Abern visits the insurgent miners’ camps in Fayette County, Pennsylvania fighting both the bosses and the John L. Lewis-U.M.W. bureaucracy
‘Fayette County—Reign of Horror’ by Martin Abern from Young Worker. Vol. 2 No. 3. March, 1923.
ON a bitterly cold February day, with a biting wind to add to the frigidity of the weather, Comrade Max Lerner, Field Organizer of the Workers Party, Joe Guisel of Footedale, Pa., fighting miner and leader of the locked-out and betrayed Fayette miners, and myself set off to visit the miners’ camps.
Thousands of miners have been evicted from their homes. Thousands of miners and their families are living through these cold winter days in tents, with the frozen earth as the only floor. Entire families can be found living in ordinary chicken coops. Thousands of others live in stables and hastily improvised tiny shacks and huts.
We went into many of these “homes.” In them were to be found a few rags a pillow or two, some old mattress, a few boxes for chairs, perchance a rickety bed. In such, in chicken coops, in huts in which one could but take a few steps to reach the end six, eight, 10 persons were to be found living. Miner, wife, children–cold, ragged, hungry. This is what the policy of Lewis (President of the United Mine Workers of America) brings to the miners!
In one shack we entered, we found a family of twelve. Ten children between the ages of about three and eleven. Hungry? Is a starving man hungry? All these thousands of miners and the women and children are hungry—but they won’t give up! A baby had died a few hours before and the miners were wondering what the cost would be to bury the happier dead babe. Where would they get the money to pay? The Lewis’ machine denies assistance to the Fayette miners, leaves the miners to their own resources, and only when compelled through pitiless publicity and fear, furnishes aid to the miners and families. The groceryman, who has been giving credit to the miners, cannot do so much longer unless his bills are paid. Some bills, presented to Feeney by Joe Guisel on behalf of the miners, had not yet been paid. Feeney, Lewis’ henchman, doesn’t like to see these militant miners telling him and his kind to pay bills and to try to make up for their treachery. The bills have once again been sent to Lewis’ headquarters. What will he do? Such an uproar is going up in the ranks of the U.M.W. of A. at his traitorous act toward the Fayette miners, that in fear of a rebellion against him, he may order the bills paid.
A few words for the young workers who may be unacquainted with the facts leading up to the Fayette betrayal. Fayette County, Pa., as a section of the coking coal district of Pennsylvania. When the United Mine Workers of America called their strike last April, the miners of Fayette County, who were unorganized then, walked out with the U.M.W. of A. miners and together stood out solidly as one man. Then, when the miners’ strike was called off in September by John Lewis, President, in the name of the U.M.W. of A., but in his actions, for the coal and steel operators, Lewis signed an agreement with the coal operators, and to the amazement of all, left the Fayette miners out of the agreement. They deserted the men who had joined with the U.M.W. of A. and who had fought through the entire strike. One of the rankest betrayals and stool-pigeon acts in all the history of the American labor movement! A great uproar and protest went up against this dirty action of Lewis. Lewis, capitalist tool, declared at first that help would be given to the Fayette miners, A little relief was first given, yet not enough. The U.M.W. of A. levied an assessment of two dollars per member for two months for the benefit of the Fayette miners. This would have brought 2 million dollars for their relief. This, excepting an insignificant amount, has not been paid to the Fayette miners!
But Lewis proceeded to even rottener acts. Recently he called off the strike of the Fayette miners and had the gall to tell them to go back to work, declaring that the U.M.W. could no longer support these fighting striking miners. He was telling them to go back to work at any terms they could obtain. Thus he was handing them over helpless, bound hand and foot to the steel barons of Pennsylvania.
The miners were incensed at Lewis’ rotten actions. Forced to abandon the strike and return to their jobs! But deciding to obey the Lewis’ order, they applied for their old jobs. They were all turned down. The operators had locked the miners out! Lewis and his henchmen, Feeney and O’Leary, had done exactly what the coal operators would wish to have done.
The above are some very prosaic statements. Here are some more. They tell the treachery of John Lewis, Feeney, and others of their yellow stripe.
On January 30, 1928, a committee representing the Fayette miners sought relief at Terre Haute, Ind., the seat of the Indiana district, and were denied assistance. Joe Guisel, militant miner, at a meeting of the International Executive Board at Springfield, Ill., on February 1st, charged Feeney and O’Leary with betrayal of and treachery to the miners, and that they desired to split the U.M.W. of A. Feeney, replying, said full relief was being given the miners—a palpable lie since a week before he had cut it to one-third.
Yet Lewis may have to reverse his entire actions The strong sentiment aroused against his cowardly act may result in his calling the strike on again and throwing the strength of the U.M.W. of A. behind the Fayette miners. If this happens, this will not be because of the desires of this carrion and vulture, but because of the rank and file of the U.M.W. of A. and the pressure from members of organized labor outside the U.M.W. of A. compel Lewis to do so to save temporarily his bending neck.
But another game would be more to Lewis’s liking. Lewis, capitalist tool, tells Fayette miners to go back to work and to pay their dues into the U.M.W. of A.! How? When there is no work and hence no money to pay dues? In truth, the Lewis machine desires a split in the U.M.W. of A., an “outlaw” movement; thus, by removing the militant elements, Lewis and his gang would make certain of their jobs and power. The Steel Corporation also wants to see the United Mine Worker split. It would be ready to receive the Fayette miners back to work as an independent union. But the Fayette miners will not secede. They will not play into the hands of this contemptible scoundrel, Lewis, and his fellow reptiles, Feeney and O’Leary, and thus, too, into those of the Steel Corporation. They know the dangers and hells of a secession movement. The Fayette miners want all the miners solidly united against the steel and coal barons and against the corrupt Lewis machine.
But NOW—children are freezing, children are starving, children are sick and dying in Fayette County. But the miners, and their courageous wives say: “We won’t, we can’t go back to work except as bona fide members of the U.M.W. of A. and under the same terms as Lewis signed for the other members of the union. We won’t let the steel crowd both work us and starve us. We’re going to hang on till we win.”
The courage of these men and women defies description. Something is deadly rotten in a society which starves such big men and women, which kills little children. Capitalism offers to these miners, to all workers, to all children—slavery, starvation, horrible death. That is why these miners are determined that capitalism, which is responsible for such conditions, shall go. That is why the Lewis’ Gompers’ and the lesser fry, the Feeneys are going to be kicked out of their positions of leadership, which they use to betray workers and to sell them out to the capitalists.
Yet all these miseries and betrayals arise out of the same rotten source—capitalism. A system which demands production for profit, not for social and collective needs and uses. A system in which men sell their labor for mere animal existence and leave the remainder of their labors to the non-producing gluttonous capitalist class. There is nothing new about Fayette County—it is capitalism, which is robbery and drudgery.
Fayette County—Region of Horror. Fayette County, where the Steel Corporation reigns supreme, where the beastly Cossacks, called State Constabulary, break up workers meetings and shoot down workers on strike. Fayette County, where children cry for food and gaunt men and women are sad and desperate because they cannot feed their hungry children—yes, we, young workers, all workers, must help the fighting Fayette miners in their magnificent struggle against the steel barons. WE WILL HELP the Fayette miners. They need help, money for the other workers. The battle of Fayette County must be won!
The workers of America will not permit the workers and children of Fayette County to starve and to lose their battle against the bosses. We must give not only to save the Fayette miners, but to save ourselves.
Capitalist corruption extends every where. Fayette County is but showing a very ugly side of capitalism. Fayette County is becoming United States-Fayette County. So we must help these miners and their families we learn the lesson of Fayette County! That what is to-day in Fayette County is capitalism; that never can Fayette’s or other workers’ problems be solved unless we take up the struggle against the cause of the hell and misery and starvation of the working class—capitalism; unless we organize and educate to overthrow capitalism and to replace it with a workers society, producing not for profits, but for the use of all workers—a communist society.
Always must we come to the defense of our fellow workers in distress! Meantime, the workers of Fayette County and other places are learning through horrible experiences that IF THEY WANT TO LIVE, CAPITALIST SOCIETY MUST DIE!
