Increased demand for coal during World War I brought industrial expansion and robust profits for coal operators, while miners were asked to make patriotic wage sacrifices in return for promises of post-war economic prosperity. Soaring inflation exacerbated by a sharply contracting demand for coal in the immediate post-war period culminated in an explosive clash between labor and capital in 1919 over wages, unionism, and the definition of Americanism.

1. THE IMPACT OF WORLD WAR I
ON WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA’S
COAL ECONOMY
Profits, Promises, and Patriotism

2. Historical Arguments
 Increased demand for coal during the war era:
 Encouraged the opening of many new mines and the use of mining
practices that had a negative impact on the environment and on
conservation.
 Allowed operators to garnish huge profits in the name of patriotism.
 Provided miners with better living and working conditions and, for
many, gave access to unionization.
 Decreased demand for coal after the war:
 Left many mines abandoned or in states of disrepair
 Allowed large operators to consolidate the industry.
 Provided the opportunity for operators to challenge the patriotism of
miners and break the UMWA

3. Case Study
 UMWA District 2, Territory 6
 Indiana and Jefferson Counties
 Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal Company

4. 1915: Shifting Balance of Power
 From mid-1915 to the end of the war, demand for
coal exceeded production capacity.
 This reality initially shifted the power relations
between coal operators and miners in favor of labor
as companies sought to maximize output and profit.

5. Wartime Labor Shortage
 Increased demand for miners as old mines were
enlarged and new mines opened
 Shortage of labor due to:
 Sharp decrease in immigration
 Movement of miners into higher paying factory work
 Miners leaving for military service

6. Labor Unrest
 Coal operators pinched between the need to fill
contracts and the demands of workers
 Worker demands included pay increase, end to car pushing,
unionization, closed shop, check-off, increased safety
 One of the districts largest companies, R&P
experienced a number of wildcat strikes in the late
months of 1915
 Company President Lucius Robinson blamed “radical agitation
of officials here in this region”

7. R&P Strategies to Stabilize Labor
 Provide miners with sufficient railroad cars and good
working places so they could “produce the largest
tonnage they are capable of”
 This would increase earnings without increasing the tonnage
rate
 Improve housing
 Made extensive repairs on older housing
 Built new single-family housing
 “attracted some labor we would not otherwise get”

8. Additional Strategies to Stabilize Labor
 Improved amenities and leisure facilities
 Amusement halls
 Nickelodeans
 Bandstands
 Ball fields
 Swimming pools
 These concessions were operator investments in
their own facilities.
 Continued to refuse pay raises, unionization in their non-
union mines, the closed shop in their union mines, and any
alterations in work rules.

9. 1916: Wage Concessions
 Philadelphia Agreement (April 1916)
 Central Competitive Field, which did not include District 2
 5% advance in tonnage rate to 75¢
 5% advance in day wage to $2.98
 5% advance in dead work
 Robinson complained that “radical elements” within the union
had made “excessive demands…especially on the day wage
scale, working conditions, and the closed shop, together with
other annoying features.”
 Concerned about District 2 demands to be included in CCF
 Would raise day wages by another 25¢

10. Summer of Unrest: 1916
 Mines operated at full capacity and profits soared
 Miners increased wages did not offset alarming inflation
 Wildcat strikes over wages and hours broke out all
over District 2
 R&P maintained a cadre of 60 scabs in Punxsutawney that
could quickly be moved to the site of a strike
 Threatened to withhold the wages of striking miners as
payment for damages
 Dissatisfaction was so widespread that R&P was increasingly
forced to grant concessions

11.  R&P President Lucius Robinson to owner Adrian
Iselin, Jr. (July 1916):
 “There never has been a time in the history of my connection
with mining when it has been so annoying and almost
impossible to keep things going as at present. There is not only
a great shortage of labor, but those working are thoroughly
dissatisfied although they are enjoying not only steady work
but the highest wages ever paid with conditions better than
ever known….We have made concessions which are absolutely
wrong for proper discipline...but it is no time to fight these
matters.”

12.  Regarding miners’ demands for higher wages,
Robinson advised Iselin:
 “We think it better perhaps to make considerable concessions
especially from the fact that… there seems to be a great
demand for this class of labor, especially on the street work
here locally even at $2.50 or $2.75 per day,” and advised Iselin
that the company should “make the best of a bad situation
using best judgment as we see the situation from day to day
and struggle along to keep our mines going. It is a most
exasperating and wearing process.”

13. Fall 1916
 Rank-and-file miners, led by John Brophy, demanded
 Complete unionization of District 2
 Closed shop
 Elimination of car pushing
 Changes in the pay scale:
 Raise of 5¢ per ton
 10¢ extra per ton for coal under 4 feet
 8 hours work for 10 hours pay
 Time-and-a-half for overtime
 Double time on Sunday
 Operators’ Association granted a 10¢ bonus on all
earnings beginning January 1, 1917
 Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson convinced companies to pay a
bonus of 5¢ per ton for car pushing.

14.  Robinson characterized Brophy as the leader of the
“radical element” within the miners
 R&P agreed to unionize a few of their smaller mines
 Much to Robinson’s dismay, Brophy was elected District
President in December and took office in April 1917
 Platform:
 Initiation of a drive for full unionization
 Closed shop
 Elimination of the wage differential with the CCF
 Elimination of car pushing

15. Shifting Balance of Power
 By the time Brophy took office on April 1, 1917, the
balance of power had begun to shift again, this time
in favor of the operators
 US entrance into the war on April 6 brought
government control to the mining industry
 Miners derived some benefits from government control, but
their ability to press for change was restricted, both by
regulation and by pressure to show patriotism

16. THE LEVER ACT
THE WASHINGTON AGREEMENT
Central Events of 1917

17. The Lever Act
 Food and Fuel Control Act (Lever Act) August 1917
 Allowed the President to regulate the production, price, and
distribution of coal
 Set prices
 Establish rules for employment and wages
 Properties of operators who refused to conform could be
placed under government control
 Fuel Administration (under Harry Garfield) was established to
administer the Act

18. The Washington Agreement
 Contract to last until April 1, 1920 or the end of the
war, whichever came first
 National scale that covered all miners, both union
and non-union
 Added 10¢ to tonnage rate
 Added $1.40 to day rate ($5)
 Added 15% to dead work
 Operators were allowed to add 45¢ per ton to the price of coal

19. Washington Agreement
 Miners were given protection to join the UMWA
 Operators had to observe the wage scale, but did not have to
sign a contract with the UMWA
 Penalty clause fined miners $1 day per miner for
striking
 Safety issues and car pushing were not addressed
 Conservation issues were not addressed
 Harry Garfield regularly lectured miners about the
patriotism of sacrifice and work

20.  District 2 miners sought the elimination of car
pushing and gaining the closed shop as part of the
District scale under the Washington Agreement
 Garfield refused their demands
 District 2 officials linked the union’s demands with
Wilsonian war rhetoric:
 “We will take up the word ‘union,’ and combining it with the
glorious thought of Liberty and Democracy which has ever
been our inspiration, we will move firmly onward…first to
assist in destroying this old world of hate, oppression and
blood. Second, to prepare ourselves so that we can be in a
position to participate in the building up of a new world of
Righteousness.”

21.  District 2 used the protection of the Washington
Agreement to conduct organizing drives
 Added about 4500 members
 1919 District membership was roughly 45,000, making District
2 the second largest district in the UMWA
 R&P refused to sign contracts with the union in their
newly organized mines
 Companies had to comply with the wage scale, but did not
have to sign a contract with the UMWA

22.  Washington Agreement exacerbated the negative
impact of inflation on miners
 As inflation increased, so did the gap between miners’ wages
and the cost of living, especially for those who were forced to
shop at company stores
 Bureau of Labor Statistics
 1913-1919: price of food increased by 86%
 Wages of day workers in mining rose 75%
 Shortage of railroad cars meant that tonnage workers could
not maximize their earnings

23.  Miners’ petitions for wage increases were denied
 Operators received another 60¢ per ton increase in
February 1918
 Coal profits rose dramatically during the war period
 15% in 1916
 24% in 1917
 35% in 1918
 According to Brophy, the cost of the “necessaries of life” for
miners rose by 20% in 1918

24. Post War Economy
 Once the war ended, the demand for coal began a
dramatic decline, but inflation continued to grow
 Miners’ annual earnings declined dramatically
 1918—$1583
 1919—$1000
 Coal industry immediately faced a crisis of
overdevelopment
 There were too many mines and too many miners

25.  As soon as the Armistice was signed (Nov 11, 1918)
miners began to agitate for a wage raise.
 Desperate to combat inflation, cash in on industry’s wartime
profits and the promises of post-war prosperity
 Operators argued that the Washington Agreement remained in
effect because the war had not officially ended
 By the beginning of 1919, operators began to lower
wages in defiance of the Washingon Agreement,
discontinue pay for dead work, and limit work to
union activists.

26. Case Study: Rochester & Pittsburgh Coal
 R&P President B.M Clark was also president of the
Operators Association
 R&P, as one of the largest producers in the region, provided an
example that other coal operators felt free to follow
 As soon as the armistice was signed in November
1918, R&P began to move their non-union mines
toward a pre-war status:
 Reinstituted pre-war wage rates
 Reinstituted pre-war work rules
 Curtailed work for union activists
 Ended the practice of work sharing

27. Union Response
 UMWA District 2 Territory 6, which included R&Ps
non-union mines protested the actions of R&P. Their
resolutions invoked the District’s wartime
demonstrations of patriotism:
 “Since the United States went to War with the Empire of
Germany, the miners of this country have done their patriotic
duty to produce all the coal the Government need and also
contribute to the Red Cross and other War Activities. And now
since the Armistice have been signed instead of giving the
workers better conditions and better living they try to crush us
down to starvation.”

28. Operator Response to Charges of Autocracy
 Operators countered by linking the activities of
miners with the emerging nation-wide Red Scare.
 Interpreted all union activity and miner protest as
Communist-led activity
 Issued dire warnings of an imminent Bolshevik revolution
 Backed by the press, judiciary, and police, operators
in District 2 generated a full-blown red scare in the
spring of 1919 in order to counter the militancy of
miners.

29.  The Indiana Evening Gazette regularly linked miner
activities with Boshevism and revolution.
 April 18 headline: “Bolshevik Agents Blamed for Attempt to
Dynamite Tipple of Homer Coal Co.”
 The article read in part: “The labor unrest throughout the
country, flamed into a fever heat by agents of the Radicals who
are threatening to revolutionize Europe and the United States,
has come to a head in numerous incidents relative to
destruction of property.”
 The same article reported that 500 striking miners had
marched from Homer City to Graceton and back led by “a large
American flag to which long streamers of red silk were
attached.”

30. The Defense Society of Indiana County
 On April 23, the Gazette reported that “the events of
the past few weeks and months, in which Bolshevik
tendencies were slowly assuming a desperate
character finally compelled the authorities to take a
hand in the suppression of further threatened
disorders.”
 The prior evening, Indiana Burgess James Crossman
had called a meeting of “all patriotic man of Indiana,
who believe that the flag of our country should not be
desecrated by Red streamers or carried by
organizations to protect them from unlawful acts.”

31.  The meeting, according to Crossman, was held as “a
protest against anarchy, which already has gained a
decided foothold in Indiana County, and to
formulate plans to prevent the raising of the Red flag
of disintegration by an assemblage of Radicals, who
would overthrow the government and institute a
reign of terror.”

32.  At the end of the meeting, the American Defense
Society of Indiana County was formed.
 The Society immediately enrolled “some 400 simon-pure
patriots” who were sworn in as deputy sheriffs to assist County
Sheriff Harry Boggs.
 Following the meeting, “impromptu gatherings were held for
several hours and all with one central thought—America
First….Patriotism was the keynote and Americanism was what
resulted.”
 According to the Gazette, “it was the finest expression of utter
patriotism, with disregard of possible danger.”

33.  The final paragraph of the Gazette’s lengthy report
threw down the gauntlet:
 “Action has been taken, the men have signified their
willingness, yea eagerness, to serve the Commonwealth, the
organization is formed, the die has been casted and the defy
issued to the Bolsheviki or other advocates of lawlessness and
disorder, by whatever name they choose to call themselves.
Indiana County is ready for action. It is to be hoped that actual
conflict will not be necessary, but should the occasion rise then
the American Defense Society of Indiana County will rise with
it. And the Star Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave, o’re
the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

34. May Day “Insurrection”
 Assuming the atmosphere of a military unit, the
members of the Defense Society were organized into
squads and “put through tactics by officers qualified for
such work.”
 As May Day approached, Sheriff Boggs issued a
proclamation which prohibited mass meetings,
demonstrations and parades, and received a unit of the
State Police to aid in patrolling the area.
 The holiday passed quietly, with the exception of the
arrest of a well-known business man and Socialist who
was charged with inciting to riot for refusing to remove a
red flower from his lapel.

35. 1919 Strike
 UMWA convention in September called for:
 The six-hour day/five day week
 60% wage raise
 Abolition of the penalty clause for striking
 Strike date of November 1, if demands went unmet
 Operators insisted that no wage negotiation could be
held until April 1, 1920 when the Washington
Agreement expired
 On November 1, 1919 the nation’s 450,000 unionized
miners went on strike, including the 45,000 union
miners in District 2

36.  On December 9, President Wilson intervened with
promises of:
 An immediate 14% wage increase
 A Presidential commission to investigate the industry and
assist in further wage negotiations
 The UMWA accepted the agreement and returned to
work.

37.  In Central Pennsylvania, the strike was presented in
the press as continued evidence of a Bolshevik threat
to the nation.
 On the evening of November 1, the Indiana Evening Gazette
reported that although there had been no disturbances of a
“radical nature…plans have been completed for stern action
should the ‘red’ element start any trouble.”
 Although the Gazette allowed that “the members of the United
Mine Workers of America, as a body, are of a peaceful nature,”
disturbances would no doubt be “the work of the Bolshevik
element or other malcontents who wish to spread their radical
doctrine throughout the United States and destroy existing
government.”

38.  James Maurer, president of the Pennsylvania
Federation of Labor, addressed the widespread fear
spread by the newspapers at a convention of District
2 miners the week before the strike began:
 In Western Pennsylvania today there is no such thing as civil
liberties for the working man, no such thing as free speech or
free public assemblage….And when one of us objects or
protests then we find from one end of the country to the other
they cry out loud, oh, he is a Bolsheviki. The newspapers are
opposed to us and of course we have no right to expect
anything else. The same people that we organized ourselves
against also control the newspapers, and in them they lie the
most glaring lies.”

39.  At the same convention, District Secretary-Treasurer
Richard Gilbert, framed the upcoming struggle in
terms of patriotism.
 For Gilbert, the sacrifices made during the war era
entitled workers to full political and economic
democracy at home.
 In language sprinkled with allusions to Lincoln,
Wilson, the Bible, and even Jack London, Gilbert
evoked the memory of the 81 members of District 2
who had made the “supreme sacrifice” during the
war.

40. Richard Gilbert
 These young men were members of our Organization,
they have paid the supreme sacrifice in order to make the
world they were told and no doubt believed safe for
democracy….It is up to us to see that they have not died
in vain, and we can best show our fond remembrance by
bringing about that Democracy for which they believed
they died to save....Shall the sacrifice of so much life and
happiness, the blood shed on the battlefields of Europe be
but the basis of other wars...or shall this destruction of
life and happiness be the seed out of which will usher in a
new and higher social order in which war and poverty
shall cease and in which real progress will begin.

41.  If the Trades Unionists succeed in carrying out their policy
of economic reconstruction, then the day of true Democracy
will be ushered in poth politically and industrially, then we
shall have permanent peace and no drop of blood shed in
the late war will be shed in vain; on the other hand, if Labor
fails through any cause to carry out its policy then the
sacrifices will be useless. Even now here and there we see
signs of the coming iron heel of the Military state to throttle
free speech and the press and the right of free assembly....

42.  These 81 boys gave their lives as a sacrifice to their Country
to save Democracy and we must see that the Democracy
they died to save is made possible or we will be false to
ourselves and to their memory....By all the memories of the
past; by all the impulses of the present; by all the noblest
instincts of our own souls; with the touch of his Sovereignty
upon us, God make us faithful to the work and to them.”
Richard Gilbert, October 1919

43. ON THE ISSUES OF THE DAY:
THE MALDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH
THE UNITY OF THE WORKING CLASSES
A MESSAGE FROM THE PAST

44.  “Don’t let them divide you on racial questions. Don’t let you
Americans be divided on account of foreigners. They tried to
divide the foreigners against the Italians. They said the Italians
are after your jobs. They are trying to get us fighting among
ourselves, don’t you see. Don’t fall for it. Don’t let them get you
divided on religion. No matter what the other fellow’s religion
is, respect him for it as much as you expect him to respect you
for your religion. Remember, men get their religion usually
from their mother’s knee and when you insult their religion
you generally attack the memory of their dear mother and
what are you going to gain….The other class is sticking. The
capitalist class is sticking as they never did before....So, don’t
let them get you divided, boys.” James Mauer, October, 1919