Ten days after an explosion at a mine in Monongah, West Virginia killed 362 workers, another explosion took 239 miners’ lives just seventy-miles away in Smithton, Pennsylvania. Always ready to blame the victim and incapable of taking responsibility for its own actions, capital through the Mellon-owned Pittsburgh Coal Company gaslights the people of Pennsylvania as they tell them ‘reckless’ workers caused their own death.

‘Seventy-Five More Bodies Recovered in Pennsylvania’ from The Worker (New York). Vol. 17 No. 38.

A Third Huge Coal-Mine Disaster Within a Month.

Coroner’s Jury in Naomi Case Supports Explanation Given by William Mailly in The Worker Last Week–Capitalist Ownership Directly Responsible.

Fast upon the news of the Monongah mine disaster in West Virginia comes the report of another in the Yolande mines of Alabama. This time 75 are added to the gruesome pile of bodies slain through the criminal recklessness of the capitalist class. Again women are widowed and little children are left fatherless–to become paupers, or perhaps, in the struggle to live, to become worse.

One after another these disasters come, telling the same sort of story, until it has begun to lose its significance for the ordinary reader. Mine explosions, railroad wrecks, factory fires–all the industrial catastrophes follow each other so rapidly that those not immediately concerned have become callous. It is not until they are themselves directly affected that they too, protest and inquire for the cause of these calamities.

In the case of the mines, the press Invariably assign the same cause for disasters. For instance, the report from Yolande states that “the mine had been pronounced free from gas by State Inspectors, and it is supposed that the explosion was caused by coal dust.”

But coal dust does not explode of itself; it must have some source of ignition. It is the explosion of gas that causes the coal dust explosion. Every coal mine produces so much gas. It this gas is not carried off by ventilation, it will accumulate and an explosion becomes inevitable. When the explosion thru gas takes place, the coal dust is shaken loose and its particles ignite, causing more loss of life than the original gas explosion usually causes.

This has been explained before, but the continued reports of explosions being caused by coal dust make it necessary to repeat the explanation. Gas In Its natural state seldom causes mine explosions; It is only when the gas accumulates, is not carried off, and the air becomes surcharged with it that a combustible is formed. Then the slightest spark or flame will cause an explosion. Ventilation is one thing needed above all to prevent wholesale disasters.

Coroner’s Jury Report Endorses Our Explanation.

This is borne out by the report of the coroner’s jury which investigated the explosion at the Naomi mine at Fayette City. Pa., in which recently resulted in the death of 34 miners. The report says:

“We find that the men came to their deaths as a result of an explosion of gas and dust in the Naomi mine of the United Coal Company. The gas seems to have accumulated from insufficient ventilation, and was, we believe, ignited from sparks of the electric wires or an open light, at some point not definitely located.”

Again, it is customary to place the blame for explosions upon “reckless or ignorant miners.” It does not require that miners be ignorant or reckless for disasters to occur. Given certain conditions and the spark from an electric wire may be enough to set off the accumulated gas. The same coroner’s jury report points that out when it condemns “the use of electric wires on return air currents” and “the use of open lights in all gaseous mines.” Mine Owners’ Responsibility. The mine owners cannot escape the responsibility for the slaughter which their ownership and control of the mines makes possible. They do not provide proper ventilation because this would cost money and reduce profits; human life–the life of the working class–is dirt cheap in comparison.

A Non-Union Mine.

Yolande, Ala., like Monongah, W. Va., it should be noted, was a non-union mine, which means that the miners had no voice in determining the conditions under which they worked. Yolande, it is also reported, was a “model mining town” where “everything possible had been done to ensure the contentment of employees. Yolande is situated on a beautiful hill, and all the houses are painted white, with green trimmings, giving it an air of picturesqueness and healthfulness, unusual in mining quarters.”

Just so. The prettier the houses the more rent there is paid. These schemes: are used to return to the companies which own all the houses, stores, etc., what has been paid to the miners in wages. But no provision is made that would protect the miners at work–for that would interfere with getting out coal, and for every ton of coal not taken out in a day, there is so much less profit for the mine owners.

Capitalist Guilt.

These are facts which cannot be evaded. Nor can they be wiped off the damning Indictment of capitalist greed and incapacity by the erection of homes for the orphans whose parents paid with their lives for this insulting, despicable philanthropy.

And the sniveling wife of President Watson of Monongah will not abate one jot of capitalist guilt by having herself advertised and eulogized by the capitalist press as a benefactor.

The whole capitalist class, and she, as one of that class, are equally guilty. Only their own destruction as the owning class can save them from further crime.

And the workers can only save themselves from premature and horrible deaths, they can only save their wives from destitution and shame and their children from pauperism and slavery. by OWNING INDUSTRY THEMSELVES and operating industry for the social good and welfare.

But in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and Alabama, the miners will vote for the Republican and Democratic parties which control the state governments and which permit the capitalist owners of the mines to wreak ruin and murder that profits and luxury and parasitism may be preserved. And the miners prefer this to supporting the Socialist Party as the party of their own class for the freedom and upliftment of their own class.

Meanwhile John Mitchell might say something to the Civic Federation this week about the disasters which are destroying the lives of the men whom he is supposed to represent.

The Worker, and its predecessor The People, emerged from the 1899 split in the Socialist Labor Party of America led by Henry Slobodin and Morris Hillquit, who published their own edition of the SLP’s paper in Springfield, Massachusetts. Their ‘The People’ had the same banner, format, and numbering as their rival De Leon’s. The new group emerged as the Social Democratic Party and with a Chicago group of the same name these two Social Democratic Parties would become the Socialist Party of America at a 1901 conference. That same year the paper’s name was changed from The People to The Worker with publishing moved to New York City. The Worker continued as a weekly until December 1908 when it was folded into the socialist daily, The New York Call.

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