coroner’s report, according to which the murder took place “by accident.” It is certain, that the judges, tied to the coal-operators by family, political and financial interests, will free this lackey of their masters.

In Pittston “justice” is the same for workers as in all the other parts of this country. The murderers of Campbell, Lillis and Reilly are “not found” yet, but Sam Bonita and Steve Molesky, charged with the shooting of the Lewis-contractor gunman Agati, were quickly sentenced to long terms by the servile Judge McLean. The militant Sam Licata is still under $1000 bond for “spitting” in a scab’s face, but the slayer of Frank Bonita is sitting under the protective wings of the Anthracite justice. And all this comes at a time, when the Miners Union is attacked at all points, when attempts are made to railroad Pat Toohey, Anthony Minerich and other leaders of the new Union into jail. All this comes at a time when not only the miners union is being attacked, but other militant new unions, such as the National Textile Workers Union.

The name of young Jacob Loyack is thus added to the deathroll of hard-coal miners killed by the Lewis-Cappellini-Boylan machine of District No. 1, U.M.W.A. in 1928, following Alex Campbell, Thomas Lillis, Pete Reilly, Frank Bonita and Steve Papinchak, all murdered because they fought for the interests of the rank and file. The coal-barons are trying to drown the fighting spirit of the miners in blood. But they will not succeed. For every bullet fired, striker framed-up, or gunman freed will make the blow still heavier the miners will deliver to the coal-operators and their agents, the Lewis unions, and to the bosses’ government.

Labor Defender was published monthly from 1926 until 1937 by the International Labor Defense (ILD), a Workers Party of America, and later Communist Party-led, non-partisan defense organization founded by James Cannon and William Haywood while in Moscow, 1925 to support prisoners of the class war, victims of racism and imperialism, and the struggle against fascism. It included, poetry, letters from prisoners, and was heavily illustrated with photos, images, and cartoons. Labor Defender was the central organ of the Scottsboro and Sacco and Vanzetti defense campaigns. Editors included T. J. O’ Flaherty, Max Shactman, Karl Reeve, J. Louis Engdahl, William L. Patterson, Sasha Small, and Sender Garlin.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1929/v04n01-jan-1929-LD.pdf