I hope that whatever holiday (if any) that my readers observed in the past couple of weeks, it was enjoyable and peaceful for you. Someone needs to keep the chocolate bunnies away from me, personally. This was supposed to have gone up last week, but I was dealing with a stomach bug (unrelated to the chocolate, as far as I can tell) and just didn't have the spoons.
This week's quest took a lot of reading, because it was a big deal and covered in two markers at a pretty fair distance from each other. Frequent contributor Kaylee Lindenmuth, of the Shenandoah Sentinel, was the one to send me both of the marker photos used here - she sent the first one last year, when I asked my readers to tell me about your favorite historical markers, and happened to come across the second fairly recently.
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| The marker stands at the Lackawanna County Courthouse on Adams Street in Scranton. Image courtesy of Kaylee Lindenmuth. |
At the dawn of the 20th century, most homes were heated with coal. Just a few years before our story takes place, the United Mine Workers of America had held two strikes in the Midwest, first in 1897 and then in 1900. These strikes led to bituminous coal miners being given pretty decent wage increases, partly because the mine owners (many of whom were members of the Republican party) were persuaded that the strike could interfere with the re-election of President William McKinley. You may have learned in science class that coal comes in two forms, bituminous and anthracite, and of the two, bituminous is the softer variety. Anthracite is harder, and burns longer, and is more ideal for lighting and heating. It's the kind of coal we have here in Pennsylvania, and it's a common thread in many coal-related posts on this blog that the workers were usually underpaid and not treated as well as they should be, especially considering how dangerous their jobs were.
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| The marker stands at the intersection of East Centre and North Union Streets in Shenandoah, Schuylkill County. Image courtesy of Kaylee Lindenmuth. |
It was a dangerous time. The threat of violence loomed over everyone, with the Pennsylvania National Guard on hand to try and maintain peace and order. Several people on both sides were killed, and in Schuylkill County, a riot on July 30th involving some 5,000 mine workers led to the beating death of one man, showing just how explosive the whole thing was becoming. McKinley's time in the Oval Office was over, but luckily, his replacement was one of the few men who commanded enough respect that he could bring the whole thing to a conclusion - Teddy Roosevelt. However, while he was able to commission formal investigations, Teddy was informed by his Attorney General that he had no authority to intervene in the actual strike. (This Attorney General was called Philander Knox - how's that for a name?) He hesitated to take action which would suggest he was siding with either faction, and watched the mess continue for months. Meanwhile, winter was looming, and the people who relied on coal for heat in their homes were facing a danger as real as that which threatened the strikers.
"A coal famine in the winter is an ugly thing," said Teddy to Mark Hanna, a Republican senator, "and I fear we shall see terrible suffering and grave disaster."
By October, he'd had enough. He was probably not in the best mood in the first place; his carriage had been hit by a trolley a few weeks earlier, forcing the former Rough Rider to use a wheelchair for some time, and based on my own experiences I imagine that the pain made him grumpy. He held a conference and spoke with mine owners, who wanted no negotiations with the UMWA but said that, if the government would provide protection for the mines and those who were willing to continue working in them, they could produce enough coal to end the shortage for the winter. Samuel Pennypacker, the governor of Pennsylvania during the strike, directed the Pennsylvania National Guard to provide the requested protections, while Teddy tried to convince the UMWA to end the strike. He offered to create a commission to examine the whole situation and find a workable solution, but the UMWA refused to stop the strike. Ironically, the mine owners were completely fine with the strike going on, because the continuing need for coal meant that they could raise the prices without having to continue to pay their striking workers. They actually profited in the long run. So both sides had reasons to keep the strike going!
With the commission in place and both sides okay with its appointees, the strike ended on October 23rd. It had lasted 163 days and remains one of the longest in United States history. The next day, the commission went to work, touring the coal region and gathering data about the miners' costs of living. At the Lackawanna County Courthouse in Scranton, they held a series of hearings, with the legendary Clarence Darrow acting as legal representation for the workers. It was found that some of the miners' complaints were justified, and the commission awarded compromises. The workday was reduced from ten hours to nine, and the miners were given a 10% wage increase. Meanwhile, although the mine owners still refused to recognize the UMWA, they consented to being required to create an arbitration board of their own which could settle labor disputes in the future.
Was it a perfect solution? No. But it definitely helped - there was not another major coal strike in the country until the 1920s. It also was much better than the strikes which had taken place in the west, thanks to the intervention of the federal government, and the fact that they had worked to create a "square deal" for both sides led to Teddy adopting that as the motto of his administration.
The strike also had one other unexpected result. During the 19th century, a private police force identified as the Coal and Iron Police had been established by the Pennsylvania General Assembly. These officers were employed and salaried by the coal company owners. The C&IP had been among the law enforcement responding to the coal strikes of 1897, 1900, and 1902, and had been involved in some of the more horrible incidents (like the Lattimer Massacre of 1897, which has its own marker - two, actually - and will be featured in a future post). After the events of the 1902 strike, Teddy's commission recommended that the C&IP be disbanded. This didn't happen, but instead, in 1905, Governor Pennypacker signed a bill into law to create the Pennsylvania State Police. They also have their own marker, so I'll be telling their story down the road. But this is where it started.
Except where indicated, all writing and photography on this blog is the intellectual property of Laura Klotz. This blog is written with permission of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. I am not employed by the PHMC. All rights reserved.
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