Mining the Future: The Anthracite
Strike of 1902 as a Paradigmatic Shift
in United States Labor Relations
Chapter Two: Two Similar Strikes,
Two Different Outcomes
Andrew Hazelton
Andy is a senior history major with a concentration in political
philosophy, and he is also a member of the Robert E. Cook Honors College.
His research interests primarily concern U.S. labor history, with particular
emphasis on the period straddling the turn of the twentieth century. After
graduating, Andy will be employed as a teaching assistant while studying in
Georgetown University's History Ph.D. program. His submission is part of
an honors thesis conducted under the direction of Dr. Elizabeth Ricketts.
The complete second chapter appears here with an additional section that
is a greatly condensed version of the thesis' conclusion.
I. Introduction
The period following the Civil War was marked by an increasing hostility of
capital toward labor as key businesses used state and federal troops to crush strikes and
the labor unions that led them. This trend culminated in the Crisis of the 1890s,
represented most characteristically by the Pullman Strike of 1894.
On May 11, 1894, Pullman Palace Car Company employees in Pullman, Illinois
struck their employer because wages had been drastically reduced without a
corresponding reduction in rents and prices in the company town. In June, the American
Railway Union (ARU), led by Eugene V. Debs, joined the strike and ordered a boycott of
all trains carrying Pullman cars. If any railway line’s management refused to detach the
cars, then ARU members would refuse to move the train.1 This turned the local Pullman
Strike into a national affair, the Pullman Boycott. Railroad capital, organized in the
General Managers Association, vigorously opposed the strikers and their union. While
the ARU sought arbitration of the conflict, the GMA refused any conciliation. Although
the ARU pioneered new tactics such as public relations and tight, coordinated control of
the union, capital enlisted the help of the federal government and crushed the Pullman
Strike and the ARU. Eight years later, a similar strike would bring very different results,
thanks to a more even-handed federal government intervention.
In a mid-May convention in 1902, the three anthracite districts of the United Mine
Workers of America (UMWA) authorized a strike against the operators of the districts
following the union’s repeated offers of arbitration that failed to bring progress. President
John Mitchell led the strikers in their quest for uniform payment, increased wages,
shorter hours, and union recognition. The operators were bitterly antagonistic, but public
opinion, the federal government, and J.P. Morgan eventually persuaded them to accept
arbitration in October. The settlement required both parties to accept the decision of a
government commission that would determine what post-strike actions should be taken.
The Anthracite Coal Strike Commission held hearings on the strike and the industry, and
it issued its Award in 1903. The Commission’s Award granted many of the mine
workers’ demands, but it failed to support union recognition. Most importantly, the
Award created the Anthracite Board of Conciliation, a body composed of miners’ and
operators’ representatives with a federal judge deciding tie votes. The Board would
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govern anthracite labor relations until 1962, arbitrating grievances and issuing mutually
binding decisions on both operators and miners.
The two strikes were remarkably similar, with both featuring large unions
organized on an industrial basis, the concerted hostility of employers, a concerned and
attentive public, a willingness to arbitrate, and government intervention. But how could
two strikes separated by only eight years yield results so starkly different? The ARU was
completely destroyed in the Pullman Strike, but the UMWA managed to secure
substantial gains in the anthracite region, albeit without official recognition. Various
changes had taken place in the intervening years between the two strikes, most notably
the emergence of the perceived threat of radical socialism and the desire among
businessmen for greater rationalization and regularity in industry. These changes led to
the end of using federal troops to break strikes and a new emphasis on arbitration as the
means to industrial peace. Placed in historical perspective, then, the 1902 strike
settlement reveals the beginnings of a significant shift in labor relations in the United
States, helping to resolve the Crisis of the 1890s’ “labor question” while also setting
important precedents for the Progressive movement that would develop later.
II. The A.R.U. and Eugene Debs in the Pullman Strike
Nascent Industrial Unionism and Producerism
When the ARU was formed in 1893, it departed from the dominant unionization
practice on the rails. There was a handful of major Railroad Brotherhoods, organized
along craft lines, which included the Locomotive Engineers, Locomotive Firemen,
Railway Conductors, and Railroad Trainmen. Eugene V. Debs was himself a prominent
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member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen. He was also editor of the
brotherhood’s paper. The brotherhoods were all affiliated with the American Federation
of Labor (AFL). However, unity escaped railroad employees for many years. Firstly,
when one brotherhood struck, members of the other brotherhoods would take the places
of the strikers. Secondly, the Knights of Labor, organized along industrial rather than
craft lines, competed with the brotherhoods for members, and its railroad locals replaced
striking brotherhood members.2 In the late 1880s the brotherhoods attempted to achieve a
tighter structure that would prevent such disunity, and Debs was at the head of this
movement. The reformers created a Supreme Council to coordinate action, but continued
inter-brotherhood rivalry and rank and file tensions with the Council led to the failure of
this project.3 Based on this experience, Debs concluded that a new railroad workers’
union was the only solution.
In February 1893, the ARU held its first board meeting; the new union was
officially operational.4 The ARU transcended the craft divisiveness of the brotherhoods
by seeking to develop industrial unionism in the railroad industry. This union would
embrace all white railroad workers, regardless of craft or skill. Such a scheme resembled
the Knights, but it also transcended them by trying to bridge the gap between that union
and the brotherhoods. The goal of the ARU was class harmony through worker
organization. Only through organization could workers meet their employers on a level
field. Nick Salvatore has noted that Debs believed “industrial peace…could only be
encouraged by a unified labor movement.”5 This unity was facilitated through relatively
easy membership in the ARU. Almont Lindsey has written that the union was “open to all
white employees who served the railroads in any capacity, except superintendents and
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other high officials. Even coal-miners, longshoremen, and car-builders, if in the employ
of a railroad, were invited to join.”6 Thus, the ARU consciously distanced itself from the
dominant, craft-based unionism that had failed railroad workers so many times in the
past.
Nevertheless, the union combined its new industrial basis with older strains of
labor ideology, particularly producerism. Producerism meant many things to many
different workers’ groups, but broadly speaking, producerist ideology claimed that
workers (as citizen-producers) were essential to the political process. Accordingly, a
good republican society would include worker agency in social life. In the realm of
production, producerism meant that workers were entitled to a greater share of both the
decision-making process and profits from the fruits of their labor. The producerist
element was especially apparent in the emphasis on democracy within the ARU. Lindsey
has noted that “In working out the constitution of the union, it was deemed advisable to
make the government as democratic as possible.”7 Unlike the brotherhoods, the ARU
directed more attention to the rank and file, acknowledging the firm producerist beliefs of
its members and implementing a democratic decision-making process. Moreover, the
class harmony that Debs sought was a key component of producerism. The ARU
reflected this in its goals. President Debs remarked that “When ‘the great body of railroad
men’ organized…‘more prudent counsel will prevail; the organization will be more
conservative, and the chances for a strike largely reduced.’”8 In these ways, the ARU
added labor’s older producerist thought to the union’s newer, industrial structure.
The Strikers’ Demands
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Pullman Palace Car Company employees had remained largely quiet in the
company’s model town. The panic of 1893 put an end to that. According to Lindsey, “all
grievances…fused into a spirit of violent resistance against a corporation which the
employees had come to distrust, fear, and hate.”9 The Pullman Company’s paternalism,
including workforce surveillance by company officials and tenants’ rights restrictions,
nagged the workers. Furthermore, Pullman’s inhabitants could not own homes, and this
angered many workers, since living elsewhere was a threat to continued employment.10
As the United States Strike Commission remarked of the Pullman company, its “claim
that the workmen need not hire its tenements and can live elsewhere…is not entirely
tenable. The fear of losing work keeps them in Pullman as long as there are tenements
unoccupied, because the company is supposed…to give a preference to its tenants when
work is slack.”11 Accompanying the housing complaints was the claim that gas and water
charges were excessive.12 When a delegation of Pullman workers addressed the 1894
convention of the ARU for support, they stated, “Water which Pullman buys from the
city at 8 cents a thousand gallons he retails to us at 500 per cent advance…Gas which
sells at 76 cents per thousand feet in Hyde Park, just north of us, sells for $2.25.”13
Clearly, then, both working and living in Pullman created grievances for workers.
All of these grievances might have gone undisputed had it not been for the recent
wage slashing that took place following the panic. On average, wages were reduced by
one-third. However, some crafts experienced far worse, with carving department
mechanics, the highest paid Pullman workers in 1893, reduced to the fourteenth position
by 1894.14 Compounding worker unrest was the fact that the total workforce had been
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drastically reduced. In his study of the strike, Stanley Buder noted that between “July and
November 1893 the number of employees in Pullman dropped from 4,500 to 1,100.”15
With wage reductions and layoffs added to the bitter resentment over rents and
prices, the strikers formulated their demands. From late March to early May, 35 percent
of Pullman workers had organized in the ARU.16 A grievance committee approached
management, and the two sides met on May 7. At this meeting, the committee
complained of harassment from foremen and requested either a return to the wage levels
of May 1893 or a reduction in rent. The company asked them to return in two days.17 On
May 9, the meeting took place, with management promising to investigate foremen
abuses but refusing to raise wages or lower rent. George Pullman himself was in
attendance at this meeting, and he angered the committee by asking them to remember
that they should not confuse the company’s roles as landlord and employer. The two were
separate, therefore adjustments in rent could not be made according to current wages.18
The following day the company dismissed three members of the committee, instantly
galvanizing employee opposition to Pullman. That night a meeting was held at which the
vice-president and general secretary of the ARU were present. Both men counseled
restraint, but the mood was for a strike, pending approval of the locals. On May 11, an
unfounded rumor spread that the company planned to close the works. In response to this
rumor, workers walked out; the Pullman Strike had begun.
The strike continued, and on June 12 the ARU (still enjoying its recent success
against the Great Northern Railroad in which the union had defeated James J. Hill and
won almost all of its wage demands in an arbitrated settlement) met for its first
convention in Chicago. Many of the delegates traveled to nearby Pullman and were
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appalled by what they saw there. The delegates voted to consider the Pullman Strike, and
a delegation of strikers addressed the convention.19 In its address, the delegation roused
the fighting spirit of the ARU. The strikers explained their position and charged the
convention with the task of crushing industrial oppression:
Pullman…is an ulcer on the body politic. He owns the houses, the schoolhouses,
and churches of God in the town he gave his once humble name. The revenue he
derives from these, the wages he pays out with one hand—the Pullman Palace Car
Company, he takes back with the other—the Pullman Land Association. He is
able by this to bid under any contract car shop in this country. His competitors in
business, to meet this, must reduce the wages of their men. This gives him the
excuse to reduce ours to conform to the market. His business rivals must in turn
scale down; so must he. And thus the merry war—the dance of skeletons bathed
in human tears—goes on, and it will go on, brothers, forever, unless you, the
American Railway Union, stop it; end it; crush it out.20
As a result of the speech, the ARU sent a committee to negotiate with the company, but
this achieved nothing. Debs repeatedly cautioned against a strike, arguing that the union
was too weak and inexperienced to wage industrial war against Pullman. However, the
rank and file voted to boycott Pullman’s sleeping cars beginning June 25.21 The formerly
local Pullman Strike had become the national Pullman Boycott.
The ARU’s Tactics
The Pullman Boycott paralyzed rail traffic west of Chicago. The various
managements involved refused to detach the Pullman cars, and in turn, railroad
employees quit work. The public quickly understood the importance of the event. The
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New York Times remarked that the strike was “a struggle between the greatest and the
most powerful railroad labor organization and the entire railroad capital.”22 This “entire
railroad capital” was the General Managers Association (GMA), an organization of 24
railroad corporations with terminals in Chicago that together employed over 220,000
people.23 The Association had no intention of ceding to the ARU, and it used its power to
combat the new union, particularly through such means as the blacklist and by appealing
to the federal government for help. Accordingly, the ARU used a variety of tactics to
wage its battle.
As mentioned earlier, the union attempted to arbitrate the dispute, and this
resonated strongly both with the organization’s emphasis on class harmony and with
tactical considerations. This is corroborated by the fact that Debs himself discouraged a
national strike. Although motivated by considerations of feasibility, Debs and the ARU
envisioned a world free of strikes. According to Lindsey, even after the Pullman
Company refused ARU arbitration, the “convention was anxious to explore every
possibility for an amicable solution and so advised the Pullman delegation to appoint a
special committee” to negotiate with the company.24 It was only after this failure that the
union ordered the boycott.
The Pullman Boycott was marked by tight coordination by the ARU, which
directed matters from Chicago. Before the Boycott began, the convention voted to donate
$2,000 to the strikers’ relief fund from the union’s general fund. Further, the ARU
ordered a weekly assessment of ten cents per member for the strikers’ support.25
However, in order to win the national boycott, the union’s loose and democratic structure
had to be directed firmly. Debs “sent thousands of telegrams to all parts of the nation.”26
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When individual locals sought to turn the boycott into a local strike, Debs ensured that
matters would not escalate out of the ARU’s control. He instructed such locals to name a
chairman and to report his name to the strike headquarters. This helped guarantee that
“local groups could more easily be kept within bounds….”27
Observance of the law was also a major element in Debs’ strike tactics. It had
played a major role in the ARU’s victory on the Great Northern, and with a much more
formidable foe, it proved absolutely essential. On the local level, “union officials tried to
ascertain whether or not any of the members were guilty of violating the law.”28 Debs
himself proclaimed, “We must triumph as law abiding citizens or not at all. Those who
engage in force or violence are our real enemies.”29 The goal was to prevent a pretext for
government intervention that would undoubtedly crush the strike, and the strategy, under
tight control from Chicago, worked well. However, the scope of the strike made it
difficult to enforce, creating problems for the ARU in July.
Finally, public relations was a necessary tactic for the union. George Pullman, as
founder of a model town, had already garnered extensive positive press for both his
company and town. Books with photographs of the town existed prior to the strike, and
Larry Peterson has noted that Pullman used these in 1894 to show that “the striking
workers foolishly and irrationally rejected the beauty and benefits of the model town.”30
Furthermore, Pullman could rely upon sympathetic newspapers and magazines to bolster
this image of the company. On the other hand, the ARU had few means to influence the
public. It relied on the handful of periodicals sympathetic to labor to gain public support,
with the Chicago Times, Chicago Mail, and Evening Post all portraying the union and its
leaders in a positive light.31 Debs himself was important to the image of the union.
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Photographs of the union’s President all confirmed his youthful energy, sense of mission,
and good looks, adding to public sympathy.
Breaking the Union
Despite the ARU’s use of arbitration, coordination, observance of the law, and
public relations cultivation, the union was ultimately broken by the GMA. Its hostility
toward the ARU was immediately evident. On the same day the vote was taken to boycott
Pullman cars, the Association began a series of daily meetings that did not end until July
15. The purpose of these meetings was to determine overall strategy in the strike, and on
June 26, the GMA decided to employ capital’s traditional weapons of termination and
blacklisting of any employees participating in the boycott.32 On June 29, the Association
passed a resolution stating “that any worker who was discharged for refusal to perform
his duties or who quit work at the behest of the American Railway Union would never
again be eligible for employment on any railroad” in the GMA.33 Furthermore, all
workers who took strikers’ places were guaranteed permanent tenure in their positions.
Thus, the GMA vigorously defended employers’ rights over their property.
Toward these ends, the managers turned to that dependable ally of capital in the
late nineteenth century: the federal government. The pretext for federal aid came when
delivery of the mail was hampered by the boycott. The GMA had arranged to attach mail
cars to Pullman Cars, thereby classifying the entire train as a “mail train.” Of course,
these trains were delayed as workers detached the Pullman Cars. The Justice Department
advised swift prosecution of those interfering with the mail, and the GMA gladly turned
the situation to its advantage by requesting that Edwin Walker, one of their own
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attorneys, be appointed special attorney for Chicago during the strike. Attorney General
Richard Olney, himself a former railroad attorney, gladly complied.34
The outbreak of violence in some isolated areas on July 1, despite the official
policy of the ARU, signaled additional trouble for the union. The Justice Department
began applying for injunctions, with Walker filing under the Sherman Antitrust Law, a
measure originally intended to restrain monopolistic corporations but which declared
illegal any combinations in restraint of trade. In an ironic twist, this vague definition was
used against unions by capital throughout the Crisis of the 1890s and into the early
twentieth century. On July 3, the United States Circuit Court in Indiana issued an
injunction against Debs and the ARU, stating, “You are hereby restrained, commanded,
and enjoined absolutely to desist and refrain from in any way or manner interfering with,
hindering, obstructing, or stopping any of the business of any of the…railroads.”35
Furthermore, the ARU leadership was barred from communicating any further boycott
directions to the union. The beginning of the end occurred on July 4, when federal troops
began deployment to restore order.36 President Cleveland ordered the deployment over
the protestations of both the mayor of Chicago and the Democratic governor of Illinois.
Debs understood the significance of this action, stating that the conflict had become one
“in which the organized forces of society and all the powers of the municipal, State, and
Federal governments were arraigned against us.”37
The troops’ presence only led to more violence, and Debs realized the ARU
would either be crushed outright or salvage a partial victory at best. Debs, who along
with other strike leaders had been arrested and released on bond, attended a meeting on
July 12 with AFL head Samuel Gompers to discuss a proposed general strike. Gompers,
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who had been antagonistic to the ARU from the beginning, and who instead championed
the craft-based brotherhoods, refused to lend his support. The so-called Briggs House
meeting resulted in Gompers urging all workers engaged in sympathy strikes to return to
work immediately.38 With the ARU’s last hope of outside help from the AFL crushed, the
Pullman Strike and Boycott was effectively over. Now the union turned to its leaders’
and members’ legal defense as its main project, since the organization’s role in the
railroad industry had been obliterated.
The GMA used its power and that of the federal government to achieve its ends in
the Pullman Strike and Boycott. By ensuring that the strike interfered with the mails, the
Association was able to federalize the conflict quickly. The national government
responded by issuing injunctions that essentially ended the ARU’s ability to conduct the
boycott. Furthermore, the introduction of federal troops, as it had so many times in the
past, indicated that capital’s power over labor extended to include the force of the
government. Thus ended the Pullman Strike and Boycott of 1894, a clear representation
of the Crisis of the 1890s in which organized capital defeated organized labor. However,
just eight years later, another large strike would end with a different result, heralding a
new era in labor relations and helping to address the Crisis of the 1890s.
III. The U.M.W.A. and John Mitchell in the Anthracite Strike of 1902
Industrial Unionism’s Coming of Age
The UMWA, like the ARU, was organized along very broad lines. The mining
industry encompassed many different vocations both above and below the ground; thus,
the UMWA organized all mine workers regardless of specific crafts. In the preamble to
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the union’s constitution, the mine workers emphasized solidarity: “we have formed the
‘United Mine Workers of America’ for the purpose of the more readily securing the
objects sought, by educating all mine workers in America to realize the necessity of unity
of action and purpose, in demanding and securing by lawful means the just fruits of our
toil.”39 By bringing all mine workers into the union’s fold, the UMWA challenged the
craft exclusivity of other unions and anticipated future labor unions that would organize
workers in the steel, auto, and garment industries.
However, the UMWA, formed in 1890, also reflected earlier labor thought,
mirroring the ARU. Producerism was evident in the constitution in conjunction with the
need for solidarity. The preamble upheld the importance of mine workers to the
achievements of the industrial age: “without coal there would not have been any such
grand achievements, privileges, and blessings as those which characterize the nineteenth
century civilization.” Furthermore, the miners argued that “those whose lot it is to daily
toil in the recesses of the earth…are entitled to a fair and equitable share of the” wealth
they created through their labor.40 Thus, like the ARU, the UMWA combined industrial
unionism’s organizational ideals with older, producerist ideology.
Ultimately, however, the industrial unionism and producerism of the ARU was
crushed, whereas that of the UMWA managed to thrive. What accounts for this
difference? There are many factors entering into the consideration of this question, some
of which, such as the attitude of capital and the public, will be discussed in greater depth
in the next chapter. For the most part, though, the industrial unionism of the ARU seems
somehow ahead of its time and hence misplaced in the railroad industry of 1894, as
compared to the UMWA in coal mining in 1902. This is most easily seen through an
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examination of the UMWA trade agreement and the union leadership style that
accompanied it.
In various ways, the trade agreement represented industrial unionism’s coming of
age. In 1898, the UMWA secured its first trade agreement in bituminous mining in what
was called the Central Competitive Field, an area of the bituminous coal industry
stretching from western Pennsylvania to Illinois. The trade agreement, to be renegotiated
periodically for the next thirty years, regulated many important aspects of bituminous
mining, including wages, work conditions, and hours of labor. It also guaranteed UMWA
recognition.41
This was a monumental triumph for both the relatively young UMWA and
organized labor at large. The agreement represented willingness on the part of capital to
negotiate with and recognize the power of industrial unionism, something that was quite
clearly absent in the Pullman Strike. Mining capital sought a way out of the Crisis of the
1890s, and the UMWA represented a solution. This was largely because bituminous
mining was an intensely competitive industry, and employers welcomed the stability the
union could bring by standardizing wages, hours, and conditions. The GMA in the
Pullman Strike had already achieved uniformity and control over the railroads; thus, such
impetus was absent from their considerations of the ARU. This was partly a consequence
of the “Morganization” of the railroads into a smaller number of consolidated lines. The
UMWA, then, saw its industrial unionism bear fruit because its relations to capital were
different than those of the ARU.
There was another factor, however, in the success of the UMWA’s industrial
structure, one that transcends the somewhat coincidental factors of historical conditions.
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This was the UMWA’s coupling of conservative union leadership with industrial
unionism. John Mitchell had risen quickly through the union ranks to his position as
president, having played an important role in the trade agreement in the Central
Competitive Field. He had been a miner in his earlier years, but since 1894 he had been
involved in union business, beginning as an organizer. Craig Phelan has noted that his
move from mining to mine organizing arose from a desire to escape the vocation.42 It was
a strategy that paid off; a scant five years later, Mitchell became UMWA president. In
this way, the young president departed from union leaders like Debs who identified very
strongly with fellow workers. John Mitchell represented a new type of labor leader: the
labor bureaucrat, and it was this type of leadership that helped industrial unionism
achieve its new legitimate status.
Such leadership emphasized conservatism, the adoption of business procedures
and manners, and union hierarchy and control of the rank and file membership. With the
trade agreement in place in bituminous coal mining, Mitchell realized the only way to
secure UMWA gains was to discourage local militancy. Labor peace was necessary if
operators were going to deal with the union.43 When a special convention of the UMWA
was called during the 1902 strike to consider a general strike in bituminous, Mitchell
clearly articulated this conservatism in his address to the delegates, saying “I
have…declared that contracts mutually made should during their life be kept
inviolate…and while at times it may appear…that advantage could be gained by setting
agreements aside, such advantage, if gained, would…be temporary, and would ultimately
result in disaster; because a disregard of the sacredness of contracts strikes at the very
vitals of organized labor.”44 The miners took his advice and voted against the sympathy
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strike, instead creating a massive relief fund. The UMWA leadership had reigned in its
members, who had been responsible for the special convention’s convocation in the first
place.
Business leaders appreciated this conservatism, with coal operators like President
O.L. Garrison of the Big Muddy Coal and Iron Company (a member of the Central
Competitive Field) writing to Mitchell during the strike to offer support. Garrison, in a
letter to Mitchell, explained that he had contacted the anthracite operators urging them to
work with the UMWA. He also reaffirmed his faith in Mitchell, stating, “I have never
hesitated to express my fullest confidence in John Mitchell’s good intentions, and
determination to construe contracts and agreements most liberally and to never violate
them.”45 Unfortunately for Mitchell and the UMWA, the anthracite operators (completely
tied to transportation capital) disagreed, seeing little need for UMWA industrial unionism
to help stabilize their already-consolidated industry.
The Miners’ Demands
The miners of the anthracite region had many grievances in 1902. The UMWA
had waged a strike in the coal fields in 1900, with the mine workers securing a ten per
cent wage increase. Nevertheless, the strike was viewed less as an outright victory and
more as a precursor to a much larger future battle.46 Many grievances remained
unaddressed by the 1900 strike. Workers were primarily concerned with securing a
reliable system to arbitrate grievances, recognition of the union, a uniform system of
payment for coal, and higher wages and shorter hours. The UMWA anthracite district
conventions preceding the strike all confirmed these grievances.
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As early as December 1900, the mine workers of District Nine of the UMWA
expressed their dissatisfaction with the result of the 1900 strike that had ended just a few
months before the district’s convention. At this convention, a vision of new industrial
relations was presented by the miners in Resolution Number 5, which proposed a detailed
plan to arbitrate disputes. Miners and management would each select three arbiters, with
a judge appointing a seventh. If owners refused to cooperate, workers charged the state
with the responsibility of running the mine. In such cases, “it shall be the duty of the
Mine Inspector to take charge of the mines….”47 As the 1902 strike approached, a joint
convention of the three anthracite districts (Districts One, Seven, and Nine) echoed this
demand in Resolution Number 28, which proposed that when local mine committees and
district officers could not resolve disputes, the problem “shall be referred to an
Arbitration Board consisting of five members, two to be appointed by the employer, and
two by the District Officers, and the fifth by the four already chosen…from among
disinterested people.”48 Thus, miners envisioned a very active role for the state in
regulating the mining industry. This concept was central in the settlement of the
Anthracite Strike of 1902, helping to pioneer a new form of labor relations in which
employers, employees, and the state all met to settle differences. Absent from this
consideration was the ARU’s 1894 belief that existence of the union alone would require
capital to deal fairly with labor.
Official recognition of the UMWA was also a major goal of the miners. At
District One’s April 1901 convention, Resolution Number 5 called for bituminousanthracite solidarity, stating that at the union’s 1902 annual convention, the anthracite
miners “will ask the bituminous miners to refrain from entering into an agreement with
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their employers until a fair and satisfactory basis for an improved condition has been
offered and secured by the Anthracite miners.”49 The route to this “fair and satisfactory
basis” was UMWA recognition. At the tri-district convention in March, 1902, Resolution
Number 7 demanded the same: “Having from past experience proved that the operators
have not lived up to the spirit of such notices [promising redress of grievances] in settling
local differences with the committees to settle such differences….Therefore Be It
Resolved, that we demand recognition of the union as the only means of adjusting such
grievances.”50
A further demand of the miners was uniform payment for coal. In bituminous,
miners were generally paid by weight, and although docking bosses often under-weighed
coal, the system itself was uniform. In anthracite, however, miners generally were paid
by the car, and this resulted in three major problems. Firstly, the size of cars often varied
widely, and over time, car sizes typically increased, leading some miners to joke that the
wood from which the cars were constructed was alive and still growing. Secondly,
topping practices (requiring miners to place coal above the top of the car to compensate
for spillage on its way to the breaker) varied widely.51 Thirdly, miners were often docked
for impurities or improper topping as the cars quickly passed by a docking boss. As a
result, miners denounced this system of payment and sought legislation to secure
payment by weight: “we ask that those bills be enacted into law in order that we shall be
paid for every pound in the car.”52 Again, the March tri-district convention echoed this
demand, demanding that “coal shall be weighed” at a uniform 2,240 pounds per ton.53
Furthermore, miners also sought the employment of check-docking bosses to curtail the
excesses of companies’ docking policies.
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Finally, wages and hours were the last component of the mine workers’ demands,
with wages being partly addressed in payment for coal, but with increases also being
requested for mine laborers. Working hours also came under scrutiny in the March
convention, with Resolution Number 2 stating that “we demand an Eight Hour
Day…throught [sic] the Anthracite Coal fields and that there shall be no reduction in the
rate of wages at present paid;—meaning what is paid for 10 now will be paid for 8.”54
Thus the miners presented their major demands: the institution of a reliable
system for arbitrating grievances, UMWA recognition, payment for coal by weight, and a
wage increase coupled with the eight-hour day. Clearly, the demand for a permanent
arbitration system would prove both most important and lasting in the settlement of the
strike. Furthermore, it differed most in character from the demands of the ARU in the
Pullman Strike. The institution of such a system would prove essential in ending both the
Anthracite Strike of 1902 and the Crisis of the 1890s.
The UMWA’s Tactics
Like the ARU during the Pullman Strike of 1894, the UMWA’s tactics included
tight, centralized coordination, observance of the law, and the cultivation of public
relations. However, the UMWA was more successful than the ARU, owing largely to the
fact that the union had achieved a more mature, bureaucratic form of industrial unionism
leadership. This leadership helped the UMWA exercise tighter control over the strike,
giving it a great deal of leverage against the operators. But it also led to the abandonment
of union recognition as a goal in the interests of immediate gains and maintaining
positive public opinion. This would ultimately call into question the value of the strike’s
settlement.
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For the duration of the 1902 Anthracite Strike, John Mitchell moved his
headquarters to the Hotel Hart in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, placing him roughly in the
center of the anthracite fields and enabling him to keep in frequent contact with District
Presidents Nicholls (District One), Dettrey (District Seven), and Fahy (District Nine).
From this vantage point, Mitchell sent a flurry of telegrams each day advising union
officials of his recommended course of action. In this way, the UMWA leadership
exercised a great deal of control over the strike.
A further example of coordination was the administration of the relief fund. At the
special convention of the UMWA, the delegates, having followed Mitchell’s advice
against a general strike, voted to establish a relief fund for the striking anthracite miners.
The operation of this fund was complex, but the union managed it successfully. The relief
fund included a donation from the union’s treasury, assessments on all locals and union
officials, and the appointment of special committees to “solicit donations from
businessmen and other citizens.”55 In the anthracite region, locals selected relief
committees which met each week to review aid applications. When approved, these were
verified by the local president and secretary, who then issued store orders to the
applicant. Participating grocers accepted the orders, exchanging them for cash upon
presentation to the local’s treasurer. This system curtailed abuse by only giving aid to
those in need and refusing to give the aid in cash.56 $1.5 million was distributed through
this meticulous system. The detailed record-keeping that this necessitated was evidenced
in District One’s July 1903 convention. In the Secretary-Treasurer’s report, an itemized
account of the $751,000 that was disbursed broke down the distribution of aid by local,
underscoring the coordination of the strike.57 The lack of sufficient aid in the Pullman
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Strike (partly because of the union’s youth) was a problem for the strikers; this was
overcome by the UMWA in 1902.
Observance of the law was also a key component in winning the strike, and
President Mitchell repeatedly emphasized this point. At the annual convention of District
One in July 1902, Mitchell addressed the striking miners, stating, “Personally, I stand,
always and under all circumstances, for law and order….I want to declare emphatically
that as law-abiding citizens, as patriotic, liberty-loving Americans, the members of the
Miners’ Union are second to none.”58 As the strike continued, some incidents of violence
occurred, usually against nonunion workers. As a result, the Citizens’ Alliance formed.
The group was composed of prominent local citizens who advocated the rule of law and
order and accused the union of tolerating striker violence, particularly against strike
breakers. The Alliance solicited Mitchell to declare that “boycotts, hanging in effigy, and
every form of violence, threat, and libel are condemned by the union of which you are
president….”59 Mitchell’s reply to the Alliance was succinct, stating, “I do not recognize
your right to make demands upon me to specifically declare myself opposed to any
special classes of lawlessness…. I have declared on innumerable occasions…that I am
opposed to lawlessness of every character….”60 Thus, Mitchell rebuffed those who
implied that the union was responsible for violence while affirming that the UMWA did
not stand for such practices.
Unfortunately for the union, however, violence did erupt as the strike continued
into the summer. On July 30 in Shenandoah, a mob beat Joseph Beddall to death. The
attack occurred when he attempted to go to the aid of his brother, a deputy sheriff, as he
escorted two non-union miners.61 This event caused Governor Stone to call in the
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National Guard, but their presence, while fiercely detested, did not result in serious
escalation. The union disavowed any connection to the bloodshed, arguing that those who
took part were not keeping with the spirit of the UMWA. Another hotbed of disruption
was the Panther Creek Valley. In response to the violence there, an order was given to
“fire upon him [any striker attacking the troops] without any further orders.”62 The
extreme nature of the order turned public opinion to the miners’ favor. This represented
yet another departure from Pullman.
Public opinion itself played a major role in settling the dispute, as households in
the eastern cities began to fear a coal famine. Throughout the strike, however, Mitchell
and the UMWA proved exceptionally apt at public relations, most notably through
friendly press relations. This was decisive in securing victory. Mitchell had gained
valuable experience in this art in the Anthracite Strike of 1900, during which he was able
to convince the popular press that coal and iron police were responsible for violence in
the region. Furthermore, his continual willingness to arbitrate kept the press friendly,
especially in the face of fierce operator hostility.63 In 1902, similar tactics worked well
for the UMWA. Both before and during the strike, Mitchell made arbitration the primary
goal, making him seem entirely reasonable to most of the public. Mitchell repeatedly
sought the help of the National Civic Federation in mediating the dispute, further
confirming his moderation. In the anthracite region itself, the union’s president cultivated
good relationships with the Catholic clergy, particularly Bishop Hoban of Scranton. This
proved a major factor in bringing the largely immigrant population to the union’s cause.
Aiding the union was the operators’ complete incompetence in public relations. In
George Baer’s response to Mr. William F. Clark’s (a local photographer) letter urging
117
him as a Christian to consider working with the union, Baer made clear the operators’
position: “The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for—
not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom
has given the control of the property interests of the country….”64 This “divine right”
letter made the operators seem nearly absurd, as if they had been frozen in an earlier era
of employers’ total control over labor. Ultimately, though, it would take more than
favorable public opinion to end the strike.
Victory?
The Anthracite Strike of 1902 ended very differently than the Pullman Strike of
1894. Instead of capital enlisting the services of the federal government to crush labor, a
much more even-handed federal intervention took place. This not only represented a
positive response to the Crisis of the 1890s, but it also helped pave the way for future
industrial relations that would bear fruit during the Progressive era.
As mentioned in the above section, Mitchell sought arbitration throughout the
strike. In the months preceding the May decision to walk out, various overtures were
made to the National Civic Federation by Mitchell. On March 24, the Scranton Times
reported one of these, quoting Mitchell: “Before resorting to this measure [the strike] and
with the lingering hope that a peaceful solution of the perplexing problems may be
reached…an appeal will be made to the executive board of the industrial department of
the Civic Federation.”65 As late as May 8, Mitchell made an offer to the operators, stating
“we propose that the industrial branch of the National Civic Federation select a
committee of five persons to arbitrate [the dispute]”66 Unfortunately the operators were
unwilling to budge on the matter, with Baer replying “The laws organizing the companies
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I represent, in express terms impose the business management on the president and
directors. I could not [even] if I would delegate this business management…to… the
Civic Federation….”67 This left little option for the UMWA but to strike.
During the strike, the union considered various appeals for arbitration, both from
the NCF and J.P. Morgan’s business associates. These plans all entailed an examination
of the industry, but Mitchell pressed for either union recognition or a “promise from the
operators that they would accept the results of an investigation.”68 Such proposals failed
to bring about a settlement, though, as time and again the operators reaffirmed their
recalcitrance. As the strike continued into late September, the impending winter resulted
in a public clamor for a solution. President Theodore Roosevelt began to feel nervous
about the strike’s effect on the upcoming mid-term elections, prompting him to invite
Mitchell, the three district presidents, and several of the operators’ representatives to a
conference in Washington.69 Roosevelt emerged from the conference with a very
negative view of the operators’ intransigence, stating of one that “If it wasn’t for the high
office I held I would have taken him…and chucked him out the window.”70 His opinion
of Mitchell was markedly different, remarking of him that “There was only one man in
that conference who behaved like a gentleman, and that man was not I.”71 This respect
for Mitchell made Roosevelt more favorable to the miners’ cause.
After thinking about and suggesting various proposals that were either dismissed
by Roosevelt or rejected by the operators or the UMWA, a remedy presented itself.
Secretary of War Elihu Root met with J.P. Morgan and formulated a solution. Since
Mitchell had agreed to abandon union recognition if necessary to achieve an arbitrated
settlement, Root proposed that the operators and mine workers submit to government
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arbitration. This was more palatable to the operators, who detested the idea of dealing
with the union in an official capacity.72 The five-man Anthracite Strike Commission was
to include “a military engineer, a judge of the federal court for the eastern district of
Pennsylvania, a mining engineer not connected with the coal business, a veteran of the
anthracite industry..., and a ‘man of prominence, eminent as a sociologist.’”73 The last
phrase was essential, allowing Roosevelt to appoint a labor-friendly candidate to the
Commission. After other minor details were settled, both sides agreed to the proposal,
and on October 20, the miners convened and voted to return to work.
The Commission heard extensive testimony from both sides in its three-and-a-half
months of hearings. The testimony covered virtually all aspects of the industry, detailing
the many grievances the miners had with the operators. Clarence Darrow, attorney for the
miners, argued their side with passion and efficiency. Mitchell himself greatly helped the
miners’ cause, reciting vast statistics from memory and weathering cross-examination so
well that the operators’ attorney, Wayne MacVeagh, remarked after four days of grilling
that, “You are the best witness for yourself, Mr. Mitchell, that I have ever confronted.”74
On March 21, 1903, the Commission issued its Award, granting the following: 1) a ten
per cent increase in contract miners’ rates over those paid in April 1902, 2) a reduction in
working hours from ten to nine hours per day, 3) the use of check-weighmen or checkdocking bosses where a majority of miners requested it, and 4) the creation of an
Anthracite Board of Conciliation, to be composed of six members, three representatives
of the miners (one for each district), and three representatives of the operators (again, one
for each district). Tie votes would be decided by an umpire chosen from the federal
courts’ third circuit. The Commission made other general recommendations, including
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the equal distribution of cars to miners, the abandonment of the coal and iron police as a
viable means to maintain order during strikes, the establishment of a sliding scale for
wages, and the end of discrimination by management against union members.75
Although the Commission’s Award was regarded as a victory for the miners,
there were immediate problems. The Commission did not grant union recognition, and
since many miners believed the strike was waged for that purpose, some regarded it as a
loss. Despite this, Mitchell managed to convince the majority that the Board of
Conciliation in effect guaranteed collective bargaining, hence, tacit union recognition.76
Another problem was the fact that the Board was relatively ineffective in resolving
miners’ grievances. As the Award was renewed in 1906 and again in 1909 without
recognizing the union, a mass exodus occurred in the anthracite fields. Indeed,
disaffection was apparent early on, with union membership dropping from 85,000 in
1903 to 43,000 by the end of 1904.77 The basic problem with the Board was that without
union recognition, the operators had an excellent means with which to tie up miners’
arbiters in lengthy proceedings. The rendering of decisions could take months, and the tie
votes by the Board’s six members were referred to the Umpire, who usually issued
decisions against the miners. Thus, although the miners had achieved a significant victory
in securing a system to arbitrate grievances, without union recognition, they stood
relatively powerless as individuals or small groups of workers submitting individual
grievances instead of the concerted body that had pressured the operators into a
settlement in 1902.
Nevertheless, the 1902 Anthracite Strike’s settlement represented a significant
shift in labor-capital relations in the United States. Instead of deploying federal troops to
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crush the strike, Roosevelt intervened in a relatively even-handed fashion. This was a
clear departure from the practices of the 1890s, when capital almost always defeated
labor. Moreover, the creation of the Anthracite Board of Conciliation pointed the way
toward a new system of industrial relations, one in which capital and labor would
confront each other on a more equal footing. This would receive later development
during the Progressive Era and under Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. As Robert Cornell,
the most comprehensive student of the strike, has noted, the miners and their union won a
“new standing…for organized labor in the United States.”78
IV. Comparisons: Defeat and Victory
The Pullman Strike and Boycott of 1894 and the Anthracite Strike of 1902 were
both large strikes led by industrial unions, yet the results of both strikes were strikingly
different. What accounts for this difference? What factors worked in favor of the UMWA
and John Mitchell that were absent for the ARU and Eugene Debs? What had changed in
the United States since the Pullman Strike that allowed for the acceptance of both the
importance of organized labor and the willingness to work with it to help run American
industry?
There were important differences between the industrial unionism of Debs and the
ARU and that of Mitchell and the UMWA. Debs’ vision of the role the ARU would play
in a more just industrial order struck many, particularly industrialists, as too radical.
Although he foresaw a world in which strikes never occurred and capitalists and workers
could march forward in the name of human progress together, Debs’ method to achieve
this betrayed a desire to fundamentally reshape American society. The goal of the ARU’s
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industrial unionism as articulated by Debs was to unite all railroad workers so as to
confront capital as a body. Capital would then have no choice but to acknowledge the
demands of the workers and make concessions. However, implicit in this was a change in
the power relations in industry. Capital would be ceding a great deal of control to labor if
this vision came into reality. Furthermore, with events like the Great Upheaval of 1877,
Haymarket Riot of 1886, and Homestead Strike in 1892, capital was increasingly wary of
any challenges to its authority, fearing them to be the beginning of the end of capitalism
as they knew it. Thus, the GMA bitterly denounced and attacked the ARU, and was
successful in crushing the union by using the industry’s political importance to enlist the
federal government’s help.
On the other hand, the UMWA was relatively successful in its battle with the
anthracite coal operators. As has been mentioned, professional and conservative business
unionism played a major role in this, but there is more to the matter. Although the
UMWA was an industrial union, it had a craft mentality. The union was affiliated with
the AFL, as opposed to the ARU, which was formed in opposition to the Federation.
Accordingly, rather than issue a fundamental challenge to the established industrial order,
the UMWA pursued the conservative “bread and butter unionism” of Samuel Gompers.
The workers simply wanted a larger share of the fruits of their labor in the system, not a
complete restructuring of social power. Because of this, the union’s demands appeared to
be reasonable to most outside observers. The complete willingness of the union and its
president to find its place within industrial capitalism instead of as opposed to it helped
ensure its partial victory in the anthracite region.
123
Capital itself had also undergone changes in the eight years between 1894 and
1902. During the Pullman Strike, an already consolidated railroad capital proved entirely
unwilling to give any of its power up in the quest to reconcile labor disputes. In the
Anthracite Strike, the operators similarly posed themselves against organized labor, in
many ways (such as Baer’s “divine right” letter) coming across as a sort of “old guard” of
capital. However, the attitudes of industrialists had fractured between the two strikes.
While those like the operators refused to make a place for unions, other progressive
businessmen such as Mark Hanna of the NCF believed that trade unions could help bring
stability to industry by regularizing industrial conflict. This rationalizing tendency found
its champion in J.P. Morgan, who played a decisive role in consolidating the railroad
industry to achieve greater regularity. Morgan was tied to the anthracite interests through
the railroads, and when the 1902 strike had become intolerable, he pressured the
operators to submit to arbitration. In this way, the rationalizing tendency of capital
defeated the “old guard” ideology that was characteristic of the Crisis of the 1890s. This
tendency would continue to gain currency, eventually flowering during the Progressive
movement, the goal of which was nothing less than the rationalization of all society. The
Anthracite Strike of 1902 pointed the way to this future by showing that with the right
kind of unionism, industry could attain the stability necessary to serve the public’s
general welfare.
Furthermore, by 1902, capital appreciated the fact that socialism was gaining
ground in the United States. During Debs’ imprisonment for his role in the Pullman
Strike, he became a converted socialist, and he would later run as the Socialist Party’s
presidential candidate five times. Although never a viable party at the national level, the
124
Socialist Party performed well in local and sometimes state elections, prompting many
capitalists to reconsider their policy of crushing all worker dissent. By supporting or at
least tolerating moderate unions that organized themselves in line with business practices,
capital undercut the appeal of more radical worldviews. By ceding some of its power on
its own terms, some key businessmen were able to secure stability. Thus, even though the
operators did not recognize the union, in the end they were willing to compromise with
its power in the interests of perpetuating industrial capitalism.
Like capital, the public was also much more willing to consider the claims of the
UMWA than it was those of the ARU. Although initially supportive of the ARU’s
grievances, once public order seemed threatened in the Pullman Strike, popular opinion
quickly denounced the union for seeking to overturn the existing social order. The
UMWA was spared this public wrath, in part because of the at times absurd conduct of
the operators, but mostly because the union constantly expressed its willingness to
arbitrate, even at the expense of recognition. More broadly, the public, again like capital,
had seen the upsurge in socialist support in both Europe and the nation. The gains of
European socialism and the development of an American counterpart alarmed many.
Responsible business unionism, like that of the contract-worshipping Mitchell, seemed
perfectly acceptable when faced with the bleak alternative of revolution. And especially
since a major goal of the Anthracite Strike was the creation of a reliable system of
arbitration, the public, which needed winter heating fuel in steady supply, saw the gains
of organized labor as preferable to a cold season without fuel.
Finally, government’s role was drastically different in the two strikes. In 1894,
Grover Cleveland readily dispatched federal troops to break the Pullman Strike. In 1902,
125
however, Theodore Roosevelt intervened with relative impartiality. The most lasting
result of this intervention was the Anthracite Board of Conciliation, a government-created
body that would work to resolve labor disputes in anthracite with the backing of the state.
Again, one reason for this change in policy was the socialist threat to American society.
In advising President Roosevelt on a course of action, Republican Congressman Henry
Cabot Lodge remarked that “Socialistic feeling is growing apace and the demand that the
government take the mines…could befall us.”79 Thus, by working with the UMWA, the
government could reduce radicalism’s appeal to Americans. Furthermore, the recent
assassination of President McKinley by an anarchist must have weighed on Roosevelt’s
mind when considering what to do about the strike. As a result, it made more sense to
grant organized labor some benefits in order to undercut more radical voices.
Rationalization was also a factor for the government in 1902. Like other areas of
society, the government realized it could no longer cope with the massive labor disputes
of the Crisis of the 1890s. Crushing workers did not seem to help matters, as they only
organized again. By appealing to the business unionists, a more regularized social order
could be achieved, and the decision to work with the UMWA in the Anthracite Strike of
1902 reflected this line of thinking. The task of governing would be made much simpler
if industrial disputes could be ruled by procedure instead of by might. The Anthracite
Board of Conciliation represented a step in this direction. This tendency would gain
future clout in the Progressive movement, coming to fruition in the government’s
creation of the National War Labor Board during World War I, and emerging after the
decline of Progressivism in the National Labor Relations Board of the New Deal.
126
Thus, two major factors can be identified that account for the marked difference
between the resolution of the Pullman Strike and the Anthracite Strike of 1902. The
appeal of socialism represented a serious challenge to the existing social order, and all
segments of society were concerned about this perceived threat. Business unionism,
however, represented a middle ground that would help resolve working-class grievances
in a moderate way, in the process undercutting the appeal of the radical challengers. The
desire for rationalization in industrial production was the other major factor in helping
resolve the 1902 strike. Many critics noted with alarm the frequent conflict between
capital and labor. By granting recognition of organized labor’s importance, a more stable
and predictable social order could be achieved. These two factors help account for the
very real change in industrial relations in the United States between 1894 and 1902. The
settlement of the Anthracite Strike of 1902, by establishing the precedent of relatively
impartial government intervention and creating the Board, both began to address the
Crisis of the 1890s and pointed the way toward a new system of industrial relations that
would receive further development during the Progressive Era.
1
Nicholas Salvatore, Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982),
128-9, hereafter referred to as Eugene V. Debs.
2
Richard Schneirov, Shelton Stromquist, and Nick Salvatore, eds, The Pullman Strike and the Crisis of the
1890s: Essays on Labor and Politics (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 8, hereafter referred to
as The Pullman Strike.
3
Eugene V. Debs, 90-100.
4
Ibid., 115.
5
Ibid., 116.
6
Almont Lindsey, The Pullman Strike: The Story of a Unique Experiment and of a Great Labor Upheaval
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942; reprint, Chicago: Phoenix Books, 1964), 110, hereafter
referred to as Lindsey.
7
Ibid.
8
Debs, as quoted in Eugene V. Debs, 116.
9
Lindsey, 90.
10
Ibid., 20-1.
11
United States Strike Commission, as quoted in Colston E. Warne, ed., The Pullman Boycott of 1894: The
Problem of Federal Intervention (Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1955), 20, hereafter referred to as
Warne.
12
Lindsey, 91.
127
13
Pullman Strikers’ Delegation’s Address to ARU Convention, as quoted in Warne, 18.
Stanley Buder, Pullman: An Experiment in Industrial Order and Community Planning, 1880-1930 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1967), 160, hereafter referred to as Buder.
15
Ibid., 149.
16
Ibid., 155.
17
Ibid.
18
Ibid., 156.
19
Lindsey, 128.
20
Pullman Strikers’ Delegation’s Address to ARU Convention, as quoted in Warne, 18.
21
Eugene V. Debs, 129.
22
New York Times, June 27, 1894.
23
Eugene V. Debs, 130.
24
Lindsey, 129.
25
Ibid., 130.
26
Ibid., 244.
27
Ibid.
28
Ibid., 220.
29
Debs, as quoted in Lindsey, 221.
30
Larry Peterson, “Photography and the Pullman Strike: Remolding Perceptions of Labor Conflict by New
Visual Communication,” in The Pullman Strike, 93.
31
Ibid., 98.
32
Lindsey, 137.
33
Ibid., 139.
34
Ibid., 153-4; The Pullman Strike, 8-9.
35
United States Strike Commission Report, as quoted in Warne, 31.
36
Buder, 183-4.
37
Debs, as quoted in Eugene V. Debs, 134.
38
Eugene V. Debs, 135.
39
Constitution and Laws of the United Mine Workers of America, Jan. 25, 1890, in John Mitchell Papers
(microfilm), hereafter referred to as JMP.
40
Ibid.
41
Howard Harris, ed., Keystone of Democracy: A History of Pennsylvania Workers (Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1999), 116; John H.M. Laslett, The
United Mine Workers of America: A Model of Industrial Solidarity? (State College: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 1996), 76-77.
42
Craig Phelan, Divided Loyalties: The Public and Private Life of Labor Leader John Mitchell (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1994), 24, hereafter referred to as Phelan.
43
Perry K. Blatz, Democratic Miners: Work and Labor Relations in the Anthracite Coal Industry, 18751925 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 105, hereafter referred to as Democratic Miners.
44
Address of President Mitchell to the Special Convention of United Mine Workers of America,
Indianapolis, July 17, 1902, JMP.
45
O.L. Garrison to John Mitchell, June 25, 1902, JMP.
46
Robert J. Cornell, The Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of
America Press, 1957; reproduced by microfilm-xerography by University Microfilms, Ann Arbor,
Michigan, 1972), 57-8, 60, hereafter referred to as Cornell.
47
First Annual Convention of District No. 9, U.M.W. of A, December 1900 (Shamokin, Pennsylvania, Daily
Dispatch Print, 1900), 10.
48
Proceedings of the Joint Convention of Dists. Nos. 1, 7, and 9 United Mine Workers of America, March
1902, 102.
49
Proceedings of the Convention of District No. 1, United Mine Workers of America, April 1901, 19.
50
Proceedings of the Joint Convention of Dists. Nos. 1, 7, and 9 United Mine Workers of America, March
1902, 13-4.
51
Perry K. Blatz, “Local Leadership and Local Militancy: The Nanticoke Strike of 1899 and the Roots of
Unionization in the Northern Anthracite Field,” Pennsylvania History, 58 (October 1991): passim.
52
Proceedings of the Convention of District No. 1, United Mine Workers of America, July 1901, 19.
14
128
53
Proceedings of the Joint Convention of Dists. Nos. 1, 7, and 9 United Mine Workers of America, March
1902, 26-7.
54
Ibid., 25.
55
Cornell, 118.
56
Ibid., 121.
57
Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Convention of District No. 1, United Mine Workers of America, July
1903, 46-62.
58
Proceedings of the 4th Annual Convention of District No. 1, United Mine Workers of America, July 1902,
35.
59
United Mine Workers Journal, August 7, 1902; hereafter referred to as UMWJ.
60
Ibid.
61
Cornell, 152.
62
Brigadier General John P.S. Gobin, as quoted in Cornell, 154.
63
Phelan, 109-10.
64
UMWJ, August 28, 1902.
65
Scranton Times, March 24, 1902.
66
Mitchell, as quoted in Report of the Bureau of Mines of the Department of Internal Affairs of
Pennsylvania, 1902 (Harrisburg: William Stanley Ray, State Printer of Pennsylvania, 1903), 31, hereafter
referred to as Report.
67
Baer, as quoted in Report, 32.
68
Democratic Miners, 135-6.
69
Ibid., 137.
70
Roosevelt, as quoted in Susan E. Wilson, “President Roosevelt’s Role in the Anthracite Coal Strike of
1902,” Labor’s Heritage, (January 1991): 4.
71
Ibid., 12.
72
Ibid., 16-7.
73
Democratic Miners, 139.
74
MacVeagh, as quoted in Cornell, 242.
75
Ibid., 253-6.
76
Joe Gowaskie, “John Mitchell and the Anthracite Mine Workers: Leadership Conservatism and Rankand-File Militancy,” Labor History, 27 (Winter 1985-86): 58-9.
77
Ibid., 70.
78
Cornell, 259.
79
Lodge, as quoted in Susan E. Wilson, “President Roosevelt’s Role in the Anthracite Coal Strike of
1902,” Labor’s Heritage, (January 1991): 14.
129