Rev Left Radio - The Battle of Blair Mountain

Episode Date: July 28, 2020

Chris and Dave from the Mandatory OT and IWW join Breht to cover the fascinating and crucially important history of the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest labor uprising in American history and the largest armed uprising in America since the Civil War.  Check out Mandatory OT  Check out Dixieland of the Proletariat  NEW REV LEFT RADIO SHIRTS HERE A List of Sources:   1. “Thunder In the Mountains” by Lon Savage 2. “Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields” and “Gun Thugs, Rednecks, and Radicals” by David Alan Corbin 3. PBS’s “American Experience: The Mine Wars” 4. “Smokestacks in the Hills: Rural-Industrial Workers in West Virginia” by Lou Martin 5. “Company-Owned Americans” by Arthur Gleason 6. “Black Avalanche” by Winthrop D. Lane 7. West Virginia State Archives 8. WVCulture   Outro Music: 'Blair Mountain' by Great American Taxi LEARN MORE ABOUT REV LEFT RADIO: www.revolutionaryleftradio.com

Coal mining is the most dangerous work in our land a day, with plenty of dirty slaving work and very little pay. Coal miner won't you wake up and open your eyes and see what the dirty capitalist system is doing to you and me. Dear miner, they will slave. slave you tell you can't work no more And what do you get for your living But a dollar in a company store

A tumble down shack to live in snow and rain pours in the top You have to pay the company rent You're paying never stop I am a coal miner's wife I'm sure I wish you well Let's thank this capitalist system in the darkest pits of hell Hello everybody and welcome back to Revolutionary Left Radio

Before we get into this wonderful episode with Mandatory OT on the Battle of Blair Mountain I want to cover a couple things up front First things first we have finally some high quality unique designed shirts for supporters and listeners of Rev Left Radio. A previous guest, I think it was our episode entitled something like Rebel Music a couple years ago. Our guest from that episode has recently started a communist clothing line called Goods for the People

and as they were sort of launching their clothing line, they reached out to me, wondered if we wanted to do some sort of collaborative design with them and I obviously jumped at that opportunity. So we do have shirts. I will link to the shirts in the show notes so you can go check it out. At first, I wasn't sure that I didn't think we were going to get any money from it.

It was just about making these high-quality shirts available to our listeners, but then they reached out and said, actually, yes, we'll give you $2 per shirt. So this is a perfect way for people who want to support the show, but for whatever reason might not want to do it through Patreon. Rather, maybe it's because they don't like Patreon or they don't like the monthly subscription model or they just don't have enough money to do that on a monthly basis, etc. Not only do we get a little kickback for every shirt sold, but just wearing our shirts out in public.

Reping Rev Left in the Rev Left community is an awesome way to support the show. And we are deeply humbled and appreciative if anyone goes out and purchases these shirts. So again, that will be linked in the show notes of this episode. So no more on that. Just shout out to Goods for the People and check that out if you are at all interested. And the second thing I want to say before we get into this episode is I just want to give a quick little shout out to Friends of the Show, Dixieland of the Proletariat. It's another podcast really centered on the working class from the South.

So they have some episodes on Blair Mountain. I think their first episode ever was on Blair Mountain in the Coal Mining Wars. So definitely go check them out. If you want more information specifically on the Battle of Blair Mountain or just want another left-wing voice to add to your podcast array, check out Dixieland at the Proletariat. We will link to them in the show notes as well. Okay, without further ado, on today's show,

we have Chris and Dave from Mandatory OT. the official podcast of the West Virginia chapter of the IWW. And they're on today to talk about the Battle of Blair Mountain. This is a huge episode. I think it's almost three hours, if not over three hours long. The only other episode I think that we've had that's been this big is our infamous or famous Stalin episode, depending on where you're coming from. So this is one of our longer episodes ever.

But Dave and Chris are wonderful interlocutors. They're entertaining. They're hilarious. and we've sprinkled in some clips throughout the show to highlight certain points and drive other points home, et cetera. So it's one of our big historical episodes, jammed, packed full of information and entertainment as usual. So we hope people really get a lot out of this and basically just really enjoy the discussion because I enjoyed having it. Chris and Dave are a wonderful comrade. So shout out to Mandatory OT. Obviously, I'll link to all their stuff in the show notes as well.

So without further ado, let's get into this wonderful episode with Chris and Day from Mandatory OT on The Battle of Blair Mountain. Enjoy. What is up, y'all? I am Chris. I'm one of the hosts of Mandatory OT, the official podcast of the West Virginia IW. not just a wobbly but also part of like independent organizations here in the northern panhandle west virginia based roughly out of wheeling but i don't know dave oh anything you want to say i mean yeah for yeah we're doing introductions um i'm dave i am the other part of mandatory o t um i am part of the

i w w that's pretty much all that i'm a part of is it's now i mostly put my focus into kind of more just independent reading and research for our show. I know you always ask for tendencies. Generally, Chris and I kind of, we used to really call ourselves malice, and that's kind of gone by the side. I know at this point, I guess I am some shade of Marxist-Leninist,

but you can really just call me a Marxist at this point. Marxist, communist, scientific socialist. Scientific socialist, that's probably a good descriptor of where we fall. We're from an anarcho-Sendicles union, or we're part of that, but we as our union also is is incredibly varied and non-secretarian yeah we like to say syndicalist in the streets and leninist in the sheets if you will so well beautiful uh thank you both for coming on i know i've been on uh on your show so it's nice to have you on to talk about something that has incredible regional and i think personal and familial importance for both

of you um which is the battle of blair mountain and importantly the context surrounding and leading up to it. Since this topic is so large, I'm not going to delay it any longer. I think we're just jumping to it. And the first half of the conversation will be really centered around all of the conditions and actors and events that lead up to it. And then the second half will be an actual discussion of the Battle of Blair Mountain itself. So before we get into details, though, can you give a sort of broad overview of what the

Battle of Blair Mountain was for those who may have never heard of it at all? to sort of pinpoint what its historical importance is so people can sort of orient themselves to the topic before we dive into the details. Yeah, I guess that I'll field that one, Dave. So the Battle of Blair Mountain took place in the southwestern part of West Virginia. It is still today, much like it was 100 years ago, massively underdeveloped, very, very poor area. And there were a lot of the mines in this kind of like central mine field of like indiana ohio pennsylvania west virginia um in the south they weren't unionized in the north they were but i guess the biggest thing to really kind of know going in is is just the kind of gravity of the situation and how

it still reigns as the uh largest armed kind of insurrection in uh u.s history this side of the Civil War. So I think that that's kind of the best jumping off point is kind of just understanding a couple sentences. It was really, yeah. And then at the most basic point to describe it as it was a violent episode of class struggle that came from essentially a boiling pot

of many past events that will go over. Yeah, and also before really going in Whole Hogg, this took place, like the end of it was in 1921. So for those listening that aren't well acquainted with it, it is very important to remember that as we talk about these revolutionary figures and their movements that kind of surround them, it's crucial to understand that Bolshevism, as we think of it today, and like Marxism, Leninism, even in kind of its baby stages, did not really exist, that it was still very much kind of a growing and changing thing. And especially in the mountains of West Virginia. Yeah. In 1916, you have like the Easter rising in Ireland, the James Connolly, and that was not any kind of like ML revolution in this, the kind of events before that transpire. Oh, yeah. I mean, as we'll get into, too, it definitely had its reactionary elements as well.

We can't stress this enough with how many moving pieces that there were for this to happen and that it caused as well. Yeah, absolutely. It happened a century ago. It was the largest, I think, actual full-on labor conflict that exploded into an actual violent warfare, violent battle. And so that's what people should know. And it has, and we'll get into at the very end, the legacy of the Battle of Blair Mountain, but regionally, the importance of it really can't be understated either. So it really is a monumental moment in the sort of class struggle in the United States particularly, with all of the contradictions and nuances and complexities that come with it, particularly given the fact that the U.S. is a white supremacist settler colonial state.

And so I think we'll navigate those nuances as we come across them. But I hope that that's sort of putting it on the table for people who might have no clue what this is. It really is a monumental historical event. That's why we wanted to cover it. Coal companies want to blast mine Blair Mountain, but it's not simply to mine coal. They want to erase its history. So what is it about Blair Mountain that they don't want you to know about? Coal companies have a long history fighting unions and violently exploiting their workers. Early in the 20th century, working conditions were so bad that black miners, who were former slaves, said working for the coal company felt no different from slavery.

Just some slaves up here, man. They own our black ass. And in 1921, poor white, black and immigrant minors rallied together for better working conditions and revolted. That was very scary to the powers that be in 1921, the idea that you had blacks and whites, you know, on the same side, arming themselves. It was at Blair Mountain, where 10,000 miners faced off against the coal company forces, exchanging over a million rounds of fire over the course of four days until the U.S. government intervened on behalf of the coal companies. The Battle of Blair Mountain was.

and is still to this date the largest armed uprising in America since the Civil War. It's the largest example of people challenging the power structure in West Virginia, standing up for themselves and standing up for their rights. And there are people who absolutely do not want that to be remembered. So after historians spent years to finally make Blair Mountain a registered national historic site, coal companies managed to reverse the decision using underhanded dishonest tactics. Coal company lawyers included the names of dead people in a list of objectors.

One person has been dead since 1983, and yet that individual objected to the listing of Blair Mountain. In 2016, a federal judge found that the decision to remove Blair Mountain from the National Register of Historic Places was arbitrary and capricious in violation of federal law, but that hasn't stopped the coal companies from destroying the site. And they were destroying very specific areas where there were archaeological sites. And just for the record book, where that's disturbed there would have been where the defensive forces for the drug durs and machine guns up the hill here. Why would you pay a mining company to go a mine 2,500 feet and they never took one lump of coal out of it? Not one.

They do not want this history being memorialized. They don't want a monument to the United Mine Workers of America. America, they don't want the coal companies looking bad in any way, shape, or form. And the easiest way to make sure that happens is to blow it up. So in order to understand the battle itself, we must, of course, first understand the conditions that led up to it, culturally, politically, and economically. Can you talk about those underlying conditions for us? Yeah, so diving in, kind of the stereotypes of West Virginia, or predominantly that it's rural. Hill jacks, hill folks, hillbillies, whatever you want to say. And that kind of

idea is really driven because of the unique industrialization that occurred in the state, especially in the southern part of the state, because you weren't close to Pittsburgh like we are here in the northern Panhand or even Cleveland, for that matter, which were sizable industrial centers. But a lot of the families in the south, they still made a living by farming, but there was the development of mines, timbering operations, railroads, and factories that did not result in that kind of development of big cities, like with Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Philadelphia, what have you. In 72% of the population, as of 1930, after all of this transpired by almost a decade, still lived in rural areas, even though the economy was overwhelmingly industrial. in this segment of Appalachia consisted predominantly of non-Anglo-European immigrants. So you had a lot of Slavic immigrants, a lot of Italians, Poles, just...

Hungarians. Yeah, Hungarians. A lot of non-native English speakers, if they spoke English at all. And the Italian kind of tradition can't be understated because that socialism that comes from there is steeped in the kind of anarcho-sindicalism. that you see play out throughout this conflict. And also a big component of the population were freed or runaway slaves or the children

or descendants of those slaves. It's crucial to note that there are more black workers in West Virginia than in any of the other coal fields. And what was attractive is it's easily like the closest of these kind of states outside of the central field. the big draws or Vancouver in Colorado and if you're kind of a freed slave or a former slave those are that's a pretty pretty big trek to say the very least um and and the coal operators kind of held this idea of equal work for equal pay or at least advertised that

idea um as we're learning there were a lot of stipulations to that yeah and and for folks like just kind of, for lack of better word, discovering their freedom and discovering some huge fucking air quotes there. There's a really nice kind of draw to that. These unionization pushes in southern part of the state kind of began in 1897 and then push forward in 1902, but there was very limited success. This was predominantly by the Woblies and also the UMW of A. However, with all of this,

The UMW did see careful. Oh, which, by the way, the UMW of A is United Mind Workers of America. I don't. Yeah, I got to spell out. We got to spell it out. Oh, man. You take it for granted down there. Yeah.

You see it. It's the initials that you see all the time. I mean, they're one of the biggest players next to the two, you know, armies we're going to talk about later is the UMWA. Yeah. And the, um, I was just at my uncles for, for a cookout. two nights ago and he has a big UMW of a calendar because he's a former minor. So with these unionization pushes, a lot of it really faltered, but they did secure a foothold in eastern Kanawa County. And for those of you that aren't quite familiar with

this region, Kunawa County is the county that has Charleston, which is the current state capital and was the capital then as well. So now we kind of got this, this like, general kind of cultural layout pushing onward a big big component is the company town um and if i if i recall correctly the company town in some parts of kentucky existed until like 1970 which is absolutely fucking insane and that's probably like the most well-known part of this whole story this whole event is the company towns and which is you know as you'll get to talk about here in a second made up essentially 80% of miners lived in company towns yeah for for those of you that can't fathom it if you're from like la or new york or what have you if you've seen sorry to

bother you it's the kind of apartment buildings that all of the um god the company escapes my name but that the worker the horse workers pretty much lived so um and i took this quote that kind of sums it up pretty well. The typical coal mining town is not a town in the ordinary sense at all. The place where the town stands is the point at which a seam has been opened. Buildings have been erected and machinery has been installed. The town is the adjunct and necessary convenience of an industry. And if the mines should disappear, it too would cease to exist. It is not even called a town in the language of the locality. It is called a camp. No one owns his own house. He cannot acquire so much title to property. No one runs a store, operates a garage or sells groceries or

haberdashery to his fellow townsmen. No one amuses them in the movie theater. There is no main street of small businesses owned by different people and making up that mosaic of commercial life that's typical of villages everywhere. There's a little, if any, participation in common group activities. No body of elected councilmen ever passes on repairs for roads. No group of people ever gets together, decides that the old schoolhouse is to ramshackle for the children or that the old church needs your painting. No family physician builds up a successful practice by competing with other physicians. No lawyer settles disputes over property rights amongst their neighbors. It is accurate to say that no one does these things. The coal company does them all. It owns all the

houses, rents them to the miners. It owns the store, the pool room, the movie theater, and often helps to build the school and the church. From the cradle to the grave, breath by, they draw breath by the grace of a sometimes absentee coal owner, one of whose visible representations is the deputy sheriff, a public official in the pay of the coal owner. And that's also something that's going to really come into play a little down the road as we discuss what's going on.

Because the way that a lot of these capitalists, these coal owners, kind of imposed their will was through these deputies that they kind of had that they paid off and a lot of these capitalists lived in in New York they lived in Philadelphia hell they maybe even fucking lived in London which is in this time kind of boggles my mind that they were able to to have this repression but the deputy sheriff played such a big role in that and they were paid very handsomely I mean as well see throughout this whole story. It's really just shows you how, I mean, it's very on the face. The contradictions in this whole thing are the most apparent out of any situation that I've ever

studied or seen. And because it literally is policing paid by coal companies. Everything is paid by the capitalists. It's, I mean, it's just the most on the face now where we have much more the complication or not the or yeah the complications or complexity of neoliberalism in between these things in this time the sense of the of the company town there was none of that it was direct yeah i was gonna i was gonna say it's very much uh the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and peer concentrate form with no illusions um at all you know just the police are our enforcers and we own everything oh yeah it's just as shitty as pure orange juice concentrate i promise But in addition to the deputy sheriff that wields a lot of power,

we have a cool little agency that is a recurring factor. Throughout this whole tale, they are called the Baldwin-Feltz Detective Agency, and they worked exclusively in the minefields as privatized police. Now, if you don't know who the Baldwin-Felps agents are, or the agency, think of the pakering test. It's the exact same concept of that, which most people have heard of. Yeah.

Yeah, they were private police force. Truly, they kind of looked like Al Capone gangsters. As we were researching, I'm like, motherfucker. Like, they look like they're about to shoot their names into the wall of a fucking bank in Chicago. But the Baldwin-Feltz agency was started by three brothers. There's Tom Feltz, who is the oldest, and then his two younger brothers, Albert Feltz and Lee Feltz.

And they really strong-armed what they, the sheriff couldn't do, because the sheriff did a lot of, like, behind-the-scenes things, like wrote bogus warrants, whatever. But a lot of times the Baldwin-Felds agents bolstered the sheriff's numbers or would do kind of the heavy lifting for the sheriff and also got paid very well. And one of the primary, like, I guess, purposes of the Baldwin-Felds agents was to evict workers who were unionists or sympathizers. And this was taken to court. However, the courts favored in the way of the coal operators and Baldwin-Feldt's agents and said that this falls under master's servant rights. So, of course, if you're evicted, like, we're not going to protect you

because they're providing this out of the goodness of their heart. You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them. Like, it's just utter protection or property rights. And like Dave said, it's so fucking on the nose. I could swear you just quoted my dad there. Not everyone's dad can be drifting to being a Marxismanist, so I'm sorry. Regularly, company towns were intentionally segregated. Like I mentioned, Southern West Virginia was a really diverse place. You had a lot of immigrants. You had descendants of slaves, if not former slaves.

And then you had some, quote, unquote, native Appalachians, which were, they were not indigenous folks they were like the sons and daughters of original settlers of the original settlers exactly um so when we when we refer to native appalachians or if we refer to them from here on out keep that in mind we we're not talking about indigenous folks at all but they mostly because that's when we were researching this that's kind of the language yeah that was always apparent was when talking about the appalachian natives they were talking about the people like where colonizers yeah um but they kind of separated these these three parts of town, like the part where black folks lived, where the immigrants lived, where the quote-unquote native Appalachians lived.

But something that the coal operators really overlooked is the fact that when you're in the mine for 12 hours and covered in dust, people still talk in like languages shared. That kind of transcends that kind of boundary. Again, you're with someone. You're going to pick up their language. And working with them 80 hours a week. Yeah. It's not more, 80-100-hour weeks.

Yeah. And so it kind of builds this empathy and this solidarity and puts up like an interesting kind of colorblind curtain at first because everyone's covered in cold us. You can't tell what someone looks like. So it kind of flicks away all this like preconceived notions that someone may have. And from there, like you have the like men of the house that talk to each other at work and thus like their families get close. So you have travel between these parts of town more so than. And probably today, like, you would have, like, with suburb, like, suburban and, like, inner city and, like, rural folks. So that's also, like, a really interesting thing.

And it's an important factor to the effect that Blair Mountain had in the, and the reason it was such a strong force. Yeah. So from the company town, we also have company script, which was, like, a currency or credit. and sometimes it was it was coins or paper money sometimes it wasn't it was just like it was fake money in the air like like our debit cards or something um so miners worked in the company mines with company tools and company equipment they were required to lease it like you probably didn't have the means to bring your own equipment and if you did nope right um then they rent the company housing all the cost of the items from the company store were deductive

Your entire life, we cannot stress that enough. Literally, your entire life, everything you did, your income, your value, every experience that you experienced was affected by the company or determined by the company. It's like if you worked at Amazon and they paid you an Amazon gift cards. I would not be surprised if that was a new development. Oh, believe me, I'm waiting for it. We've seen it before. only 100 years ago

or not even shit and the stores themselves it's like a fucking gas station or like if you live in a food desert the prices are hella overinflated and since like there's no alternative to purchasing the goods you can buy the $4.6 piece chicken nuggets

banquet chicken nuggets at Dollar General what the hell else you got? You didn't have the means to go you know 10, 15 or not even I'm sorry more like 40 miles to a store where things might have been cheaper in the town over. Yeah. So therefore... But you couldn't use the money anyways

because you're using company's script. Yeah. Well, you could, but there was an exchange rate and it was only sometimes. Some companies allowed you. There was an exchange rate for every dollar script. It would be 75 cents that you could get paid out. So you're losing money still.

So even when the wages were increased coal companies would increase the prices at the company store to balance what they lost, it's it's kind of like the argument against ubi i'm gonna say you know you heard of the freedom dividend yeah yeah where we kill the kill every bit of the social safety net give everyone a thousand dollars a month and then nothing nothing goes wrong from there right right prices aren't increased or anything so as you can see like already there's so there are already so many parallels to to be drawn again like just in this

moment, the mask is still kind of on. Capital's adapted over 100 years. But the result of this general mode of life is that many mining towns are, they're unsightly, they're unhealthful, they're just generally poorly looked after. The houses are slapped up, like not really repainted or they go unrepared. Service is privy to nearly everywhere in evidence. It's a prevalent cause of like soil pollution, stands on high ground, back of the house. so that its contents are washed toward the bed of the creek. Like, it's very bad. So, like, even if you go to take a drink from the creek,

you're just drinking, like, chemical or toxin. And it's something that we still face here today. I would say, we've had, yeah, where was it down in northern Kentucky or southern West Virginia? There was a school. This was just, like, a couple years ago, or maybe last year had just smoke from a nearby, I can't remember what it's natural, or nearby one of the,

it was a coal plant and the smoke filled up to school and it was literally just smoky hallways and they were like and they didn't send anyone home they were like no just the principal came over the loudspeaker and was like we all breathe it go outside and breathe it there yeah we're staying in school yeah my god yeah yeah so you had like these belching coke ovens they spew the the fumes and smoke from the open tops directly at the windows like and this isn't anything new like there's a town an hour and a half, hour 40 minutes from here called Parkersburg, West Virginia. It's where a big DuPont factory is, amongst other very similar factories. They call that place Chemical Valley.

It has one of the highest rates of cancer in the U.S., truthfully, if not the world. So shit hasn't really changed. So company script, we're on to cribbing. So cribbing is when the miners are denied their proper pay. They were paid based on the tons of coal mined. Each car brought from the mines who supposedly held a specific amount of coal. It was supposed to be a ton, 2,000 pounds. However, cars...

There's always a however. There's always the however. However, the cars were altered to hold more coal than the specified amount. And that's on top of the coal operator's ton already being a long ton, which was 2,200 pounds. So the cars were also altered to fit an additional 300. So you'd have a ton and a quarter being brought out of the mine. And you're only getting the pay for the one ton. Even though you brought Mark Cole out.

And this was also, on top of that, they would have the docking, which was the judgment of the coal carts, was done by a Czech Wayman. and the check wayman was hired by hired by the co-operators and they were often cheated out by that by the coal you know the coal wayman would give a wrong estimate or pay them less and as we'll learn later one of these stipulations for unionizing is to have an elected check whaman that is um check wayman that is elected by the workers so therefore that can be more you know democratically more and less likely to get cheated if it's you know you're co-worker doing it. So between 1890 and 1912, it's worth noting, too, the between 1890 and 1912, West Virginia had a higher minor death rate than any other state. And according to the state archives, it's noted that, quote, unquote, in World War I, a U.S. soldier had a better statistical chance of surviving in battle than a West Virginia

did in surviving the fucking coal mines. Wow. Like, let that sink the fuck in. Like, that is just absolutely, on top of getting just completely ripped off and fucked over by their companies there. And you started young, as we'll find out, the heroes and not so heroes of the story all started the ages of like 9 and 10. I mean, it was, that's what you did. You know, you've seen the cliche TV plot or something where the kids trying to get away from a mining town. No, kid, you're going to work in the mines and that's that.

you know that's kind of that but that's how it was yeah my daughter is 11 so literally kids younger than my own daughter in the coal mines it blows my mind fuck she'd have two years of seniority damn yeah she'd be a proud human w um member god damn what we're gonna come to find out that maybe that's not something to be too proud of but um so like i said earlier uh there were union drives throughout like west virginia and then eastern kentucky like especially the southern part West Virginia. And the reason for these very concentrated drives that started in the 1890s was that the UMW of A realized that the rest of the central field that included Indiana, Ohio, western

Pennsylvania, they realized that the mines in southern West Virginia, although the transportation costs were higher because there wasn't a big city to be like the railroad hub, the mines in southern west virginia and in eastern kentucky would undercut the strikes or bargaining power of the other minds in the central uh central field um so you're gonna learn that not not all of these intentions were were of the purest and it was very strictly uh from a business kind of perspective it's just the cost of doing business so to speak yeah even before this the um w had a history of corruption. As we'll learn the people that actually, one of the people we're about to talk

about next, was elected, there was three different officials that were elected to District 17 of West Virginia, which is where all this happens of the UMW to replace officials who were corrupted. Yeah. So, I guess that after, then now

that we've gone over like all the mix of like cultural and geographical factors and we have a setting now. Yeah, we established the setting and And much like J.R.R. Tolkien with Fellowship in the Ring, we took about three and a half hours to do it. So, that's all right. I think, I think that setting is not only important, but completely fascinating. And it is sort of an exercise in world building for people that aren't

familiar with, with the conditions that these workers were forced to exist in, to have that laid out for them. And just to show just how all consuming the power of the, of the capitalist were and the degraded state of existence that the workers had to endure just to get by and provide for themselves and their family. So before we dive into the wars themselves, let's establish an important figure in all of this. And that's Frank Keeney. Can you talk about who he was and why he's worth discussing in this context? All right. So Frank Keeney, it's, I'm going to say it's worth noting about a million fucking times this evening. So I apologize.

If you want to cut him out, that's fine. But so Charles Francis Keeney, he has a really tragic story. He kind of rises to power as a very insurgent socialist in the UMWV. And as everything kind of transpires, eventually his story ends. He passes away as a fucking, like, valet at a strip club like after after all of this that's that's what happens so that's just kind of a really interesting tidbit i thought um it's really poignant but um frank keeney he was born on cabin creek um which is roughly kanawa uh in 1882 um his dad passed away while he was pretty

young um his mother uh lost their family farm to coal operators um just eminent domain or they were able to buy up land at reduced rates and nothing new again we see it see it today small towns everywhere I mean that's literally like every leader of this of the battle and of the Union Army was once evicted from their homes I mean everyone had a history of that

but that's what you know as we'll learn that's you know mostly what they led the army was was these people evicted and Keeney left school like Dave said at nine years old to work as a trapper boy A trapper boy is normally like nine or ten years old, and he would man the doors to the mine. And he did this to make ends meet for his family.

Again, his dad passed away, and his mom lost the family farm, so it had to do what he could do to help put food on the table. It's also worth noting that the legal age to work at this time, in 1891, was 12. years old. They couldn't even reach that. They couldn't even look to get to 12. God damn. Like it's just, it's depravity, really. Truly. But after that,

after his nine years of fucking seniority, at 18 years old, Frankie and he took a job digging coal for 40 cents a ton. And again, that's the long ton of 2200 pounds. And we're often cheated out of it. Yeah, you're cheated out of it. If you have

like other ore or like shale or whatever in the coal. And it's a company script. We're reinforce it along the way. But at 20 years old, after he's been in the mines for actually underground for a couple years,

he meets Mother Jones at a billiards room. And I'm sure that if you're listening to Rev. Left, you know who Mother Jones is. Famed labor leader, founder of the IWW. One of the founders of the IWW, I should say. and Jones is there in another attempt to stir up the southern coal fields and do a union drive.

Yeah, she was, she was unionizing up until her death. I mean, she... Fucking 90 years old. Yeah, she's 90 years old throughout most of the story. Yeah. At this time, she's only like 70. So she's still spry. But, um, so she knows, she's in, like this billiards room, this bar.

Um, one of the few kind of social spaces that these, miners have and she sees from across the room this guy who's really kind of charming and charismatic really commands the attention of everyone at the pool table and he's just super fucking personable and it's frankini and she corners him and like talks to him and then she hands him the book she she gives him some books and then very specifically lame is rob and this is how he teaches himself to read. And the story of Le Miz also kind of parallels the life that he and his community have led, like just kind of like struggling for bread on their table.

And through this kind of interaction and this education, he becomes a socialist, especially after witnessing the evictions of some minors in 1902. There was speak of legislation at the state national level. Keeney did witness, but the coal operators did what big business owners do, and that is block legislation. So Frank Keeney and the rest of the miners see kind of this fatalism of trying to participate as working people, as proletarian folks in like this bourgeois government. So that's also a crucial, crucial kind of radicalizing moment.

And I think that that holds true for us as well, for you, for anyone listening to this, that really kind of hits home and kind of brings a tear to your eye. So I guess from there, do you want us to pop on into the Pank Creek Cabin Creek strike itself there, Brett? Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, having established all that, we should get into the conflicts themselves. And these two things we're going to talk about coming up are sort of, I guess they could be described and tell me if I'm wrong, but tremors before the earthquake

that is Blair Mountain, is that fair? Sort of. So, Paint Creek, Cabin Creek, there's a lot of tremors around it. It's a little more than a tremor. It's not quite the earthquake. It's not the earth-shattering occurrence. It also gives a lot of the leaders

the experience needed for what happened in the battle of Blair Mountain. I see. Yeah, it's something that, maybe Paint Creek Cabin Creek can be compared to like maybe a Russia in 1905 or or maybe even like the present day like right now with the protests that have been popping off in like Minneapolis or New York or Houston or LA or hell yeah we got even here in the northern fucking panhandle West Virginia like so that means what eight years yeah we have eight years eight years let's go yeah yeah it's kind of it's the event where, like, some of the, like, most prevalent organizers were, like, a lot of people get radicalized. A lot of people see the horror, like, just displayed,

like, somehow even more bluntly than it already is at this time. And it's where, like Dave said, a lot of the organizers, a lot of the people that would play prominent roles, really cut their teeth. So, diving in, the Paint Creek, in Cabin Creek in Canawa County. again, the Charleston area, and, of course, the strike is situated between these two creeks of Paint Creek and Cabin Creek. Paint Creek in the west in Cabin Creek in the east.

So by this time, most of the Canawa River Coalfield was unionized with the UMWVA. The exception of this were the 55 mines along Cabin Creek, and there were 41 other mines on Payton Creek. on Paint Creek, but they made roughly three cents less than the other Canawa coal fields. And in 1912, the Paint Creek miners entered contract negotiations between the UMW and the coal operators. And these were kind of their demands. There's eight of them. Number one, the right to organize. Number two, recognition of their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly. Number three, end to blacklisting of union organizers.

Number four, alternatives to the company store. Five, end of the practice of using mine guards. And mine guards are simply the Baldwin-Feltz agents. Number six, prohibition of cribbing. So there's no more of this like long ton, like altered carts, like you're getting less money for having other rocks in the fucking shit you mine. Like, fuck all of that. Number seven, the installation of scales at all mines that accurately weigh coal.

in number eight unions to be allowed to hire their own check waymen to make sure the companies check we're not cheating the miners and to go a little more into that like Dave said those would be like democratically elected by the workers themselves accountable to the people yep exactly

so the none of that shit happens and about a week later it's a sad team who would ever fucking guess this the strike begins on April 18th, 1912. So during the Paint Creek Cabin Creek strike, the Socialist Party of America in West Virginia

initially gave very little recognition to the struggle. And it's worth noting here that truly you can make a fucking episode about this weird 1912 infighting between the UMW of A, the Socialist Party of America, and then the IWWW. It was also like 30 socialist newspapers around this time. And there was a lot of socialist newspapers in West Virginia a hundred years ago. It's actually astounding that I found out. I'm like, oh, what is, you know, all different varying names of socialists or socialist, you know, or whatever in them. But it's, yeah, there was, it's depressing how much socialist conversation there used to be in this area.

But go on, Chris. Now we have podcasts, so. Yeah, yeah, exactly. We're just carrying the rich, rich tradition of socialist newspapers in West Virginia. That's right. My God, that's an arrogant statement. Holy shit. No, it's a depressing one.

Depressing, sad. Yeah, on top of that, until we founded the, or not like we specifically, but until the West Virginia chapter of the IWW was opened up, I believe, last year, there was not on the books any sort of like radical union chapter or I think even like just radical kind of organization in the state of West Virginia like on the books. So if we do nothing for the rest of our lives, at least they can say, oh, they were part of the first ones to vote in the first IWW in the area. At least we have that, at least we have that on our resume, I guess. Man, talk about resting on your laurels. I'm going to pack it up and go home. That's it. That's it. I'm done. I'm going to take you on or something.

So, yeah, like I said, the Socialist Party really didn't give too much mind. But as kind of the strike progressed, they started setting up. strike committees and holding mass meetings to raise funds so that they could bring in weapons for the striking miners and smuggle like information and pictures out to the outside world to get like a real press of what's going on. Unfortunately, this is pretty much where their support ends. It's the same old story. As again, you have the battle essentially between the ballot box versus violent unionism,

which was the SBA, you know, versus the IWW. I mean, it's, yeah, you have the split, and like always, what the left does the best, splits. That's right. That's right. Yeah, so, so, yeah, like Dave said, the Socialist Party of America was not too keen on the IWW's militant unionism. Again, they were, they were, like, giving the miners aid to, like, buy weapons, but they weren't too keen on the IWW's use of weapons. very very interesting kind of crossing of wires here but it again comes down to reform versus like a revolutionary fervor and uh eugene debbs was was not about that revolutionary fervor yeah this really made us like this is not i know we didn't really put anything about uh eugene debbs in

this um but i will say that and us when we were researching this we were like we now think less of Eugene Debs. I'll put it that way because of his wanting to wash his hands of this essentially. Bernie Sanders. Yeah, Debs was pretty, it was just as imitent as Bernie Sanders is, and I will go on the record and piss off a shitload of your listeners

probably. I don't know. I think most of them would agree with that. I mean, I think Eugene Debs is often held up sort of stripped of any real historical context. People know the name, but don't really know much more than that, you know? Yeah, and to an extent, I think that Dave and I kind of, kind of had that.

This was a, this was pretty astounding. Like, don't, don't get me wrong. We had, well, we'd never really looked into you, Gene Debs before. It's just the topic we never really covered because we were never really interested too much in, and Debs's a strategy. In Debs' strategy, yeah.

And then, yeah, reading more of this. And then he, if I remember correctly, yeah, he just pretty much didn't want anything to do with it. You know, the disagreements to the IWW and just kind of like didn't really, was not a proponent of the, lot of the union struggles that were happening in west virginia or the strategies and it just was very like oh dude no why aren't you it was you also have the the matter of like also in the spa like white chauvinism which not to say that didn't exist in the um w va because believe me it

absolutely fucking did and and same goes with the iww but um but that's also worth calling attention to, especially when the kind of base of this fervor, this energy, the people that are actually on the ground going through this, is pretty diverse and but the leaders are

for now, the leaders are mostly white in these strikes, right? But I know that throughout. But in the battle that changes dramatically. In the battle we, as we'll talk later, we see a real rainbow coalition. And just real, just real quickly, we recently put out an episode on the history of the IWW, and we don't

spend a lot of time, but we do spend a little time talking about some of the contradictions and conflicts between the Socialist Party of America and the IWW. So if anyone wants to learn more about that, I could link to that in the show notes, or you can go find it on our episode backlog. But yeah, that's a whole other episode literally.

Yeah, no, it's a... I love that episode. I remember, yeah, I remember it popping up in my feet in that morning. I listened to it. It's a fucking wonderful episode. Thank you. So from there, the reason that, like, the Socialist Party was backing uh it was like providing the aid to the miners uh in southern west virginia and even

eastern kentucky was that the um w v a was like threatened with bankruptcy because they were in conjunction with this supporting strikes in colorado and vancouver uh as well it's again totally separate episodes but i believe 1914 colorado some of the horrifying shit that the baldwin felt agents did there, including, like, burning people alive. Yeah, it's truly Nazi shit that they would, like, put, in trigger warning for anybody, I guess, is that they would, like, put the women and children of striking minors in, like, big pits in, like, wells and burn them alive. Oh, damn.

This was happening 100 years ago in Colorado. Yeah. Fuck. Yeah, that's, that's Ludlow in Ludlow, Colorado. All in, all into battle, unionizing. As a sort of side note, in the Haitian revolution, there's sort of a prelude to that sort of Nazi terror as well when they would take dissident or rebellious slaves and put them in the whole of a ship and then pump sulfur dioxide into that as an earth. Holy shit. On our last episode of the Haitian Revolution, we talked about that as well.

So it's just crazy to see these sort of fascistic preludes to what eventually culminated in the Holocaust, you know. Yeah. I mean, there's a reason maybe the parallel. It was much more apparent with the U.S. than it is maybe the Haitian revolution. But there's a reason that Hitler looked up to the United States kind of policing so much, truly. So from there, during the Cabin Creek strikes, leaders had strikers go to Cabin Creek to contact the UMWA loyalist in Exdale, which is a town kind of close by, so that they could engage in a sympathy. strike. Frank Keeney met with them and drafted a set of demands asking them to quote unquote, restore the miners' right to free speech and peaceable assembly. They also asked to

end force trading at company towns, remove the Baldwin-Feltz agents, allow miners to bring their own checkweiman, install their own scales. They kind of just gave the rundown. And Keeney and his father-in-law were both fired the immediate next morning after this at the Wake Forest mining company's office for being the ring leaders of the walkout that transpired. Keeney from here on out was blacklisted and evicted from his company home. And so when Keeney went to went to the Exdale tents where he'd been living for two weeks at this point, he was told that the UMW District 17 had called off the strike against the unionized mines in Paint Creek in the Canawa Valley.

They'd settled for a wage increase of 2.5 cents per long ton. And soon they learned the mine owners in Paint Creek wouldn't even agree to that increase. So you kind of have this, this, like what just happened there is kind of an expression of the demands after some walkouts. And Keeney being blackballed along with, oh, evicted it's like the third time of his life. Yeah, evicted again. And then to kind of like quell the strike, the UMW of A district 17 itself says, okay, well, Well, yeah, you get this little pocket change, and I guess that's it. But they didn't.

Yeah, and then they pulled it back. I mean, there was literally nothing was one. Yeah, so from there, Keeney pretty much, like his coworkers, his family essentially, set their men back on strike. Keeney met with other UMWA officials to beg for assistance, but again, they were told that their research. sources were tied up in the fight on Paint Creek. And Paint Creek had been like longstanding dues paying members, even though that they didn't quite have the benefits that the other like Canawa Coalfield like Unionist had. And Kinney stated that quote unquote, if you men are afraid to make the trip with me, I will find someone with the nerve to go with me. And I know an old woman who would

up the creek with me. In all of this, he was referring to Mother Jones, to make her umpteenth-thousand-th trip back with him. So on August 6th, 1912, Jones arrives in Keeney's hometown, which it's not really specified. It's just a town. It's just referred to is Cabin Creek. But it is the only town along Cabin Creek that isn't a company town. So Jones had Keeney draft of a bill to post along the valley, and it reads, Exert your rights as freeborn American citizens.

Organize yourselves for mutual protection and to protect your wives and babies. Only cowards will submit to the wrongs we have suffered. Man, ad your prop used to be so much more like in your face back in the day. And that's something that Jones was really known for for any listeners that aren't well acquainted. In her speeches, she would literally just call the people cowards

and call them dogs and say your dog. Yeah, you're scum for not. standing up to the mine operators or to your bosses. And the crowd loved that they would cheer back. I wish I could go into my workplace and just tell everyone in there. Like, it's too afraid to unionize with me. You were all pieces of shit for not one unionize. Fuck you.

Fuck you. Fuck you. You're cool. You want to unionize with me. So, like, it's truly remarkable. Like, God, that would make this way easier. But the kind of one bit of aid that you, that the UMWA sent the District 17 minors at this time was George H. Edmonds. He is a black organizer. He was there to join the strike in Cabin Creek to appeal to the predominantly kind of black segment of that workforce.

Edmonds was a socialist. He preached class solidarity. He'd written about socialism in the Union Journal and spoke against Booker T. Washington for his calls on black workers to unite with their employers and lick their fucking boots. This was really like, as you put it, it's really a push to, like he said, to organize the black workers and to kind of prevent other black workers from crossing picket lines. Yeah, because that was a very genuine fear as well that some unionists had was that there would be black scabs or even just the black miners themselves.

that because of whatever elements there were of white chauvinism, of racism, that they would kind of follow that Booker T. Washington approach. And we see that, luckily, a lot did not, that there was that kind of cross-racial, class-based solidarity. So this starts another walk-off on August 7th in 1912. A march of 3,000 minors goes to Charleston to confront. governor William Glasscock about abolishing the mind guard system and who would have guessed that you're you're expecting me to make a joke about his name weren't you yeah i was i was i was i was waiting for

it so so who would have expected that william glasscock says okay we'll abolish it and we're going to implement ubi and the whole thing is over um brett thank you for having us on wrong Glasscock Glasscock did what all good American politicians do and says This doesn't matter between the employer and the employee Not for the government Even though we are going to stop you

At every turn that we can Anytime anything submitted the court And we will send the state police to murder you Even though we will kneecap you Every chance we get And so Jones kind of Mother Jones pleads with Glasscock, I won't even say

pleads, just kind of says to Glasscock declares that unless the governor ridd's paint creek and cabin creek of these goddamn Baldwin-Felt's mind-guard thugs, there's going to be a hell of a lot of bloodletting in these hills and motherfucker if she

was not correct. So his leadership had faltered and more militant rank and file kind of take hold. This is where the miners take up arms. They smuggle the firearms and explosives into the area surrounding Pank Creek, Cabin Creek, that stash them in the forest and, like, hollowed out trees.

It's kind of early guerrilla warfare. There's a lot of guerrilla warfare in this. Like you would see in, say, Vietnam or what have you. Like, as I read this, I was just thinking, fuck, I wish that the miners were able to read Jop, or, like, on guerrilla warfare by Mao or Kwame Nekrumah or something. like something that that had more to say about about them at it because they don't they dynamited like coal tipples and railroad tracks um they it was just i mean they they did not fuck around yeah and for

those that don't know coal tipples are are essentially the kind of housing that is used to like store the coal and then put to like transport the coal into the train cars like the train cars would go underneath usually or would pull up beside and that's how they'd loaded up so after two weeks glasscock declares martial law and ushers in 1,200 national guardsmen he encouraged negotiations between the UMWVA and the coal operators and the UMWVA was very welcome to the negotiation however the coal operators refused the operators then had mass evictions filled up all of the all the camps, the actual like tent, canvas tent camps that were set

up by the unionists in the UMWVA itself. They would carry in scabs via train car. These would be predominantly immigrants and they would use the same kind of strategies to bring in immigrant scabs as they did just like regular immigrant workers before like

the strikes. And that is they literally kidnapped them. Yeah, pretty much. They'd post up a paper in whatever. country, let's say Slovakia, and it would say the land of milk and honey, like, come

to America where you work hard and everything's, like, fucking great. And then, like, a poor Eastern European or what have you, pretty much under the Tsar would say, this is fucking great. Let's do it. And then they would

travel into New York by boat. And then they pretty much be kidnapped. And again, we have like, and I truly don't mean to laugh about it because like as I say it out loud it's fucking horrifying it's so surreal it's just is that it would be very holocaust like transportation of immigrants to the southern west virginia minefields they would just get put them on on trains and and take them down in mass yeah you wouldn't know where you were going you would you would come over to you know new york

ellis or ellis island and all that and then while looking around you would literally just get like pulled onto a train that was all the way down to West Virginia. And then you're now a coal miner. Yeah. Damn. So pulled from the archives is a quote from someone's niece that was a unionist. She said, my aunt, she stomped his face in with her heel, tore his ears off, and nearly

killed him. That is how brutal the miners and the miners' wives and pretty much just pro-union people were to the scabs. like if these motherfuckers think scabby the rat is bad i would have loved to have seen them a hundred years ago for real just that alone too we cannot underplay the role that the women played in these unionizing efforts um while the men were working and sometimes off uh shooting their guns and trying to i mean as we just talked about you know it's a guerrilla warfare happening even right now in cabin creek and that made the women play um

a crucial role as nurses. I mean, throughout this, throughout any sort of event, you know, you had women who fed the minors and the soldiers, essentially. Yeah, they would take care of if a minor died. They'd take care of his family. They would take care of each other's kids if one was outtending to something else. It was very, it wasn't dissimilar to some of the programs the Black Panthers had, like with the child care and, like, community breakfast.

and another like really cool thing in addition to just like beating the shit out of scabs was that they would stand at the train depots like along the whole platform and just like link arms together and keep the Baldwin felt agents from stepping off the trains wow yeah powerful um yeah like I have goosebumps right now and like in researching and reading and and watching documentaries he's like my heart just swelled so much realizing that all this went down just a few hours away and in just the kind of solidarity that that is possible we just really have to like get in the dirt and strive for it but from there it's it's now 1913 newly elected governor hatfield also implements martial law to eliminate the quote unquote troublemakers he would imprison

the strike leaders, set up military tribunals to try them. Overall, 49 socialist minors and leaders were court-martialed, including Mother Jones, in one week in 1913. They would eventually get out mostly without any damage done. So in February 1913, probably like one of the most chilling kind of scenes from all this happens, and that is at a camp. on in holly grove on paint creek you have the bull moose special which is an armored train it's outfitted with gatling guns um there's there's felt agents abort it there's cops aboard it

just shooting everyone's just shooting wildly into the encampment it's it's nighttime you can't really see this terror is the catalyst for the miners staking out the town of mucklow and when they stake out the town of mucklow Baldwin-Feltz agents kind of enter the town, start to do their evictions and then when I think the story goes when you hear the sound of the

Bobwhite open fire and there's one of the miners did Bobwhite called Bob White's a bird and the miners just rained bullets from the fucking heavens on these goddamn felts agents so very much

guerrilla warfare and this was about a little month, about a month after the Bull Moose special rips through the encampment at Holly Grove. So we stumble upon April 1913 in no small part of thanks to Mucklow. Hatfield negotiated the settlement and announced on Mayday of 1913 that the strike was finished. The mine operators had realized that they needed to settle because their mines had been closed for a year and they couldn't break the strike with strike breakers or intimidation. hell yeah so the concessions that the the operators had agreed to included the independent check

wasmen for the tonnage the right to shop outside the company store and also the nine hour work day because these guys were putting in at least 12 14 hour days so cutting it down to nine is much better you're less likely to have the fatigue you're still going to have fatigue you're still going to have fatigue. It's a very fucking demand of job. You get cancer not to a little later in life. Yeah. Yeah, you'll get cancer at 70 instead of 60 if you live that long, but you're less likely to make a mistake and just like have an entire fucking like coal seam fucking fall on you. Oh, this is one of the best Keeney quotes. Keeney in the militant rank and file of the area, which is District 17, take concessions but tell the UMWA that it's too little too late. And Keeney says, quote, unquote, quote, we do not listen to capitalists from New York in London. So that is the Paint Creek Cabin Creek Strike kind of boiled down,

tried to do the best we could with events that, again, like so many of these things we touch on could be there. And what's astounding. And what's astounding is like growing up in relative proximity to this area, the Battle Blare Mountains like not taught at all in our public schools. It's not mentioned in passing. I don't think it was mentioned us. I don't remember it at all if it was.

But yeah, it's just not something that's, I mean, for obvious reasons. Even though, I mean, they could teach it later as we'll get into that. But it's just, it's mind-boggling with how much is involved in this entire, in this decade. Yeah, in this event. Yeah, it's a decade of class struggle. And one of the most, and we kind of talk about this on another episode of ours, where we talk about the migration from Appalachia to Chicago.

But Appalachia really was, and especially this part, was in its way, its own, like, third world of the United States. Yeah. And it was much more diverse.

You had a lot of immigrants. You had, like I said, former slaves, descendants of slaves. And there was a lot of illiteracy. You had truly third world conditions. Yeah.

And we could talk about that forever and kind of how the dynamics have changed. And I think later, too, before we get to the end, we'll talk about how these kind of are the situations and the places and the conditions that often equals strong revolutionary movements. Exactly. Well, let's go ahead and I'm going to ask one more question before we get into the Battle of Blair Mountain proper. And I think that it's going to require us to establish, and you might have already mentioned them, but establish who Sheriff Sid Hatfield is, and then what the Matawan massacre was in its aftermath. So if you want to cover that history, and then after that, we'll dive into the Battle of Blair Mountain proper. Yeah, absolutely. Just a real quick rundown before we really dive into Sid Hatfield,

just to kind of establish the conditions with which Hatfield kind of, for lack of better word, rises to power. And he was able to do what he does in the immediate aftermath of Paint Creek Cabin Creek after the negotiations in that really cool kind of Frank Peeney quote, these Wildcat strikes still continue. continue. There's still a guerrilla warfare. And on the wings of an insurgent kind of presidential bid for the UMWA District 17, Keeney is elected the president of District 17 with a friend and also fellow minor. Fred Mooney is secretary treasurer. So four years, you still have the insurgencies going on. And the U.S. enters into World War II. And Keeney kind of threads an interesting needle here.

Wait, World War, which World War? World War I. Oh, shit, World War I. I apologize. My notes are fucked. I apologize. But Keeney publicly says that the miners, like, should work for the war effort. This is in 1917 when the U.S. enters. However,

privately, behind closed doors with other unionists and organizers and minors, he says... He was very against any war. He very strongly condemns the war. and says it's a rich man's imperialist game that they sent the poor to be killed instead of their own sons.

So why does he do this? Why does he try to thread this needle? It's because the war production was a big opportunity to open doors for unionization. Because of the war effort, the UMWA District 17 membership increases to 30,000,

and that is a five-time increase. And by 1920, it would be 50,000, which was its height. Yeah. and there's tens of thousands of dollars in the banks and with these resources and support it's time to really push into mingo county mcdow county and logan counties and mingo is the home of mate one which we will discuss very shortly mcdow has wealth the town of welch and logan is where blair mountain itself is located so the way that the keeney kind of threads this needle this game and also with the numbers and, like, monetary gains that they've made, this gains them more backing from John Lewis, who is the president of the UMW of A. Kind of a dick.

Yeah, just absolute fucking scumbag. He's a horrible, horrible reactionary. He's very conservative. He's the kind of, like, Western Pennsylvania unionist that Harry Haywood spoke of in Black Bolshevik when he talks about his time in the Western, PA, Colfields, and how folks called Haywood, one of the quote-unquote good ones discussing his race. So very, very racist, intense white chauvinism.

And he only really wants the southern part of the state to be unionized because it gives him more a deuce paying members. B, it also gives them more leverage with the state of Indiana, Ohio. and then those Western PA coal fields. Yeah, he was very much running the union in a very capitalist sense. As a business. It is straight up a business union. Like, there's a reason they call him that.

Right. So with this kind of like union front that's going on, the coal operators created their own sort of capitalist front as well, where they would pool their resources and kind of like spread the Baldwin-Felds agents around. They'd kind of like spread the wealth, but for capitalists, they would kind of pay across the county lines and across like company lines to provide absolute just marginally better housing like maybe the fucking roof ain't caving in anymore um they would like build a couple more bars and pool halls it's the office pizza party yeah they'd have nicer churches and maybe get like a better teacher for a school yeah it's it's exactly the office pizza party except like 1918 in the u.s um but But something that Keeney and the other unionists really rally behind is this idea of, yes, we have these better schools and churches, but we still don't, like, quote unquote, we still don't got our freedom. And an example of that is, like, the postmaster for the town was just an official at the company store, and they'd go through all the mail before sending it, make sure that you're not a pro-union scumbag.

And in the time leading up to what transpires in Mate 1 as well, you see this armed resistance in very specifically the Dirty 11. You have Don a few-closed Johnson chain, Don Chain, who... We need to make a sequel called Dirty 12. And Chain was, or Fuglige Johnson, whatever you prefer to call him, was very inspired by Edmonds when he was sent down for Pank Creek Cabin Creek. And he's a predominant black union organizer and arguably the most prominent of the dirty 11 that would use the firearms in these very like syndicalist kind of tactics where they would dynamite coal tipples or like they'd bomb like railroad tracks. They'd like send engines off the rails.

They would stick up company stores with guns and like even maybe you can kill the officials that were there. Like some real king shit. Yeah. With all of this, District 17 can push to start their Mingo County campaign in Maitwan. They have the manpower. They have the backing from the various sources. They got money in the bank. They're ready to rock and roll. So they begin the campaign in Maitwan, which is one of, if not the only independent town in all of Mingo County. I took this quote. I did not cite the book here. Whoops. And it says, Maitwan. was 800 people, a block of businesses, a main street line by maples with whitewashed trunks, big wooden houses behind the maples, miners' cabins along Mait Creek and the railroad,

and a high rock cliff behind it all. There was a depot, a bank, a company store, a hotel, a hardware, two drug stores, and the do drop in. There was also Testerman's jewelry run by coal operators. So coal operators in the area paid deputy sheriffs and private detectives to enforce laws that they liked. company spies circulated secretly amongst the miners to learn of any union activity and it was quote unquote the worst governed town in this state which is

truly a matter of perspective because because as we'll see we have we're about to introduce to you the now in all of history there has only there's actually there's two I'm sorry there's two dead cop or I'm sorry I missed it up

two good cops I fucked it up two good cops one dead, two, Sid Hatfield. Fuck. So... You forgot Chris Dorner, but okay. Oh, oh, fuck. Chris Dornner.

Three good cops. So, Testerman's jewelry was run by the mayor of the town, C.C. Testerman, Cable Testerman, and his wife,

Jesse Testerman. So from there, we can finally talk about Sid Hatfield. like Dave said, one of three good cops ever. And he was born on the border of West Virginia and Kentucky in quote unquote, Hatfield-McCoy feudant country of the Tug River in 1893.

He was raised by Jake Hatfield, 70 miles away from Charleston, and that's as the crow flies. And he was supposedly not actually Jake Hatfield's son. um jake's wife oh by the way of the hatfield and McCoys yeah for those who know the classic uh feud he was yeah part of that family

but um or not we don't know no i suppose it wasn't actually but was raised as if he was a hatfield um so he grew up in the mines he saw how the ex-slaves would come into the area and how hungarians and irish and polish and italians were imported on the boats or from the boats uh he left school to be a minor and eventually went to Auburn, Kentucky across the river

from Maitwan. And at 25, when there were 90 mines along the tug that employed about 6,000 people, Maitwan's mayor, C.C. Testerman appointed him the first chief of police of Maitwan. Sid was known for being good with his gun.

There was a certain charisma to him, which is, as we can tell, pretty important for some kind of revolutionary leader. He had a real no bullshit attitude. Legend is that he'd even killed some men for being too

rowdy or being like for being too rowdy and anti-union. He was incredibly pro-union. Yeah. So the coal operators believed it was their natural right as the property owners to choose to only hire

non-union workers. And as we said earlier, like the courts have kind of ruled in their favor time and time again throughout this process and theoretically as deputy sheriffs and sheriffs did he was supposed to uphold those laws but he didn't yeah like a champ yeah sid said said the fuck off he wasn't taking the money he grew up in it he knew he was in the dirt he knew what what it was like to be a minor like fucking 10 years old yeah he was a prominent member of the community he it was people who

grew up with he it was his friends he it was a union town you know it was all of this stuff and he really I mean, throughout this whole thing, Sid was just really good at just telling capitalists to fuck off. I mean, he was the king of that. So Mayor Testerman really favored the miners. That's why that quote of, it's the worst run town in the state, might be a little... Attributed to Sid and Testerman being pro-union. Yeah, and Testerman favored the miners, as did Sid. And Sid wore his badge and guns, but no uniform, and enforced the law in a way that could only play.

please the miners. When miners fought, he pulled them apart. When they got drunk, he took them home. When they become obstreperous, he calmed them down. So it's what a cop should do. And also, what would, you know, and again, I don't think you, you can't call them a cop, though, in the sense, in the definition of how we define police now. Because here's a quote from a minor. Once, however, he saw a man known to be against the miners union, a weapon in violation of mate one law and he arrested the man knocked him to the ground and slapped him up in the lock up nice yeah yeah so none of that anti-union shit was flying on sid's watch and like a really big moment for uh sid as kind of the sheriff and for just the unionization

efforts in mingo county um in spring of 1920 uh town called burnwell which is three miles from mate one was the first to unionize and, like, get behind the national 27% wage increase in the freedom from the company town. Sid stood watch at the union meeting to ensure no interruptions occurred during the, quote, unquote, meeting along the tug as it's referred, though there was no, like, real solid prospect of the union, like the drive hadn't really started yet. There was just the workers that wanted it themselves. And the cooperators refused to even meet with the union reps or discuss the subject.

And if they wish to work, the miners had to sign yellow dog contracts, which was pretty much in writing saying that they wouldn't quote unquote affiliate or with or assist or give aid to any labor organization. But like 3,000 of the 4,000 minors still signed up with the UMWVA. And with that, there was the creation of mass UMWVA camps in the region because they couldn't work. there was in the background as we're talking what's happening in the background

constantly are evictions like this is happening every day of every day of every year but it's happening consistently where any time

you breathe the word union or you say the word solidarity or you think it you're evicted from your home your shit is dumped onto the what few belongings you have

are thrown on off the porch onto the muddy-ass dirt road in the middle of the pouring rain. They scrape the coal out of your burner. They would, yeah, it would literally empty your house completely. They hold you and your wife and your kids at fucking gumpoint telling you to get the hell out.

Like, truly horrifying shit. So onto the Maitwan massacre itself. So the events transpire on May 19th of 1920. It's kind of the tipping point of all of this. It's on the Union Day. where 2,000 extra people are in Maitwan, like coming in from these various camps, because they need to receive their relief pay in any, like, supplies that they or their families might need. So it's a pretty boom, pretty goddamn boom metropolis for Southern West Virginia standards at this point.

Again, the town only had 800 people to start with. And so on behalf of the Stone Mountain Coal Company, the Baldwin-Felds agents showed up. And this particular squad is led by two of the younger Feltz brothers, and that's Albert and Lee Feltz. So they have breakfast at a hotel owned by Ants Hatfield. It was a class trader. A piece of shit. And he's obviously not a union guy as he lets the mine guards have a nice little breakfast at the hotel. They make their way up Meat Creek to the homes of some striking miners.

And the first one of these homes is a man named Charlie Kelly. First eviction, and it takes place as Sid and Mayor Testerman follow behind the agents. And as they walk through the town to follow the Baldwin-Felts detectives, they kind of amass an angry group of people. Wait, real quick, before, as right before they followed the Feltz agents into the eviction, when Sift-Hetfield first, first, first, hears of the Felce agents in town, he first says that he's going to shoot the motherfuckers. And then, or some form of that, or shoot the goddamn sons of bitches. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then a, he gets on a call. He starts calling people, it's either him or Testerman. I can't remember exactly. And the town pastor also has said,

they, or no, Testerman tried to call the town pastor to calm things down. And the pastor said, I'm going to shoot two of the bastards myself. Yeah. So, so real big union. town for sure um so as they're evicting kelly sid confronts al felts regarding a warrant and ow hands him the the piece of paper and so sid kind of makes his way back to the office and and contacts the sheriff uh in williamson uh about 10 miles away the sheriff confirms that that Al has no authority to make these, uh, these evictions. And that's kind of what Sid wants to hear. He can, he can take the matters into his own hands. So he prepares the, to trump up some arrests due to illegally carrying weapons. Because why do you have those

weapons if you don't, if you don't have a proper warrant? Um, so he files that paperwork. And it's expected to come on the five o'clock train, uh, that night. So in waiting, Sid couldn't really confront the detectives. So at 4 p.m., the detectives return after evicting actually six families. And each story is worse than the last. Like I said, you had the story with the Kellys. Then people were forcing kids out of their homes at gunpoint. He was reported they kicked the pregnant woman out onto the dirt streets.

And so Sid tells them as they any of the depot of the warrants that he had. for their arrests and Al says that he quote unquote returns the compliment and claims they have a warrant for Sid's arrest. One of the armed crowd runs into Testerman's jewelry store in the square that the depot is located in and Testerman goes to view the warrant he's summoned from from his jewelry store and he announces to the crowd that it's a bogus warrant. So Testerman felt and Sid are in a bit of a stare down. Really in the kind of like a Wild West scenario.

That was terrible. Dave, insert the good, bad, and ugly theme here. And in this kind of stare-down, that's when the first shot is fired. Now, who fired the shot is a little bit up in the air. Which is a common theme. Yeah. Sid claims that Al felt shot C.C. Testerman, and then Sid shot. Sid shot Feltz.

Some others claim miners staking out of chambers hardware in the square shot first, and they accidentally misfired and hit Testerman. And the Feltz have always said that Tom Feltz specifically has always said that Sid shot his brother first.

But we also want to reliterate that the Fels were the only one saying Sid shot first. Yeah. So Testerman and Feltz fall to the ground and Sid draws his pistols and suddenly the place is a fucking war zone. In the firefight is Lee Feltz is reloading his gun. Rish Chambers, who is the father of Sid's best friend, Ed Chambers, kills Lee with his rifle.

He puts a couple of point-blank bullets right into him. So when it's all over, Lee and Al Feltzer, along with five other detectives, had been killed. Two miners had been shot, and Mayor Testerman was taking his dying breaths. He kind of gets into shelter and is tended to by his well. wife, Jesse, like, praise has his last rights, what have you, and five others were wounded in this, uh, in this, uh, firefight. It lasted two minutes. Yeah, lasted all of two minutes.

Jesus. From there, we will go into the aftermath. Do you have any, anything you want us to elaborate on, Brett, or just keep on trucking? Just keep trucking. Yeah, I think this is absolutely, like, fascinating. Yeah, just keep going with the, uh, with the aftermath and they'll get into the, uh, the Battle of Blair Mountain proper. Yeah, that's pretty much what's next.

we can finish talking about this and talking about you'll see. Man, we might actually beat the Stalin episode for going to wrong. Fuck. It's getting that. So, in the weeks after the May 1 massacre,

Tom Feltz jumps up a case of shit, of Sid shooting Mayor Testerman because of his affinity for Jesse Testerman's wife. And of course, this wasn't, this story wasn't really helped. Got married, what, two weeks? after a week.

Yeah, by Sid and Jesse's very quick marriage after the mayor's death and reports, yeah. Yeah, it is pretty like, oh, that's not good, bro. That doesn't look good. It's like, oh, man. Wait a month at least. I mean, come on. Haven't you heard of Guy Code, man? Come on.

Six months. Six months after my death. So there were also reports of the two of them kind of strolling along the Tug River in the week's leading up to the ultimate death of Testament as well. Yeah, there's speculation that they were, yes, there was an affair before Testament's death. However, this has been a pretty good guy this far. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

And Jesse says... It's going to be at least one bad thing about the guy. They're, like they're in Huntington, West Virginia, and they're going to the courthouse, get married, so they stay the night. The press kind of swarms them, and they're sent to Jesse. And Jesse makes an attempt at dispelling all of this kind of conversation

by talking of Sid's closeness to the family, to Testerman himself, to Jesse, to their five, six-year-old son, and how Testerman said that if he should die, then she should take Sid's hand in marriage. From there, they're all married, what have you. A local restaurateur in ex-miner, C.E. Lively, opens his doors as a kind of like union hangout and savehouse for the miners-inmate-Wan post-masacre. He becomes kind of a prominent member of the union community, C.E. Lively. And we'll get more into him later, but it's good to just kind of introduce him now. Yeah. So after the massacre, Keeney sends all 71 area coal operators letters of negotiation. And they all say no, using pretty much the same, like,

copy they all send the same you know it's pretty much the same damn letter like every single one of them and this i think kind of really speaks to the collective and was a signal of the power that they had in uniting as like a kind of like capitalist sort of union itself so as a result on july first of 1920 keeney calls a general strike for mingo county in 95% of the miners walk the fuck off. To break the strike, while they would still use the evictions and these violent means that the felt's agents

would use, the operators introduced a new strategy. They'd play to the fears of the petty bourgeois, like lawyer types, the restaurant owners, potential physicians, whatever. And this wasn't even just local. It was also like a national fucking campaign.

And they would tie the UMWVA to Bolshevism, which once you know, about the UMWVA and how it's the same thing. It's like, it's the same thing. It's like, it's that same goddamn mean of this but unironically. That was happening a hundred

years ago too. Yeah, it's like, God, I wish I wish the Democrats were even a quarter as cool as the fucking. Yeah, I wish the UWA was fucking Bolsheviks. That would have been, that would have been cool. That would have been awesome. So, we would have been living in the West Socialist, Virginia

States. I don't know. 55 strong baby but so the operators kind of concoct this narrative of the quote unquote american plan uh that they spread like nationally and it speaks of like loyalty and patriotism and like the dumb ass like bootstrap story and it's very effective with a lot of like petty bourgeois across the country and even to an extent like in the state um and yeah some of the workers as well and they think that being union shows disloyalty to your work and disloyalty to your employer. Yeah, you're loyal to an outside agitator. I want to I've heard that before. Yeah, exactly. As we were like going through stuff to include in this

episode, I found a striking kind of like stairstep comic. It was like a staircase and there's like feet walking down it. And the top step says like strikes and walkouts. The next step says disorder dash riots. And then from there goes to Bolshevism and murders. And then chaos in all caps Yeah then chaos in all caps on the last stair And then below that last stair is just a black abyss of nothingness With a big white question So we'd like to call the cool zone

That's what I want to be in Yeah exactly That's like where Marxist history begins We're still pre-history y'all So On January 26th of 1921 23 men are on trial for the murder of the Baldwin-Feldt's agents in Maitwant and the first person

is a witness to be called to the stand Mr. C.E. lively. Yep. And so he proudly declares under oath and on the stand, he says that he is a Feltz agent

and very anti-union. It's worth noting that he was, in fact, one of the Baldwin-Felt's greatest spies. He would sign his letters, his correspondence with, the agents in Bluefield in Virginia with he would sign it as like number nine or something like

that. Yeah, and essentially he ran the safe house. He was a safe house and was one of Sid's best friends and a lot of the miners of their friends and he had completely infiltrated the union. And also, I didn't put it in here because I saw it earlier, but

Chris covered this part. But there was a part where even the judge asked as lively is proudly saying he's a felts agent. The judge and that he spied on his friends, the judge asks, like, and you don't see anything wrong with that? And lively just goes, no.

Nope. Yeah, and much like our reaction, there's audible gasps in the fucking courtroom because he ran the goddamn safe house. Like, he heard a lot of shit said to him in confidence. And sadly, this isn't the last of a year of him either, but go ahead. And he says that Hatfield bragged him about killing Al Phelts.

But luckily, Maitwan was a union town and the defendants were found not guilty to an absolutely fucking uproarous applause and those that were anti-union just jaws on the fucking floor could not believe that all 23 got off.

Who had shown their support for a guilty verdict like had to leave town immediately after a not guilty verdict was red. You got to bring the energy back. Yeah, exactly. So we got another West Virginia governor to talk about. His name's Ephra Morgan, Republican, and he was there for 1921, 1925. He doubles the police force in West Virginia to protect its highest revenue source and, of course, being coal.

So in early May, 1921, the coal mines in Mingo County were operating at near capacity. A few miles down the river from May 1, miners opened fired on shore. strike breakers during more wildcat strikes. Miners also dynamited the coal company's power plant, and they would cut down telegram and telephone lines so that there was no correspondence in or out. And several units of state troopers are deployed and square off against the miners for three days. Again, reinforcing that element of guerrilla warfare that we see play out over the course of this

decade. On May 18th of 1921, there are 250 men meeting. they make one courthouse. And they're predominantly petty, petty booge business owners and lawyers and doctors and what have you. And they create a quote-unquote vigilance committee. So this is comprised of folks that view the miners as less than or think their power is threatening.

They think they're subhuman. And they're upsetting the natural order of things. They're upsetting the capitalist system. That's right. And their goal is literally to guard against, quote, unquote, outside agitators. so where have we heard this story before it's seriously like the maga hat philly dads that are out on fucking street corners

because they're afraid that Osama bin Antifa is going to fucking bomb the goddamn statue of Frank Rizzo or something but at least in this point though I will there wasn't I don't think those kind of those kind of little small like vigilante groups or whatever they want to they call themselves

It weren't really as an effect, I think, as they do now, because it's important to note that every single union minor had a gun. Actually, no, I'm sorry, had like five guns. And that was such a presiding force over, like, kind of these little community or these little groups of brown shirts would kind of flow it in and out. Yeah, so in May 19th, Morgan declares martial law in Mingo with enforcement by state troopers and the dipshits and the vigilance committee and one state trooper says

if there's an agitator around you can stick them in jail and keep them there and that's what he liked about martial law didn't need any fucking reason you just jailed to people no constitutional rights under martial law yep the common charge that they would kind of slap on people

was called bunching and it's fucking wild to think about because bunching is talking in groups of three or more So if Dave and I meet IRL with a guest, like just one single guest. We're bunching. We're bunching. And we're going to fucking jail under Morgan's statewide martial law.

God. Just a pretext to harass and arrest anybody you want. Yeah, exactly. And if you're keeping track, this is what, the third or fourth time martial law has been? Yeah, it's the third time. Third time martial law has been declared in the state. God damn. In less than a decade.

Yeah, true. And so the troopers would, like, even jail people for having the Union Journal, the United Mine Workers Journal, folded in their pocket, even if they were just, like, handed it, like, someone handed it to them. Yeah, if you, and under the times that they're under martial law, if you, if you say the word union, I mean, you're immediately locked up. If you have anything, I mean, when they say agitating, if you even say, hey, let's get to get, I mean, like you said, bunching, that's three more people. What is it union, you know? And it really was just complete and utter just destruction of any sort of thought of unionizing. It was so rough, like so bad under martial law that the black unionists had gone so far as to liken their conditions, the slavery that they and if not them themselves that their parents had faced. And you see the petty bourgeois maintain the refrain that the minors,

did this to themselves. They made the trouble. They forfeit their rights of citizens. They made their bed go lay in it. The same chuddy shit that you still hear from the fucking suburban, like, used car lot dad today. It's all about freedom

and liberty until literally anybody else asks for it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Meanwhile, I'm going to fucking crack some bud light and wave around this American flag. Well, it's the freedom of unity or the freedom of profit. You know, or yeah, property. Yeah, that's what they, that's what matters.

Yeah, they're afraid that that's going to encroach upon them in their safe little, little bubble. As we talked before, that attitude has been pushed to be, you know, thankful for everything that's been supplied to you. Why aren't you in worse conditions for everything the company has given you? Exactly. So, it takes us to June 14th of 1921 and there are reports of minor shooting of their superintendent, which is just generically a boss. 70 state troopers

rated the nearby Maitwan tent colony They ransacked each tent They'd confiscated weapons They tipped over the fucking stoves They poured kerosene into milk And would just like take knives And slice the fucking canvas of the tents

In this raid The troopers killed an unarmed minor And they marched 45 others at gunpoint And locked them up without charges Like again it is truly It's chilling to see the fascistic elements that come out in this. Yeah, I mean, capitalism indicates fascism, right?

It is. Put pressure on capitalism, you get the fascism. That's what it is. Exactly. And this is, for anyone that was like all about the videos of taking knees with cops and whatever else, you don't need to dive that deep into history. To realize that it's just counterinsurgency tactics. and to realize that there's no, there is literally not a single action that they will do

and not a single thought in their head that they'll have that will be beneficial for a working class person or working class as all. None. Everything is absolutely done in ploy to undercut you and everything that you are owned to as a working class person. Exactly. Yeah. So at this point, there are now over 100 unions jailed in Mingo County. So it takes us to August 21st of 1921 where we're getting. there we're literally six days before the battle right so yeah august 21st of 1921 sid and jesse hatfield sid's best friend ed who i mentioned earlier and uh his wife sally take a train from mate wan

to welch in mcdow county so they have to go to they have to go to welch because sid is uh being tried for i believe dynamiting a coal tipple um he also took part in these kind of insurgent efforts. Yeah, he was part of the Dirty Eleven, wasn't it? Yeah, I believe so. I believe he was part of the Dirty Eleven. And so they stopped a couple towns out from Welch. So again, this is a cop actively taking part in working class warfare for the working

class. Yeah. And so they stopped a couple towns out from Welch. And our old buddy, C.E. lively, boards the train and sits close to the Hatfield. Yeah, they like exchange glances. There's, I think, Sid, at one point, tries to talk. to them or see, I can't, and then it kind of gets blown off. Things are kind of

awkward, you know, there's like, huh, they see it, because they see each other again, I think, at the hotel. They see each other, we'll get there. Okay. Like I said, Sid's there because he's under indictment for murders and bombing the cold tipple. And so,

they stop in Welch. They get off the train and they have breakfast. And as they're having breakfast, C.E. Lively pops in again. It's a little weird dudes like stalking them and so they make their way to the courthouse and the sheriff's deputies escorting the four of them to the to the courthouse and watch also to stress also what just occurred before this is sid was warned sit and ed were warned to not go to the

to macdow they were warned they knew this was dangerous going in there were hits on their heads by the baldwin felt's agents and um the sheriff of which i don't think we have his name um the sheriff of McDowell even had like said before that he would have protection there. As we will learn here in about two seconds, that was not the case. Yeah. Thanks for the pickup, Dave.

Like I said, there's a lot going on and I'm sure that some shit slipped through the cracks. So the sheriff's deputy is escorting the four of them to the courthouse and Welch. And then at the foot of the steps he kind of lets Ed and Sid lead the way.

And when Ed and Sid crest the stairwell C.E. Lively is there again and then he shoots Ed in the neck and after that gunshot some other Baldwin-Felts agents join in and they shoot Sid dead right at the top

of the courthouse steps. Yeah. In cold fucking blood. It was even 30? I think he was under 30. Yeah. Like 28. Yeah. Damn. This game not just local press but also national press. And the New York Times, you know,

the bastion of fucking peak journalism. Yeah, the Communist Times, I know. Yeah, the Communist Times. They said, quote unquote, Sid died the way he lived, the way his people live, his primitive mountaineers.

They live by the sword and die by the sword. There will be no peace in the coal fields until all of these people have died off. And they likened the West Virginia miners to savages and subhumans. So if you need any fucking reason to not listen to the New York Times,

like, God. I mean, it's a, Same. Yeah, and then, well, 10 years after this, they would go on the praise Hitler in a piece. So, I mean, it's not... Doing the Lord's work, man. Fuck. I mean, what? Just last week, they published Tom Cotton's fascist fever dream of sending the military in against the American people. And there's this unbroken line of the New York Times being fucking shit. Oh, yeah. God, shit's accelerated so much. I totally fucking forgot about Tom Cotton's fever dream.

Holy shit. We would all like to forget about that. For real. So Hatfield and Sid Hatfield and Ed Chambers funeral processions were over 2,000 people big and they occurred in Maitwant. In four days after the funeral, his funeral, his funeral has had more people than the town itself. So four days after the funeral, Mother Jones, Frank Keeney and Fred Mooney, call a rally at the steps of the capital in Charleston. There's over 5,000 miners there. with a large police presence

and Governor Ephra Morgan refusing to leave his office. It's another scene that we have seen a matter of just weeks ago. And Keeney says, you have no recourse except a fight. The only way you can get your rights is with a high-powered rifle.

If we meet any resistance, the Maitwan affair will look like a parade. Amen. And that's kind of right where we can. And that is the lead-up to the battle of players. Two hours later, which, to be fair, this is actually most of what we're going to go over. I mean, there are so many leading and turning gears that it's really, we're going to kind of shoot through it because the, as we'll go, the battle will only last from Wednesday to Saturday. So it's not, it's mostly we're going to be talking about like skirmishes and leaders in kind of the state of the army itself and how it operated.

Yeah, you know, we think historically we isolate these events, you know, and sort of pick them out of space and time and think about them as sort of isolated incidents. But, you know, we've been talking about the Battle of Blair Mountain in some deep sense this entire time. Absolutely. Yeah. All right. So let's get into the battle itself. So all of these events and historical figures eventually culminated in the Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest labor uprising in U.S. history and the largest armed uprising. rising since the Civil War.

In 1921, 10,000 miners gathered together to unionize the southern West Virginia coalfields to fight for their health and for their safety. They were met on Blair Mountain, and a battle ensued. Today, Blair Mountain is threatened by mountaintop removal coal mining. They strip away the entire forest, bulldoze away the soil, and start blasting. It wouldn't happen at Antietam. What they would like more than anything in the world, these giant corporations, is to destroy this great monument to the union movement, the American middle class,

to American values, and American democracy, and that's Blair Mountain. And I've come to the conclusion. The history of Blair Mountain actually is a motive. motivating factor behind the industry wanting to blow it up. They were asking for an eight-hour work day, you know, to work five days a week, eight hours a day, to be paid by the hour instead of the time so that they could be, so that they could have a stable income

and not work, you know, 14 hours. They weren't asking for the sun and the moon. They were just asking for human decency. human decency basically. If you had money coming to you, you was paid in script. No. How? No.

There wasn't no such thing if you had any money coming to you for you. You didn't make enough to even feed your man in the wild. But the most important thing that happened during that period to restore our democracy was the emergence of the union movement. And that really, and the biggest battleground, the first battleground, the first biggest battleground, the frontline battle for that battle, was on Blair Mountain. And when they realized that the state government wasn't going to help them out, and they realized that the national government wasn't going to help them out,

and they were starving, you know, in tents, you know, that's when they grew desperate, and that's when they grew violent. Social movements that are nonviolent that have been successful have mostly developed in the 20th century, Gandhi and then King. and King. And in 1921, that hadn't happened yet. Frankini said, you know, the only way you can get your rights is with a high-powered rifle. And he told them to go home and await the call to march. They started out on foot. At one point, probably around Danville, they ended up hijacking a train.

There was an army waiting for them at Blair Mountain. This was an army made up of state police, of mine guards, and of citizens. And then what actually brought the whole thing to an end was that federal troops from Kentucky were called in. Well, as soon as the miners heard that the federal troops were coming, they thought first of all that the federal troops would be on their side and they'd try to work on the side of justice rather than on the side of the coal operators.

Indeed, they didn't. They went in and started arresting people, so the miners then fled. They really didn't want to fight the U.S. Army. It's a bittersweet time because, on the one hand, on the one hand they lost and the union was broken for the next 12 years. But on the other hand, it's one of those mileposts that you look back on and say that was a really important moment. And in fact, even though it initially led to a setback, it finally led to going forward.

Yeah, it brings back a lot of memories. Glory Mountain means to start this union in here. That's 90% of it, that's where it starts from. I'm a charter member of the United Mine Workers of West Virginia. You've got rights when you've got a union. That's your buddy. I become the mine committeeman, safety committeemen, and the hospital and the hospital commitment.

I didn't let them die with nothing. I think the symbol that Blair Mountain represents of people standing up to the coal industry is one that they would just as soon have obliterated. See, they're going to fill this hollow in here, too. This is going to be the Hackens Fort Valley Field right here. So it's probably going to meet their valley field over here, cut branches. There was a dirt road that went up the hollow there,

through the pass here, low gap. low-gap and we know there's a lot there was a lot of fighting going on there. That's a valley field right there for an Aka's fork mine. If you walk up that hollow you'll be on top where all the artifacts are. We're going in with metal detectors. We're not finding anything made after 1921. That means that those artifacts are dated before 1921, which puts them right at the time of this battle. Most of the miners probably just pulled their squirrel gun or their deer gun out of the closet

and a couple of boxes of ammunition and they went to war. And I found miners' bullets coming all the way up, right? And so now we're seeing the defensive parts right here, a whole bunch of fired rounds, and then we just now found an incoming round. Now when you have a lot of spent bullets like that, the lead part, then you think, hey, there was some pretty close quarters here. and so you think the miners were really putting the heat on them. Right down over the hill, we found some patterning of pistol rounds,

which are short-range weapons. But the things you find in the soil don't lie. They tell the truth, and they've been there for 90 years, and then all of a sudden they start testifying. We know that they broke through at Crooked Creek Gap. I think that they broke through at Mill Creek Gap, and what we're finding here with the archaeology is that they possibly were breaking through here. This piece of land right here is one of the most significant stories in American history.

And if it's destroyed, then it's going to be gone forever. Essentially, you're taking the most incredibly biodiverse temperate forests on Earth and this amazing aquatic resource and poisoning it, annihilating it, and destroying it forever in order to get to the coal. And, you know, at the base of the mountains where this is going on, communities are being driven to extinction. You just couldn't turn a company loose like A.T. Massey, because they'd feel tugged river up. They put the river over here, you know. The coal companies are willing to do anything to get at that coal, including destroying a wonderful historical site that belongs right up at the top of the historical battlefields in our country.

It made it onto the registry, and then all of a sudden the rug was pulled out from under. those people who are trying to preserve the mountain. And I think it was pretty underhanded the way that happened. And so they gave us a list, we commented on it. They used a different list. We commented on that, and they said it's too bad, it's too late, the comment period was over. Part of the objectors who signed on to objecting the nomination,

two of them are deceased. They've been dead for one of them for over 20 years. So there's just a huge amount of discrepancies. The 1,600 acres is roughly what we came up with that included most of the archaeological evidence. And the problem with it right now is that that 1,600 acres just happen to have millions of tons of coal underneath. And, of course, the coal companies are vying for that coal. They want to actually blow the tops of the mountains up so they can get to the coal. I don't approve it.

I don't approve it at all. I don't approve of it. I hope they stop it. You go down to Mingo County, you go down to Logan County in southern West Virginia, where that battle was raged in 1921, and people who are still alive, remember their ancestors, who fought in that battle. We're going to save Blair Mountain by God, because that's an ordinary man's simple. Too many people died that day, so y'all can be speaking here tonight. Too many. Blair Mountain, you know, it's a part of us.

It's like a fiber, you know, in the clothing, you know. You know, it's just one little piece that kind of puts the whole puzzle together. If I was still in there, I never stopped till to run that plum out of the damn country. I mean, if it took a war, we will be right there in it. So let's get into it. What happened? All right. So after what transpires at Charleston with first.

Frank Keeney delivering kind of his speech on the steps under. Because it's important to understand that Sid Hatfield was very much a martyr in this. When he died, he angered. I mean, everyone was pissed the hell off. That was really that between that and the jailed, the 100 jailed unionists and Mingo, yeah. Yeah, there was, that was, as we'll see, that was the rallying cry was on to Mingo. And like I told Chris earlier in the week, I'm actually very sad. that we didn't name our podcast on to mingo that would have been very cool um but um but yeah

as we'll see this is really just people i mean everyone's pissed off they're starting people are they're grabbing their guns they're storing ammunition um they're holding up non-union stores and other places um in banks to gain assets they're holding up trains um train warfare is a big part of this as we'll go into as well um they used to call uh was minor specials um where they would just make their own, they would essentially make their own trains. They would, they would hijack the trains up and down the railroad track and then would, you know, disconnect them, connect what they needed, arm them with, with guns that they'd stolen. It was just a really wild shit. Yeah. So in the wake of Keeney's rousing speech, there's UMW of A men and union sympathizers

congregated Lens Creek, which is a small town about 10 miles outside of Charleston. And their plan is to march and Mingo and free the union miners in prison there and drive out the Baldwin-Feltz mineguards. And like Dave said, Sid was like a huge fucking martyr in this. And the thought was that Sid Nett were defenseless when they were killed, how Mingo's miners were hurted into jail like animals. Like I said, there were 45 let at gunpoint right into their cells and how their families were forced out of their homes at gunpoint. some had been to the funeral and seen the anguish of Sally and Jesse over the deaths of their husbands. But in order to converge on Mingo, the miners would first have to go through Logan County and take on the forces of the ardently anti-union sheriff, Don Chafin. Whose the name will be saying a lot from here on out?

And Chafin, for every good thing that Sid Hatfield was, for everything that he went, like, It literally was like the yin and yang, the yinin, yang cliche of, you know, the dark side of, because... You have two foxes inside of, or two wolves inside of you, yeah. And one's a good cop and one's fucking Don Schafen. So, uh, he accepted a shitload of coal operator money for years and was referred to as the czar of Logan County. Like that really outlines just how fucking brutal, uh, Chafin was. He really ruled with his deputies and with the youth. of the Baldwin-Feldt's thugs and all that.

He really did earn the name of the Tsar. And as a little aside for anyone from the sweet, sweet state of West Virginia or anyone outside of, I believe that Chaffin had some kind of relative. Like a nephew, a great-nephew? Yeah, something like that. Run for like House of Delegates or something like that. Eric Chaffin, and lo and behold, dude was also a piece of shit. so Abbot wasn't far too far fall too far from the tree so uh well his family also prospered

from yeah from this so part of what uh gave like chafin so much control over logan and like what gave him pretty much eyes everywhere um and part of like his czar like rule over the place was that he had his deputies ride every train in and out of logan county chafin deputies would even beat traveling salesmen within a fucking inch of their lives if there was even the slightest whiff that they might even be potentially sympathetic to unions so chafin also armed in addition to his own police force he armed over three thousand volunteers to work alongside the state troopers so at this point also john l lewis president of the um w of a piece of shit total scumbag is absolutely terrified of the revolutionary fervor

of the southwestern West Virginia minors. He's convinced they would do irreparable damage to the UMWA's reputation and thus his pockets, and he urged Keeney to shut down the march. So after the initial speech at the Capitol, Mother Jones, of the fucking IWW militant goddamn unionists, even had second thoughts. Because at this point, there's also talks of them sending in the U.S. military.

At this point, they are talking about it, and that scares even Mother Jones, who generally fearing for the lives of the minors. And also, she also has concerns that the action could scare people away from unionization, not just in the UMW of A, but elsewhere as well.

Eventually, she pulls a paper from her pocket during a speech on August 24th that she says is a telegram from President Warren Harding, and she says that he is willing to permanently eliminate the mind guard system if the march does not happen. And as she states this, Keeney makes an effort to grab the telegram to claim it's a fake.

Mother Jones, in her fashion, tells them to go to hell. So then Fred Mooney goes and checks with the White House and confirms the suspicion that Jones never received correspondence from Harding. She had made it up. Keeney issues a public statement that that telegram was bullshit. Yeah, and this happens. meet like that night mother jones leaves a west virginia she later writes in in one of her journals that this uh event itself absolutely like ripped her heart from her chest because she loved and cared for for keeney like a child and and loved and cared for all of the minors in in southern western

their boys that she called them yeah it was one of her favorite places to agitate and they were some of her favorite people to agitate and and it really truly broke her heart so that was that was a very kind of humanizing uh thing and i personally don't disagree with with i can see it yeah his sentiment either um we'll discuss that on down the road but uh hell the fear of life alone uh is is understandable but when your backs against the wall like like these miners when you're dying every day regardless. Yeah, you're dying anyways in this situation. What the fuck are you going to do? Exactly. So at the start of this March,

the convergence at Lens Creek, 1,300 men accumulated over 8 miles. And then over several days, that grew into 8,000 minors and sympathizers. Canawa County Sheriff, Henry Walker, says that the miners should disband and

that, with it being only 10 miles from Charleston, that it's out of control. And at this point, there's only a hundred state troopers and there's no national guard. So their defenses are down and very obviously Walker is terrified shaking in his fucking boots. One of, as they're organizing and they're bringing people together, again, we said we've now hit 8,000 people in the Union Army, essentially. The leaders made speeches along the creek to the miners and it's heard that one of the leaders said,

if the white people got guns, he said, blacks had better get them. them, too. And we, and that's from black, from, yes, some black union organizers. And that's what we do see is here in a second, I will go over the leaders of the army. And it was very much, it was all across the board. They were segregated in the company towns. They were not segregated in this unionizing effort. So from there, Dave, do you want to go ahead and tackle? Oh, we can introduce to tackle old Billy Blizzard. Okay. So Bill Blizzard, who is one of the central figures from this point going forward. He was born in 1892, also in Cabin Creek, West Virginia, to a union home. His father was a UMW member. His mother was a strong supporter of the union, Sarah Blizzard.

He became a minor at the age of 10 when would immediately become a loyal member of the UMW. His mother, Sarah Blizzard, was often compared to Mother Jones, who everyone called Maugh and Bill was often called Maw's son. Sarah Blizzard is also, what I found was quote unquote suspected. Participating in guerrilla warfare, she destroyed railroad tracks to prevent the further destruction of a tent camp

that the family had relocated to after being evicted from their home due to their union ties. She would participate with, like essentially do dirty 11 shit with the other minors. At age 19, along with Frank Keeney and Bill Mooney,

Bill Blizzard was elected to, leadership in the UMW in District 17 to replace the corrupt officials that I mentioned before. Bill was known to be much more militant than other UMW members. He was, I didn't put the quote here, but he says that, or he was

very much against any sort of peaceful agreements. He did not, Bill Blizzard was against going to the negotiating table with the co-operators. He believed in full frontal military, militant action. Bill Blizzard fucking ripped. He really, is like the you know there's sid was i mean after sid bill blizzard really kind of takes the

sort of leading this this movement um he is suspected and credited as as the general of the union army but as i i'll get into here a second as i go more in depth with how the union army was set up he really was more likely that he wasn't really in command of anything he it's more widely reported by um by primary sources by people who were there that he more likely just kind of gave speeches he His own son even. Yeah. Yeah, he gave speeches. He relayed communications, and he would, like, go, and we'll go here later.

He would go and talk to the, like, General Banholz and the other military, kind of just, like, receive information of what they were doing and, like, be friendly with them. And he would just dip out. He was the liaison. Yeah, yeah. He would go and, like, talk to the military officials and act buddy and buddy with them. And then once he got his information, you know, he'd dip out and would relay and relay that information. Bill, and Bill is only 28 at this. at this whole time.

Everybody's so young. Yeah, it's insane. Like, I'm going to turn 25 at the end of the week. But he's also been working for 18 years. Right, I know. They live like two lifetimes in one. Yeah. I've been working for 10 years.

I've been in the work for 10 years now. And I'm still, and I'm three years younger than it. Or two, I'm sorry, two years younger than him. It's insane. Yeah. So, like, with this kind of, the convergence at Lens Creek and everything that transpires with Mother Jones. the miners begin their march to Logan County and from there on domingo yeah on domingo and

i believe we do not have this in our notes but i if i recall correctly as they begin their march there is word of the u.s military uh u.s. air force very specifically stepping in and as keeny says I've washed my hands, like, after he delivers his address, he goes, oh, fuck, like, I need to inform everyone of what's going on. He kind of tells a 180, and him and Mooney, they gather the men in Madison as they're marching on the way. Several thousand, again, we're talking about 8,000 people, were unloaded into the ballpark to hear Keeney and Mooney speak.

Keeney would then stand on the hood of a car and declare that the march was suicide. And then he had orders from President Harding himself to end. and the march so he ends up doing what mother jones which was true which was true that's true he did he had received orders from harding um washington at this point was kind of dilly dallying around they really wanted west virginia itself to handle it and they wanted the UMW to handle it um at this point but the miners um that they in the union leave ship would be held responsible and that the us military would be involved and as he's giving the speech he's relaying that and the miners had little no issue they didn't care about fighting the governor they didn't care about fighting cops

They did not, and they loved to fight the Baldwin-Feltz, but they really did not want to fight the U.S. military, where again, many of them have served. We're fresh off of World War I. And so a lot of them, if not most of them, had served or had family who were in the military, who were drafted. It's important here, and as you know, so during the history of this event, that there were still very heavy patriotic sentiments throughout the minors. This was not a decolonizational effort, which I think is possibly the quite the biggest reason it failed. And it would work against them time and time again. What was it? The quote is like, my gosh, we'd never fight the American like military.

We won't go against. I have it later when Van Henson. Yeah. And one of them goes, you know, we wasn't fighting with the government. So General Banholz now arrives that we're seeing. The general drove, and Billy Blizzard. Fon goes to Racine and finds a general and ends up going with him as they drive on the Linskriek road to a minor's encampment. It's kind of awkward.

No one knows what the fuck to do. The military has arrived. Here's General Banholz, which I do not have much information on him. He's kind of not too important. Much like the governors, there's some characters here that aren't, their background is not too important. But yeah, here it is. So after, but the ice broke, they started talking. and one of the minors said, my God, we wouldn't revolve against the national government.

This ad sentiment that the march is over. People think the march is over. They're dispersing a little bit after Madison. Many at this point give up and go home, all but forgetting said. And then we have the Sharps battle. Now, after much of the fervor had died down, and many of had returned home after Keeney and Mooney's ballpark speech, a collection of state policemen went to Sharples, the town Sharples,

at the behest of Schaffin, in order to have payback for the quote, quote, humiliation of several state policemen in the past year from the Lick County Tent Colony, which was another event where minors had fought back against the destruction of their tent encampment by the Baldwin Feltz agents, led by the same Captain Brockes who led the original Lick County Tent Colony, a braid. They arrived there at night. They met with a small group of armed minors as usual. No one knows who shot first, but two minors were killed, one critically injured, and the nearby houses were filled with bullet holes. None of the

policemen were injured and they marched away and they took five minors as prisoners. Doing this just completely reignited the march. We thought it was over. We thought it was done. And this event here... By and large, it was over. Yeah. Also, we can make a drinking game out of no one knows who shot first.

We just make a drinking game of how many times the word shot or bullet. I would just be... Just be fucking destroyed. So, Union Officer AC Porter returned from the Sharples area to report to governor Morgan that the march was back on and he called it a quote monster powder keg awaiting

only the smallest of sparks to launch one of the bloodiest industrial wars in the history of the world end quote many miners as i said earlier they commandeered trains vehicles the only thing they would leave were doctor's cars which you would have to put um white tape over your headlamps to sit to say that you were a doctor and they would leave you alone the medic yeah any sort of medics they followed like you know they followed war rules yeah Yeah, they didn't shoot doctors or any of that. They really, because again, as we can't set or can't stress enough, many of them have served their military actually during this.

Which I'd like to point out that not even the fucking militarized police forces breaking up protest don't have the... Well, they're also attacking medics. Yeah, they're just shooting, shooting fucking medics with tear gas. Oh, yeah, no matter with any issues that have said with the minors and certain reactionary sentiments, they will never be as bad as, I mean, that's a whole other. that's a whole other thing um so as so as um ac porter relates this to to morgan um morgan relates to um harding and so president harding basically says um he gives it 48 hours to disperse or he's going to send in a national guard he makes a proclamation um this is on tuesday so sheriff chafin makes the announcement um pro announcement no quote no armed mob will cross

Logan County and quote hundreds of young men across Logan and McDowell counties would join in fighting the quote unquote invading rednecks as they were called they're nice spicy way to say outside agitators yeah I mean yeah even though there were people right down you know they were they were their fucking neighbors they were relatives as I wanted the the jailer of the Union Army and the jailer of Schaffin's army were brothers yeah it was literally they weren't these were not invaders they were family Schaffin's army included many non-union minors with mixed enthusiasm, mostly low, because the miners were told to,

they had to conscript to the volunteer army or they'd be fired. Many were drunk on moonshine. There was rampant drinking in Schaithen's army. It also included boys as young as 14, wanting to get in battle, seek adventure. The total of Schaffin's army or the volunteer army came to 2,800 men, and then he would eventually give command over to Colonel William E. E. E. E. E. E.ubanks.

who was a raging alcoholic. He was drunk this entire affair. He literally, yeah, the volunteer army was run by drunks. It's really pathetic. What stopped it was not the volunteer army that defended. It was a U.S. military. That was really the force that put a stop to the battle. Order was essentially non-existence.

Like I said, oh yeah, I already said that volunteers drank. The first fatality of the battle of Blair Mountain actually came to George Dueling, who was shot by a laborer in the volunteer army when they accidentally discharged a rifle. So we had the first death, and it's an accidental death. Hell yeah. I love it when the trash takes itself out.

So on Wednesday morning, August 31st, the long Spruce Fork Ridge, of which included Blair Mountain. Estimated 10,000 men were involved. Some estimates reported up to 20,000 in this battle, as shooting would go on between the two armies along a 10-mile front. This was the beginning,

is essentially the beginning of really what's noted is like the kickoff of the battle itself. It held more so a little side note. It held more soldiers than George Washington's Battle of Trenton. Christ. So this was a bigger battle than most Revolutionary War battles. I mean, yeah,

estimates are anywhere between 10 and 20,000. A real revolutionary war. Yeah. Yeah, that's yeah, it's insane. We ain't putting fucking Sid Hatfield or a few close Johnson on dollar bills. That's all I'm going to say. that's well um there's a joke in there somewhere

whatever so just because it's there doesn't mean we have to I know I know I know so Schaffin's Air Force which she has a little air force it's three biplanes down they would they would drop like pamphlets of Harding's proclamation on the side of the miners to literally no effect major Charles F. Thompson would also read their proclamation to the to the miners however this proved completely futile as many minors and people did not understand understand the legal terms used in the proclamation. No shit.

He eventually, the miners got aggressive in the town. They threatened him to leave. His train was then commandeered by armed miners. He refused to leave. Tensions are heightened. Eventually, a town doctor would ask one of the older and more respected minors named Uncle Charlie to ask with those guns trained on the major to step back. They did.

They listened to the older, the older minor. And the major left without any incident. But he posted up the proclamation. in two parts of the town and it didn't do anything because no one was like first they didn't know what it meant second it was strong union sentiment

anyways they're not gonna fucking pay attention even even if literacy was 99% but yeah they were trying to yeah literacy again not many can read period so that was completely

just ineffectual I think that that's also like a point to touch on like throughout history with like these revolutions is that with literacy comes this kind of revolutionary fervor and that's why so many like oppressed peoples like are so illiterate like

you see that with the democratic republic of afghanistan yeah and revolutionary programs um in a lot of those places are always centered first and foremost on literacy programs you know to boost the literacy rates of the people yeah i think i think again like focusing on uh the dRA i think that literacy shot up to like 95% in two fucking years. And if I'm correct, like Cuba had a very similar case. Oh, if you want people to read, give them socialism. I mean, that's really how it comes down to. So continue on.

We have one of the leaders of the, of one of the companies of the Union Army, which was Johnny Wilburn, who was a minister with a large family. He would constantly call the police thugs. He is quoting, saying, the time has come for me to lay down my Bible and pick up my rifle and fight for my rights. He assembled a group of followers at the Blair School. It was time for the, quote, laboring man to fight. He would lead them to attack into the face of Schafen's army and would, quote, take no prisoners.

The following consisted of 70 armed minors, both black and white. The next morning, they were awoken by gunshots from deputies of Schaferen's army. Each would then face each other, thinking that they were of the same side. This happened a lot. they each because each armies had their own passwords so they each gave their passwords

and it struck them as they gave different passwords immediately after the password was said amen which was a pastor in Schaffin's army gunfire exploded four men died the small regime of Schaffin's army

once led by Deputy Gore who was now dead one in retreat so that's just kind of another event like it was just some of these battles were just like this was like Johnny Woolburn going

fuck these pigs let's go and 70 people followed them and they killed four traitors all in like the span of an afternoon yeah it's it's truly just little or the morning i should say little pop-up skirmishes here and there it's not like a two-week just bullets raining down kind of a fair it skirmishes it really is multiple skirmishes you have the line as i mentioned the 10 mile front that's consistently happening but inside the woods you have a lot of these little skirmishes between anywhere from 10 people, anywhere to, you know, some of these companies were like 800 people of minors. Battles were now breaking out across the mountain.

Fighting became increasingly heavy. U-Banks, the drunk, a veteran of France and Romanian outbreaks reported that he had never seen such battles. So he's freaking out. He's been in France and Romania during World War I. He's never seen anything like it. They were believing they were losing at this point. The Schafen's army were scared that they're like, oh, shit, we're going to get annihilated.

So they telegraphed Washington, D.C. asking for more troops, for he feared Logan would be, quote, attacked by an army of from 4 to 8,000 Reds, end quote. I mean, that's a sentence I want to hear again. I know. Say it again, but in slow mouth. Schaffin would, and this happened a couple times, Schaeffen would order a T&T bomb dropped into the mountains from one of his planes. Each time that this happened, no one died, nothing was hit. They couldn't tell where anyone was in the mountains, in the forest. you would just kind of you were just blindly

Air Force the Air Force was pretty much useless the Air Force is called into this doesn't do anything I have in here later I'll I'll go over it now because I remember the details pretty well the Air Force when they were called in originally were called in 21

planes 14 of them made it to Charleston 7 had crashed on the way there It's like an entire company of John McCain's It's literally that's fucking beautiful oh they couldn't they couldn't they couldn't handle the the weather um there was storming they couldn't handle flying around the mountains uh they couldn't under they couldn't fly the terrain the terrain this is why you know hey um you know one of the things you talk about on our podcast is the protect people's war happened to appalachia would be kind of dope for that reason um there's a lot

of terrain yeah totally so far it seems shaithen's army had held the defensive he made a press announcement proclaiming success and holding back the rebels and regaining lost territory. At this point, they had lost four men. However, many more were taken custodian, or I'm sorry, many were taken prisoner, custodian of which was Bad Lewis White, who was also one of the leaders of the companies and the jailer. Bad Lewis White was reported to actually treat the prisoners pretty well. He would always feed them, and he would prevent other minors from trying to harm them while they were in prison. The Union Army continued to commandeer trains picking up minors as they went to add to their cause. So they're literally just, they're stealing these trains,

They're adding guns to them. They're breaking them up, putting them in the way they want to. The railroad company at this time has completely, they've abandoned the railroads for the most part at this time. They've just let it, they've let the minors take them over. They abandon their schedule. And they're picking up more minors as they go. The Army just keeps growing at this point. Throughout the battle zone, school buildings were turned into headquarters and hospitals.

I already said doctors and nurses were giving passes to access to battle areas. As those on the near front had to use cotton to plug their ears and ask, to kill the headaches from the concussions of the firing. The shooting was going on night and day 24-7 during this week. How long that 10-mile front? Yeah, yeah. It was 20, it was reported that constantly gunfire, it was like I said, people, to the point it was damaging people's hearing.

You couldn't, like, speak, you had to yell to hear other people speak. It was so loud. One minor is, quote, saying, you was in more danger from another greenhorn than any minor getting to you from the other side. That was a non-union minor. because again which the volunteer army They were drunks Yeah they were drunks

And I've never fired a gun So by September 1st At this point the it's over The proclamation or not it's over The proclamation is over the 40 hours are up They've completely ignored Harding And they had taken control The Union Army had taken control of 500 square

miles of southern West Virginia They controlled the railroad tracks The stations and the rail yards Highways were patrolled And automobile traffic was regulated Passes were issued to authorize citizen movements within the battle area, and of course, mines are not allowed to operate. This was all under the supervision and direction of the Union Army. At this point, the UMW of A is out of it.

They've lost all controller sway. Most of the miners have, they don't give a fuck about the UMW of A. They want to unionize and they want to get revenge for Sid, and they want to free the miners. Philip Murray, the international VP of the UMWA, endeavored to calm the miners down and lay down the arm. but instead his life was threatened and he was run out. So casualties are beginning to rise. Fatality ports were casual, incomplete, and else sustained for the most part.

And we don't. We have no idea how many people have died. The estimate goes anywhere from 16 to 100. And to this day, it's more agreed upon between 50 and 100. I don't know. But then I saw some sources that thought Mar 16. Yeah. So even today, I don't know how many people died.

We don't. Because, yeah, like Dave said, you just don't have. the complete primary source. People kept reporting massive deaths when there weren't in it. So the Union Army, or not the Union Army, sorry, Schaffin's Army kept making announcements that we did good today. We killed tons. We're doing good, but they had it.

And that kind of distilled a lot of... There's an asterisk after we killed tons, and that asterisk is of our own men. There's just trees. We shot trees. Which is really what it was. I mean, they shot, I mean, trees were the victim with the main victim in all this. youth who had to leave to start school were giving passes by the minors to travel the roads

names were not used period for the most part everyone was called buddy oh fam they had uh they had some infosac right there yeah that was literally buddy secrecy was incredibly important in the prevention of spies by this point reporting was incredibly difficult if not outright impossible miners refused to talk all telephone and telegraph wires had been cut the press constantly pressed the idea that there was some hidden general which as I said many thought was Bill Blizzard but no military organization could operate this smoothly without central direction

all food and provisions were accounted and I'm quote by the way I'm quoting this from Lon Savage's book Thunder in the Mountains which I highly recommend it's an incredible read you'll rip through it as a fun it's a short read but incredibly informative that's where a lot of my notes have come from

all food and provisions were accounted for and handed out equally without any argument or incident the men were accounted for from captains to corporals and followed orders accordingly. However, this was believed to be indulging by the press to an extent. The army was absolutely organized to some extent, but there were some incidents here and there. But most reporting that I've seen shows that this was incredibly like, it is astounding. The leaders, some of the leaders who led essentially their own companies, both black and white,

were Ed Reynolds, Bill Blizzard, Walter Allen, D. Muncie. John Wilburn, Sayboy Holtz, Romeo Craig, is it Crago? Romeo Crago, yeah. Bad Lewis White, Red Thompson, and Charlie Popcorn Gordon, the last two who were black. Co-operators, reporters, and others would spend the next 50 years looking for the so-called Rebellion commander to no success. I know that the Blair Mountain Reenactment Society organization, they kind of said the Bill Blizzard was a general. But again, that's kind of, one of the minors would go on to praise Bill Blizzard. who had many, but despite all his rallying speeches,

he never commanded anyone. That minor would say, quote, we was all just leaders. Damn. Which is so dope, man. Like, that's so cool. To have that the kind of level of organization, but also it be diffuse enough.

I mean, they were- You couldn't exactly, like, chop off the head. Yeah, I was about to say, it's more of like a hydra, where if you get one, like, the two more grow in its place or something. Like, it is truly fucking incredible.

something that did in our own, like, organizing locally, something that we try to maintain. They would use, I mean, they were very, they would use muscle, you know, they would call what we, you know, or what some people would call mob rule or quote-unquote terror tactics. It was, it was incredibly effective, guilla warfare. The, not only waged with incredible efficiency, but also waged in companies with a singular mission to unionize and better their lives. However, here we enter the 26th Infantry Regiment and the 19th Influptory Regiment and the 19th Infiltry Regiment would make their way down to West Virginia.

Do they crash? No, they went by train. So they did not. They didn't John McCain at all right. They didn't know, not like the Air Force. Ooh, that was bad. And they would brag. The Air Force would go on bragging about being the only air, only time,

the only brigade used for civil disturbance. And like, all you did was just fly around and crash. I don't get fucking bragging about. It's more and more and more. Like, you brag about that to this day. It's more and more and more and more and more and more. John McCain with every sentence that passed this. I'm sure they also really despised Asian people.

So, yeah, I'm sure it tracked. So on Fridays, when the union miners took more ground and now fighting is now within one mile of Mingo. Later in their day, Schaffin's army would bomb again, dropping them from planes over the mountains. Again, no one's injured or killed. Gas bombs and tear gas were also used during the course of the battle by the reactionary army.

Eubanks and the press both believed the bombing was causing heavy casualties with the New York Times or best friends again reporting the miners had quote carried their dead and wounded away with them there was never any evidence of this that was just completely wrong now I do have a little tidbit about the IWW's involvement while the IWW never really made much headway in West Virginia we did find out afterwards that found among the miners encampments after the battle there were IW pamphlets and some like socialists and anarcho-sendicals literature. And there were wobbly scattered across who took part in the fighting.

One such member, we only known by his Kominsky, was arrested within minutes of arriving in Logan. They immediately learned he was not only a union member, but I'm an I-W-W member. So he was jailed immediately. And sadly, he would not last 36 hours in Logan. The jailer Oliver White, the brother of Bad Lewis White, ordered his son to shoot Kominsky while he was away. And that is what happened.

And he was murdered in cold blood. The son tried to say that he was hit, but all the other prisoners were like, no, he just came in and shot him. So it didn't hold up. But I'm pretty sure that his son got away with like one year in probation or something. Nothing. Yeah, this is nothing. So now the troops have arrived at the order of General Billy Mitchell, the 88th Air Squadron from Langley, Virginia, was assigned to West Virginia. And that says, yeah, here we are.

The 21 planes ordered only 14 arrived. The squadron will go on to only perform reconnaissance. They carried no bombs or in emission when surveying the area And would return to Laneley Later that month with only half of what they started with They only came back with 10 planes And would boast it as a success And when later that's what it is

The 436 bombarding squadron Said to be the only aircourse units Who ever participated in a civil disturbance And yeah, they think that's a pride of whatever Fucking losers I always think of that Will Ferro Giff Where he just goes, what a loser from, what is that from?

Wedding Crashers? Anyways. So, Bill Blizzard has a conversation with Captain Wilson of one of the infantry regimens. He learns that the captain will let anyone keep their gun who has a permit, which i.e. is like

maybe 1% of the miners, the union miners. Blizzard learns that this will be like, it always has the deputies will be allowed to keep their guns to mow down the minors as they left defenseless. And this is the strategy

of the U.S. military is they disarmed the union army while doing nothing. I mean, nothing to disarm the volunteer army. I mean, they are on the side of the volunteer of Schaepen's army. They try to come in as this, oh, the great

arbiter of peace. Yeah, the government. Yeah, we're just here to solve things, but it's, again, it's it's the state budding up against the interests of capital. It's like the fucking legislation, how Glasscock and Hatfield and, that's Governor

Hatfield, and Morgan have all kind of conducted themselves throughout this as well and just working hand in hand with the fucking operators and the felt agents as well. And yeah. And so we, so, okay, so you have in places like Sharples and other surrounding towns where the soldiers are showing up and the miners start to mingle with the soldiers

because as I said before, they don't have any qualms with the soldiers. You should, but hindsight is 2020. But that's, and that diffuses a lot of them. it is the just the presence of the military is really what kind of like ends this conflict as we start to diffuse we still this is friday the september 1st we still have fighting up against logan some are ignoring these the u.s soldiers coming up on their rear and now at this point i've lost count of the amount of infantry regiments involved the 40th regiment would arrive arrive in Logan from Fort Knox, they would bring machine guns, trench mortars, 37-millimeter guns,

a radio outfit, and 50 mules. Jesus Christ. They were agreed extremely well in Logan, receiving numerous applause from people as they passed. President Harding then would sign a second proclamation establishing martial law in southern West Virginia. However, he does not promulgate it, and he said leaves it in the hands of general banholtz to use it if necessary. Harding also canceled orders for further infantry regiments to be sent down.

when Bainholz was asked if he would disarm the deputies as well as the minors, he stated, quote, they are now under the control of the federal authorities, and they will do justice they told, end quote. Banholds was not only praised by the co-operators, but the U&W as well. As the U&W journal reported, he, quote, is ever smiling and good-natured with the time to see everybody. But there is doubt in the minds of none that he is boss, and the claims and counterclaims of either side, he has no interest. And this ladies and gentlemen and non-bearer and every pals is why

the UMW fucking sucks Now this is pretty much We're pretty I mean that's everything is dying down People are in are mingling with the troops The troops present has really Kind of sets just here It's it's taken the wind

Completely I mean it's literally just one day You have one day a 10,000 soldiers going at it And a 10 mile fun The next day it's down to I mean, the last shot was hurt Saturday night. Jesus Christ. We have people

are just stopped fighting. They all pack up and go home. Thousands of soldiers are seen walking along the roads, going home, many are arrested. I do want to, I do have one little thing about the press because I thought this was really important with how the press was handled by the Union Army. Media was often censored or controlled from both sides of the conflict.

And Logan, local newspapers generally just printed whatever the cooperatives wanted them to do. We cannot stress enough how just to all of Logan was just one giant bourgeois weapon. Fuck hole. Yeah. It was awful. And this was commonplace for the long time at the place at there, but the foreign press was like,

why are you listening to the town? Just listen to the U.S. government like the rest of us. Across the mountain, union miners informed any reporters that they could not send out dispatches unless they were first censored by minors. Throughout the struggle, the miners realized the importance of controlling and protecting information. When a photographer from the Philadelphia Inquirer, Jane, Jay Brady arrived at the miners front with a written recommendation from the

attorney general of the United States. He was unable to retrieve any information. Eventually, the miners just destroyed all this film and held him prisoner for a day. They did not treat the press well. They just completely, it was, the press showed up. Everything was destroyed and you were told to leave for the Union Army, which I think is important. I think that's, I think controlling information and a revolutionary movement like that is i mean liberals will try to like virtue signal and say no you can't freedom of press not in this is no freedom of press i don't what do you think about that brett there's just there's just

no objectivity and so in a in a struggle when it's when it's that explicit and out in the open knowing that the press is going is a corporate bourgeois press aligned with the people you're fighting suppressing them is a necessary step of the revolution in a lot of cases and i would agree and to add, and Logan, it was even worse. The only woman from the press to cover the story, Mildred Morris, who I think was New York Times, trying to be in New York Post, was sexually harassed by the Logan officials.

She would only sit in the hotel lobbying set of her bedroom because of general fear they kept trying to come into her bedroom. She would go on to state about to struggle as, quote, not war, civilized nations carry on against each other, but war without mercy, carried on by men lasting for blood, which is such a, I included it because it's actually a really popular quote from the time, but I think it's picked out because there's this benign liberalness under it of just saying,

these are just men lusting for blood. There's no class struggle here. It's both sides. Yeah, it's both sides in it. They're saying that they're just, they just all want vengeance and blood and to see the other others died. Like there's no, yeah, like you said, there's no fucking analysis whatsoever. And I'll just skim this by any sort of press in the Logan, anything that they tried the right was censored. They were told to not say, quote, no sap sob stuff for those rednecks. And just anything that mentioned the miners, anything that said the volunteer army was in

bad luck or in bad faith or anything that disparaged them was taken out. So where the miners just didn't fucking talk to them, Logan or Schaffin's army really tried to control the information by controlling what went out. So at this point, we have a surrender. By the weekend, multiple federal troops are called, multiple battles, national attention, West Virginia, these rebellion minors have started to surrender in large numbers 600 minors by the first evening however they only turned in 80 guns um yeah not yeah a thousand bar have simply gone home the u.s army would patrol the streets and it's and essentially um inputs or implement martial law anyone who was joining up three or more people bunching or either maybe broken up or taking the

jail the last shot was her saturday morning on sunday quote miners and their families could be seen strolling along the streets of their communities talking with each other but not the soldiers despite rumors of a massive body count constant searches proved to be fruitless since the rebellion began on Lynn's Creek it was thought quote only 16 persons

had been killed 12 of them of the Union Army however due to sensualism by the press Schaven's Army and the Union's Army's refusal it's that Baltimore draw he can't pronounce certain words We're not for fucking Baltimore I know but someone told us we had a

Baltimore draw and stuck with me. And some estimates still go, oh, yeah, Shafen's, due to sensationalism of the press, Schaffin's armies, also sensationalism in the Union's army's blatant refusal to share any details. The true number is never known, with some going up to the number of 100. So, I mean, after the conflicts, you really just have,

this is it. I mean, everyone is, there's a trials here. I don't know if you really go into that, but I know that we've been going on for hours. if you really want to just kind of get into meet as far as the trials, the only notable thing is that Bill Blizzard was tried for treason.

He was acquitted. When he was acquitted, people carried him on their shoulders. The miners erupted in applause and carried him out, which I thought was super cool. And the only person who was convicted for treason was Walter Allen, who was one of the leaders of the companies,

like an absolute king. When he was convicted for 10 years, he jumped bail and was never heard. heard of again. It's worth noting, too, that Blizzard was found not guilty in the same courthouse that John Brown was tried and hanged in 1859 as well in Charles Town. Fascinating. So, yeah, I mean, in the aftermath, despite being severely weakened, the strike in Mingo continued,

and hundreds remained intense along the tug, which is that southwest, yeah, the river. In October 1922, the UMWA had finally called off the strike. Costs me more than $2 million. The bankrupting district 17 led to the resignation of its leaders, as we mentioned. People like Keeney had really just bad endings. The UNW of a membership in West Virginia, by 1929, as I said earlier, it was 50,000 in 1920. In 1929, it was 600 in West Virginia. It had dropped 49,400 people.

It was not until the Roosevelt administration at the miners of Southern West Virginia are finally unionized, so it takes another 10 to 15 years. For more than 50 years, Sid Hatfield's graves sat across the river from 8-1, only marked by a small plaque put there by the union miters. However, eventually in the 70s, as his life story gained more publicity, there was now a large gravestone with his picture engraved, and the words written on it, quote, defender of the rights of working people gunned down by felt detectives on the steps of the McDow County courthouse his murder triggered the miners rebellion at the Battle of Blair Mountain

end quote that we went through all the notes the whole outline only took us four hours but thank you so much for covering all of that history it's a whirlwind it's a roller coaster ride but it's an important and essential moment in working class

history on this continent and just globally and I'm very thankful that both of you put in the work to do this before we wrap up though I do want to touch on just the legacy of the Battle of Blair Mountain in the in the region today and then maybe what you think a couple lessons that we can extract today you know sitting as we are in our own moment of uprising what we can learn from those who fought in the Battle of Blair Mountain um and I want to tackle the legacy and then the takeaways there yeah no no Real quick, I just want to say, too, no, thank you a ton for let us to come on, as you can tell. And listeners, because I'll tell, too, this is something we're very passionate about.

So thank you for giving us the avenue to be able to talk about this, about this, like, really, you know, it's about something we love on this platform. Yeah, and this isn't the end. We still have more shit to talk about, of course. Right, but I just want to do. It's really cool to give back to the platform that provided so much of the fodder for our own radicalization as well. So thank you very much, Brett. Thank you so much for that. Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, so the legacy is, as I mentioned earlier, it's not really talked about in public schools, but it is like a well-known piece of West Virginia history. Yeah, you have that. But it's not as well-known as what I'd like it to be. You still have, like, down in McDowell and Mingo and what have you. In that area, you still have, like, what was it, the Blair Mountain Memorial Society or?

The reenactment Society? The Reenactment Society. Yeah. and they do like a yearly reenactment um like next year is the uh centennial celebration for the battle of blare mountain um and there's going to be some really awesome celebrations for that we're still like trying to uh trying to actually weed yeah the id bw coordinate yeah we're trying to get a presence down there as well because that's going to be really really fucking cool yeah to kind of commemorate that piece of history but i think like one of the biggest

pieces of its legacy is just like the prevalence of militant unionism and if not militant unionism and just like a baseline understanding of unionism in the state and in this area because everyone has like a fucking uncle. It was in the goddamn

UMW. Every single family unless you're like the Schaffens or something has like union family members. I have union family members. Chris has you know family members that praise the union. you know it's um who grew up in union towns you know west virginia used to be a like a blue union state um until clinton and took everyone over with naphta yeah clinton was what was what flipped our state um i mean

not that it matters now but you catch the drifts um but it's like yeah that's and that legacy really is is the power of the general i guess the mainstream consensus legacy is the conditions that the miners faced. That's what's really what really like, and that's the kind of all that liberalism will allow you to pull from it is, oh, these conditions were bad and they were awful, as we are, we talked about it, and the battle did

this whole event is what proclaimed to the nation, how bad it was. And that did bring about change in working conditions in the minds because of this. Because people were like, holy shit, they're willing to, you know, in the thousand, take up arms. Yeah, to start an insurrectionary war.

And they were called communists, They were called insurrectionaries. They were called, you know, as he said, invading rednecks, Bolsheviks, as anyone will do, as we've seen in the past week. And we'll see for the rest of our lives, really. It's something that we've been on, like, other podcasts. And we feel like a lot of folks in the kind of, like, left media sphere try to come up with some kind of, like, blanket answer, like Band-Aid answer. for like how do you do this what is your process it's called tenancy fighting instead instead of like being like a dialectical materialist about it and like talking to people and like understanding

history and like your material conditions and like the history like your current environment whatever um and we said listen like we have like a solid in road to start with the unionism of this state you might only have like a rivaled unionism in the Pacific Northwest because you have like the IWW had an incredible presence there you have like the ILWU the Longshoreman I actually saw an IOWU sticker on a pole right outside work yeah I was like what the hell yeah we don't have Longshoreman here but all right not the Longshoreman I'm sorry

the electric workers union that's IBEW there's so many acronym. There are. There are. But, yeah, so, like, something with the teacher strikes, and we're going to shout him out now. Thank you so much to Brendan, one of our comrades in the IWW, just awesome, awesome stand-up guy.

And he provided so much of, of, like, the materials for us to, like, really go over. So without him, this episode would not have happened. We're one of the following founding members of that WV, IDBW2. If we're just the ones arrogant enough to want to talk about it And think people want to hear us talk about it But um So is he said like during the teacher strikes Um

He's like even the most conservative teachers Would say I gotta go on strike I gotta go out with everyone I got to sit there on the steps of the Capitol There was still class solidarity between people who called themselves conservatives Yeah like the more fucking maga hats and had Trump bumper stickers they're like, my granddaddy'd be rolling over in his grave if he knew that I didn't support the union.

Powerful. So that's like a really, and that also couples this idea of family and community, regardless of how like bastardized that might be. It is something that you can utilize in organizing in an area like this. And I think that that's actually a good segue into the issues. Because as we see with the issues, and we know the issues with trade unions and just, general unions, especially the United States itself and how they have just failed over and over again.

And as we've talked about in the U and W of A and just the complete lackluster, I mean, they were counter-revolutionary trying to stop the battle. They was, I mean, led by John L. Lewis, who was a massive piece of shit, he was essentially the proto George Meaney. He was just, and a lot of these unions were able to be able to be co-operated. opted by that. So on top of that, you have the co-optization of unions that's already happening. And then you have the split of the left. We have the IWW, the SPA, and the UMW of A, all disagreeing on all tactics. And the minors themselves are disagreeing. And it really just, and it creates these own contradictions within a revolutionary movement, because this was, this was absolutely revolutionary movement. It was not a Marxist revolutionary movement. And that is what failed it, I think. think what failed what failed was that and the stronger fact that why yes one positive and one thing we know is powerful as chris and i've talked about on the show multiple times is the rainbow coalition and we saw immigrant eastern european immigrants white people and and black folks working together in in this class struggle and that's one of the things that made it so powerful so if this had

been a decolonizational effort yeah had it been led by black folks and immigrants. With these numbers and this organization, we would be, it's unreal to think, I know against speculation, but I think when we do look at the science of different movements and we need to look at what success and failed, the science of Marxism, we really need to look and say that this could have been so much powerful. And I think that is what failed. It is that it wasn't, it wasn't this decolonizing effort. For as much good as Keeney and Mooney and that, like, leadership, even Blizzard contributed to what happened to the union, it's more of not quite playing so much commandism as it is, like, letting the masses kind of determine what they wanted to do and then just, like, backing that. And if there's some kind of like kinks in the armor or kinks in the chain that you are there with your resources, with your funding, with what you have, with your capacities, to kind of help iron that out and not kind of be just another thing that's kind of pooling in an opposite direction like you would see Keeney ultimately doing, and that really lends itself to the current moment as well. I think that you and Allison did an episode for Red Menace where you talked about with everything popping off with the protests like the left like and I felt it too like it's like holy shit moment

where it's like fuck we're like really tailing the masses because there was like a week of unity you know where we talked about where like social media was being used as almost as purely informational which is fucking awesome my Twitter feed wasn't about clap chasing it was wasn't clout chasing it was literally just people reporting like what was going on in organ and i was like i was beautiful for that one week we're already already back to the bullshit but but to see like

where like the various left movements is a whole or like holy shit maybe we don't need to be handling everything with kid gloves like people are pissed and i'm sure there are revolutionaries that are that are like leading the charge that are these community organizers but You can't assume that for everyone. But what you can, like, what you do see is, again, like the colonized people, the most oppressed people are the ones leading it, that have their backs against the wall like these miners did. And it's like, instead of like trying to command, like, from on high, it's like, okay, you want to do this, you feel you have nothing else you can do. What the fuck can we do to support it? And I think one other final lesson to really extract from all this is we're working on the confines.

of capital still um the um w of a lost two million dollars was bankrupt was destroyed by this by this by this by this by this movement and while it did bode well for conditions of minors it ultimately destroyed so much of the movement because of because of because of you know who owns the resources and that's something that still needs you know furthering figuring out and there are other theorists that that i haven't read that i have on my reading list my reading all like my reading list like everyone else who should be is massive and you know so there's there's more to learn from that too um but this was definitely a really interesting not just interesting a fantastic awesome thing to cover because of the learning about how guerrilla warfare tactics can work in our area and have been successful in the

past and for as great as the accomplishments of this uprising and so many other uprisings have been we do get the lesson that in order to put a final end to the things that caused these uprisings the underlying oppression, there'll have to be a rupture from the capitalist system that underlies all of these conflicts. And insofar as any revolutionary movement fails to transcend the overall class system, it'll always never be a full victory. Right. And so we should honor those who came before us, understand and learn from them and salute them, but also realize that if we really want to get to a point where we can finally say, wow, that was actually a success. It will be synonymous with the toppling of the capitalist and the world imperialist

system. And so, you know, that's a lesson we can extract as well. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, Chris and Dave, thank you so much for coming on. This was a marathon of an episode, but it's worth it. And I think people will love it and learn a lot from it. I didn't know a lot about this battle coming in outside of the fact that, you know, it happened and what the basic outline of it was. And I learned so much just listening to this conversation. I know my listeners will as well. So thank you so much for the time you put into this to make it such a detailed and fascinating and at times hilarious and at other times dark account of this event. You really brought it to life and I'm deeply grateful for that. Before I let you go, can you let listeners know what recommendations you would

offer for anyone who wants to learn more about the Battle of Blair Mountain and then where people can find you and your show online? Yes, absolutely. we will actually give you a bibliography and if you just want to post the books Yeah, we'll just do that because there's We don't have a list right now It's all scattered through the notes somewhere Perfect.

But like, I can put up a list. In audio I will definitely say Read Thunder in the Mountain by Lahn Savage. It is absolutely fucking incredibly. It's a really good written. It's really captivating. It tells it in a very, he takes It's very much narrative based.

It was written in the early 70s and he talks with a lot of the miners who were in the part of the battle. He speaks with like Bill Blizzard's son and everything and it's truly

captivating. It's a wonderful piece. There's also, it's mostly historically accurate but also just for a very entertaining piece

if this like really kind of tickles your fancy so to speak the movie Maitwan from 1987 it was directed by

John Sales who does the forward actually for Thunder in the Mountain. So Also, incredible, incredible film. Oh, us. Who are we?

Oh, yeah. Who are we? We are mandatory OT. We are the official podcast with the West Virginia IWW. We've been podcasting for a couple of years at this point. We're just, even though we're part of the IWW, as I think we stated early in the show, we get called tankies a lot on the internet. if so that's if that kind of says where we go but we're definitely I mean we have like your show yourself you know we take we actually took a lot of influence from this show Brett and wanting to really

expand and look at different theorists and I mean we had for the fucking hell we had Howie Hawkins on last week if that says anything and which was which was interesting yeah I have my own thoughts on that but that's off the air so no it was fun but so yeah that's kind of what we um we um We do all kinds of things. We have, like, a worker survey that I'll have. We'll probably ask you to put in the notes, Brett, for anyone who's working in or who lives or works in West Virginia, so we can try and help build a worker center. Got to use that nonprofit system to, you got to exploit that to kick the, kick chart the revolution.

Try to fund the revolution. But, yeah, you can find the podcast at Mandatory OT on Twitter. More importantly than that, like we're also on SoundCloud, but even more importantly than that, is check out the West Virginia IWW on No not our only fans God damn it Check out the West Virginia IWW on Twitter and on Facebook

At slash West Virginia IWWW check us out Just online West Virginia IWW.org If you have any cool stories of Maybe you just want to talk about like metal You know you can hit us up Stop that Any cool stories

You want to talk about the mid-2000s Death Corps. I'm a game for that. Well, perfect. I guess we'll end it on that note. Solidarity. Yeah, fuck you, Chris. Solidarity with the West Virginia IWW. Check out mandatory OT.

All the links in the show notes. Thank you both for coming on. We'll be in touch. And without a doubt, we'll work together again in the future. Oh, hell yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, thank you again. Thanks so much, Brett.

In the West Virginia Coalfields back in 1921, the National Guard, state police and the coal company guns, shot down a hundred miners, the bosses saw his paws, and up on O'Blai Mountain, the ghosts are feeling strong. When Sid Hatfield was shot down At the Logan County Courthouse Coal cops fired around 10,000 union miners were bloody mingo bound And they say up on Blair Mountain You still can hear the sign

Blair Mountain The bombs came raining down Machine guns on the ridge line Turn the Union route They said that mountains only worth the coal that's in the ground But the ghost of those dead miners are still out walking around We're walking on We're walking on that mountain

We're walking on that mountain brings the fighting out of me Thinking of those good men and the Patcat companies And I want to tear Blair Mountain Down to erase the memories For a little bit of coal Just to sell across the sea Blay Mountain

Bombs came raining down Machine guns on the rich line Turn the Union round They said a mountain's only worth the coal that's in the ground But the coast of all those miners but still out walking around Well, it's still out walking around. Well, it's a five to make.

of living it's a fight to get along it's a fight back in the hills over what is right or wrong they made the mountains thunder the fight's still going on because there won't be much to fight for it blare mountains gone play mount the bombs keep raining down she goes on the ridge fly turn the unit round they said my minders only were the poor and in the ground but the ghost of all those matters still out walking round Thank you.