Liberalism: Power, Economic Crisis, Reform, War 109Cleveland, Ohio with political connections all over Washington, D.C., Marcus
Hanna, were predominantly from southern Italy and Sicily, and many had
worked in the mines there. Hanna’s representatives in West Virginia attacked
the Italians, provoking conflicts and often calling the police and using the
courts to put down the “Dagos.” When the company announced it would pay
based on the long ton rather than the regular ton, the Italian miners wanted
to strike, but the national union leader refused to support them, suspecting
that the operators actually wanted a strike because they had surplus coal and
prices were low. The Italians, however, refused to listen to the union leaders
or the coal operators, so, armed with rifles, organized themselves and refused
to allow miners, and scabs, to enter the workplace. The media called it a
“riot,” but the Italian strikers did not harm a single person.
The most tense moment of the strike occurred when the Italians decided
to march to the mine office in Boomer behind a large red flag with a black
border—the bandierra rossa—all the while singing union songs and carrying
signs that read “Victory or Death.” When the coal company superintendent
tried to rush to the meeting spot and talk to the miners, bullets whizzed past
him and he ran back to his office. The Italians then took a sheriff’s represen-
tative hostage, and 50 armed deputies headed to Boomer. Soon, another 50
arrived, with a Gatling Gun, and the Italians were driven back. Thirteen strike
leaders, including an 11 year old boy, were arrested and sent to the county jail
for safe keeping. Ultimately, the operators agreed to the short ton standard for
pay, but the Italians had suffered heavily and were never really accepted by the
local miners or the bosses. A few years later, a much larger and more signifi-
cant conflict took place, when in April, 1912 the Paint Creek Strike in Kanawha
County began. The Paint Creek miners were organized by the United Mine
Workers [UMW] earlier, but their contract was expiring and the coal owners
did not want to renew their recognition of the union. With worsening condi-
tions and violent harassment from the coal operator enforcers, the Baldwin-Felts
Detective Agency, a group of armed men, like the Pinkertons, who attacked labor
and defended the company’s interests, the UMW declared a strike and the
governor declared martial law and had the union leaders arrested.
Among the key issues in dispute was the question of who would choose
the “checkweighmen,” the men who weighed the coal to determine how
much a miner brought in and, thus, how much he would be paid. The miners