The story of the threat to take the children for ‘neglect’ of heroic miner’s widow Laura Calegari, who was the leading force of insurgent miners in Elm Grove, West Virginia

‘Threaten to Take Children From Women Mine Pickets’ from The Daily Worker. Vol.  5 No. 138. June 12, 1928.

Police Terror Devises New Torture

WHEELING, W. Va., June 11. Laura Calegari, coal digger’s widow who is leading the strike of unorganized miners at the Elm Grove and Triadelphia mines of the Valley Coal Company, is threatened with permanent separation from her two children as a result of strike activity. Laura, as everybody in Triadelphia calls her, will have to appear in a Wheeling court in answer to a warrant charging neglect of her babies.

New Form of Terrorism.

“If I promised to stay off the picket line they’d be glad to drop the charge against me,” Laura says.

Laura Calegari is the moving spirit in the strike which tied up all three mines and involved some 1,500 miners. It is she who keeps the picket lines moving daily before the three mines.

In a letter to the National Miners’ Relief Committee, Mrs. Calegari reports that police told her, “We’ll take that picket line habit out of your head–even if we have to knock it out with a club.”

Since her husband was killed three years ago under a slate fall at the mine where she is now leading the strike, Mrs. Calegari has kept boarders for a living. Her one-story shack houses five roomers beside herself, her two youngsters and a large family of a striking miner which was recently evicted. The woman who is charged with neglect of her own two children feeds and prepares three meals, daily, for 65 children of strikers, “my little pickets” as she calls them. In addition she prepares breakfast for every member of the picket line each morning.

Sheriff—Snake.

“They’ve tried everything they know to keep me off the picket line,” this miners’ Joan of Arc confided to a representative of the National Miners’ Relief Committee last week.

“That snake Frank Muth (a deputy sheriff), came to my house one night and said he thought too much of me to see me get into trouble on the picket line without warning me. He said that they would try to take my kids away, but I told him they’d do it only over my dead body. They said that I’d get in trouble and finish in the electric chair, trying to scare me. They think I’m green. I told them, good, that’s what I want, to die for the workers here, if I have to. They didn’t like that.”

Two nights after Muth’s “warning” the widow was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct. She was later discharged. Mrs. Calegari’s house was raided a month ago by six state policemen. The excuse was a search for liquor.  Laura’s little shack, which is the center of workers’ activity in Triadelphia, is now security for a $2000 bond which she signed last week to release Phil Schatz, publicity representative of the National Miners’ Relief Committee who was arrested while interviewing pickets last Monday, June 4.

Needs Help.

The first news of the redoubled persecution directed against the widow strike leader was received Saturday, June 9, in a letter sent by her to a member of the National Miners’ Relief Committee, 611 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa. “You see what they are trying to do. I only wish you were to help me.”

The National Miners’ Relief Committee will help Laura. But it costs money. The workers who cannot accompany Laura to court and on the picket must get into the fight with money. Send whatever you have, immediately, to the National Miners’ Relief Committee, 611 Penn Ave., Pittsburgh, Pa.

‘Mine Woman to Keep Children.’ June 26, 1928.

Laura Calegari Put On “Good Behavior”

WHEELING, W. Va., June 25. “If you keep off the picket line and turn that soup kitchen over to someone else, we’ll let you keep your kids.”

This was the ruling of the court before which Laura Calegari, coal digger’s widow and strike leader at Triadelphia, appeared to answer a warrant charging her with neglect of her two children Virgil, seven and Vera, four. The move to deprive Mrs. Calegari of her children was instituted as a means of forcing her to give up her activities on the picket line.

None of the 14 witnesses which Mrs. Calegari brought to testify to her good character and her faithfulness as a parent were permitted to testify. When the widow attempted to speak in her own defense she was silenced by the court.

“I’m not interested in anything you may have to say,” the presiding justice informed her. “I can’t take the word of a woman who is known to her neighbors as immoral. I am ready to believe anything told me by these I officers. The case is dismissed and you may have your children this time but the next funny move you make, we’ll take them from you,” Mrs. Calegari was warned.

“Those kids that I feed in the soup kitchen are hungry,” the woman strike leader says, “and I intend to feed them as long as their parents are on strike. If the National Miners’ Relief Committee only continues to send us food I’ll keep that kitchen going in spite of hell.”

Relief and Picketing,

Mrs. Calegari is running the relief station single-handed. She feeds 65 children three times daily. The rest of her day’s routine consists of two appearances on the picket line, caring for her own two children, and her little household.

Mrs. Calegari needs the help of her fellow fighters in other industries. Send as much as possible to the National Miners Relief Committee, 611 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa.

‘Non-Union Coal Diggers Strike in Southern Mine’ July 9, 1928.

Night Shift Out in West Va. Town

ELM GROVE, W. Va., July 8. The night shift of the Elm Grove mine laid down their tools last night and joined the strike of unorganized coal diggers in northern West Virginia. “We couldn’t stand the rotten conditions any more, so we’re joining the fight,” they told strike leaders at Laura Calegari’s shack. “We’re willing to die starving rather than go back without a union,” they said.

“Airtight” Injunction

Since the famous “airtight” injunction was granted to the Elm Grove Mining Co., Mrs. Calegari’s house has become the center of strike activity. No mass meetings are allowed; no two people are permitted to walk together, or talk together on the road; strikers especially are not permitted to speak to scabs.

Mrs. Calegari was forced to abandon her soup kitchen, which fed all the pickets once a day and 65 children three times a day with the food sent by the National Miners’ Relief Committee. “I suppose we got nothin’ to kick about,” she said. “They still let us breathe.”

Instead of breaking the strike, they injunction has stiffened the back-bone of the struggle, as the new walkout indicates. The men who joined the strike yesterday declare that they had been brought to the mine under false pretenses.

False Promises

“They told us a new mine was starting up and they needed people to build the houses and shafts,” the strike recruits said. “The pay was supposed to be much higher, too. Our kids are just as hungry as yours, and you’ve been striking for months, and we’ve been working like dogs!”

These strikers will need help almost immediately. The coal diggers of Elm Grove are ready to share what relief they get with the new strikers. The National Miners Relief Committee has promised to strain its resources and send a little more relief in the next shipment, if enough money is sent by sympathizers to their headquarters at 61Penn Ave., Pittsburgh.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

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