Telegram To Governor Horner

Here's a 1934 telegram from the Taylorville Women's Auxiliary of the Progressive Miners of America to Illinois Governor Horner. They were protesting the ceaseless violence in their community.


The Progressives frequently implored state, local and federal government to protect their right to assemble, speak and organize. Typically these pleas were ignored or resulted in government intervention on behalf of the United Mine Workers and the coal companies. And when the federal government chose to act, it indicted 41 members of the Progressive Miners in 1936. Subsequently 34 were sent to federal prison.

The source of this image is the State's Hard Times in Illinois. It's an interesting site, but the claim that "as time passed the Progressive Miners increasingly became influenced by communist interests" is unsubstantiated. In fact, both the Progressives and the United Mine Workers often engaged in paranoid red-baiting.

"They Were Just Trying To Make A Point."

Attorney Daniel Reese was a young boy when Taylorville, IL during the mine war. His father, Leal Reese was an attorney for the Progressive Miners of America. The Reese home suffered retaliatory bombings on several occasions during that time.

The level of violence had become so intense that it had even caught the attention of the New York Times. The July 24, 1933 edition reports, "Five bombs were exploded and a watchman was shot and wounded early today in a renewal of Christian County's coal mine controversy."

"Bombs were exploded at the homes of three officials of the Progressive Miners of America, labor union trying to wrest control from the older United Mine Workers of America."

Daniel Reese explains, "There were two separate bombings. They bombed the front porch. They blew the pillars off a little bit. Then another time they blew the back porch or the house here."

He adds, "I don't think they actually tried to hurt anybody. They were just trying to make a point I think."

And who were "they"?

"Well, that was the other side - the United Mine Workers. I don't think anyone was prosecuted for the bombing here. There were so many things going on like that, it was hard to prosecute everybody... Jurors kind of overlooked these things as a social problem, not a criminal problem...I think people were all glad when it ended eventually."

Mine War Project Highlighted in State Journal-Register

Thanks very much to State Journal-Register columnist, Dave Bakke who reviewed the mine war project yesterday. Thanks to that article, I've received numerous calls and emails from area residents who want to share their memories of that conflict. I'll have my hands full over the next few months recording their stories.

For those who haven't seen the print edition, the paper was able to run one photo with article. This is an image of the state militia outside a mine in Kincaid.


Here are two others taken from the same newsreel that didn't make the cut.

"Its early demise is a certainty."

Here is an excerpt from UMWA President, John L. Lewis' public statement issued September 4, 1932, just one day after the Progressive Miners of America was founded:

"The formation of the so-called Progressive Miners of America at the Gillespie meeting, will serve to materially clarify the situation in the mining districts of Illinois. The meeting at Gillespie was merely representative of local unions already in insubordination and in violation of the wage agreement with the Illinois Coal Operators Association. Such a meeting could only legislate for the comparatively small number of men engaged in a hopeless rebellion...


The organization of this so-called union will enable the malcontents and enemies of the United Mine Workers to become members of their own model union. It will also enable the loyal members of the United Mine Workers of America to fulfill their contractual obligations and provide for the wants of their families. The United Mine Workers of America, at an early date, will move to purge its membership rolls of all those individuals responsible for the formation of this dual organization. It will also move to punish those individuals guilty of misappropriation of the funds of the United Mine Workers of America through expenditures in behalf of the conspiracy to organize, aid and continue this dual organization.

The so-called Progressive Miners of America will indubitably suffer the same fates as a long list of its predecessor dual organizations, which, from time to time, have been organized by short-sighted men to displace the United Mine Workers of America. This so-called new union is without competent leadership, wage contracts, administrative funds or logical policies. It lacks even the confidence of its founders. Its early demise is a moral certainty. Those who elect to follow its fortunes will become merely dupes of a few designing men who lack capacity for leadership and who, in the end, will betray their deluded followers."