Road To Hell

This past week marks the 78th anniversary of the events which incited the Illinois Mine War.

United Mine Workers District 12 had been on strike in Illinois since April, 1932. On August 6, 1932, a referendum was held to determine whether its members would accept the coal operators proposal - a decline in wages from $6.10/day to $5.00/day. Four days later the ballots were stolen.

UMWA rallies West Frankfort miners during the strike.

The Nation magazine reported:

"…before the votes could be counted, and in fact while the ballot boxes were being transported…to the district headquarters of the United Mine Workers where they were to be opened and the votes tallied, the boxes were stolen by two armed men.

John L. Lewis, international president, promptly declared that an emergency existed and that under his emergency powers he would have to order the new contract to take effect immediately.

Obviously, nothing was said in the Lewis announcement concerning the fact that ownership of the automobile in which the two thugs were riding had been traced to Fox Hughes, vice-president of the Illinois district of the United Mine Workers and one of Lewis’s henchmen. It is not surprising that a new revolt against the Lewis-Walker leadership is spreading among the Illinois miners, who are continuing the strike despite Lewis’ order."

The Nation, August 24, 1932

This bit of burlesque characterized the feelings of many of Illinois miners at that time:

John L. Lewis blew the whistle;
John H. Walker rang the bell;
Fox Hughes stole the ballots,
and the miners wages went to hell.

Hand Crafted From Coal

John L. Lewis, President of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 - 1960 is still revered among many retired coal miners.

This Lewis bust was sculpted from a lump of coal by Mid-West Crafts in Pikeville, KY. It was provided courtesy of the Christian County Coal Mine Museum.

Mine War Site - Mine "B"

Mine shaft location - Mine "B", Springfield, IL.

In the 1930's, Mine "B" was owned by Carl Elshoff, and was organized by the Progressive Miners following their split from the UMWA. The Progressives later struck the mine after the UMWA attempted to assert control over the labor force. FBI records indicate that John L. Lewis provided funds to Elshoff to help him break the PMA strike.

Recommending the indictment of Lewis in a 1943 memo , Assistant U.S. Attorney General, Wendell Berge wrote, "Throughout the history of the trade union movement, agreements between a labor union and an employer to the detriment of a rival union, however bitter the enmity, have been despised and deemed treasonable and traitorous to the cause of labor."

However, no federal indictments were ever issued against Lewis or District 12.

Looking For John L. Lewis

I recently visited Lewis grave accompanied by UMWA retiree, Larry Wilson, a long-time resident of Springfield who was unaware that Lewis was buried there. While the Mother Jones Monument in the tiny town of Mt. Olive is internationally renown, the location of John L. Lewis' grave site is relatively obscure. The lack of a grandiose monument seems to parallel the low profile Lewis adopted after retiring as head of the United Mine Workers in 1960.

John L. Lewis grave site. The sign in the foreground was added in recent years.

Lewis is buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, IL, the same cemetery which provides the final resting place of Abraham Lincoln. Lewis' death in 1969 generated little interest or anguish.

In it's June 13, 1969 obituary, the New York Times commented:

"The death of the most dynamic, the most constructive, and surely the most colorful of American trade union chiefs has aroused no such emotions - for the simple reason that Lewis' era has since long passed; for fifteen years, at least, he and his works have belonged to history. To say this is in no way to belittle the founded of the C.I.O., but to comment, further, on the swiftness with which history moves in these times, rendering big men and bigger movements 'irrelevant' to the young and nostalgic even to the middle-aged."



For those interested in visiting, click here for a map with directions to the grave.

Centralia Mine Disaster

Here's a late post to commemorate the Centralia Mine Disaster. The mine exploded on March 25, 1947, in Centralia, Illinois killing 111 miners.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor reported:

"The explosion was caused when an underburdened shot or blown-out shot ignited coal dust. The mine was exceedingly dry and dusty. Heavy deposits of coal dust were present along the roadways and on the roof, ribs, and timbers in working places and entries. At the time of the explosion most of the men were at the man trips on the entries waiting for the shot firers to complete lighting the shots so they could ride to the shaft bottoms on the man trips. At the time of the explosion 142 men were in the mine. Of those, 65 were killed by burns and violence and 45 by afterdamp. Eight men were rescued but one died from the effects of afterdamp. Twenty-four escaped unaided."

UMWA President, John L. Lewis testified before Congress on the disaster. Here's a short video clip of some of his testimony:

Following the disaster UMWA President John L. Lewis invoked the union's right to call memorial days. The miners did not work for six days, beginning March 29, 1947.

In United We Stand: The United Mine Workers of America 1890-1990, Maier B. Fox writes, "The disaster was of such magnitude that both the House and Senate held committee hearings on mine safety. Lewis used those forums to castigate both the operators and the government. He told the representatives that historically the operators philosophy was, 'We kill them, you (the union) provide for their widows and orphans.'"

Lewis' leadership on mine safety during this time is one of the reasons he was held in such high esteem by many miners. In some ways, his actions then make an assessment of his career difficult.

Undoubtedly Lewis was an autocrat that had little use for democratic mechanisms to govern a union. And there seemed to be no limits to the actions he would take to consolidate and hold power. The names of the PMA martyrs etched on the side of the Mother Jones Monument are testament to how dangerous it could be to oppose him.

While he contributed greatly to the growth of industrial unionism through the formation of the CIO, Lewis' need for control ensured top-down structures which left workers reliant on the paternalistic favor of union leaders and bureaucratic processes of the legal system for protection, rather than building rank and file power through democratic unions.

As the decades wore on those legal protections eroded. Arguably those bureaucratic processes now do more to serve business interests, undercutting the rights of workers to speak, organize and act.

That being said Lewis' leadership in the 1940's resulted improved mine safety as well as a welfare and retirement fund. The Centralia Mine Disaster provided the catalyst to force the government to act and the mining industry to acquiesce. The UMWA Welfare and Retirement Fund continues to this day.

Here's Woodie Guthrie's "Dying Miner", to commemorate the tragedy.
Provided courtesy of the excellent Archive.org.

Democracy In District 12

The formation of the Progressive Miners of America was not a knee-jerk response to to a perceived injustice. On the contrary, Illinois District 12 wrestled with John L. Lewis and the United Mine Workers International for years prior to the the PMA split.


Upon assuming office in 1920, John L. Lewis pushed to centralize the union power under the international. As the strongest district, Illinois District 12 struggled to maintain autonomy against Lewis' designs. In 1929, Lewis and the International were even served an injunction prohibiting interference in District 12 affairs.

Democracy wasn't restored District 12 members until 1959 with the passage of the Landrum-Griffin Act. Perhaps coincidentally, Lewis resigned in January, 1960.

Thanks to Lisa Andrews of UMWA District 12 for supplementing my research on this issue.

What Is Community-Based Unionism?

Studying the mine war, it can be easy to focus on the the sensational violence and yet overlook the important principles which were contested. Certainly with the theft of the wage referendum ballots, the democratic rights of the rank-and-file had been usurped. But the formation of the Progressive Miners of America also heralded a model of unionism that was structurally different than its predecessor.

This alternative unionism or community-based unionism is discussed in Staughton Lynd's book, "We Are All Leaders", The Alternative Unionsim of the Early 1930's. In the introduction, Lynd writes, "By whatever name, this alternative unionism was democratic, deeply rooted in mutual aid among workers in different crafts and work sites, and politically independent. The key to the value system of alternative unionism was its egalitarianism." (p. 3) Contrasted to bureaucratic unionism in which power is wielded from the top and tactics and decision-making are handled by national leaders, alternative unionism is characterized by a horizontal formation of rank-and-file workers who actively participate in most aspects of the union. Further, adherents to alternative unionism tend to view their constituency across a broad class spectrum while bureaucratic unionism tends to function more narrowly within the immediate concerns of its membership and contracts.

In the 1930's, this division was heightened considerably due to John L. Lewis' paternalistic leadership of the UMWA. Arguably, the PMA was attempting to uphold and formalize a nascent form of community unionism which grew within the Illinois coal fields for decades. With Lewis' ascendancy to the UMWA presidency in 1920 came a relentless push to centralize union authority under his auspices.