114 ChaPter 2
Army bomber planes, under the command of war hero Billy Mitchell, con-
ducted surveillance on the strikers and gave their positions to Chafin and local
agents. The gun battles continued for a week, into early September. The sher-
iff and operators killed perhaps 100 of the union miners during the battle,
while the strikers caused about 30 fatalities on Chafin’s side, and both armies
reported hundreds wounded. In some cases, men who had fought alongside
each other just a few years earlier in the Great War were now shooting at each
other in the West Virginia coal war. The miners realized that they could not
compete against such weaponry, as well as the U.S. government, so began to
retreat and throw down their weapons. Besides the human cost, the union lost
politically as well. Indictments came down against 985 miners for murder, con-
spiracy, accessory to murder, and treason, and hundreds served jail time until
paroled a few years later. The UMW’s membership fell from about 50,000 to
only 10,000 and it would not recover until the 1930s. As urban uprisings had
shown, the struggle of the people against industrial power was never fought
on equal terms, and the coal operators, like the police at Haymarket, the
Pinkertons at Homestead, or the Army at Pullman, always had the upper hand
and were not reluctant to use large-scale violence. The class war surely con-
tinued—and the conflicts in West Virginia were the biggest domestic wars since
1865—but the ruling class always held advantages over the workers, farmers,
and miners who wanted a better life. So miners, and workers all over, would
continue confront the question: which side are you on?Progress and Problems
The period from the late 1890s to 1920 was full of great changes in all areas
of society, and Americans were taking sides. The problems of capitalism
remained obvious and workers, political radicals, Klansmen, and “Reds” were
active in their criticism of the new system and the new world it had created.
Poverty and discontent remained high and the state and economic elites con-
tinued to use force, dissent, and fear to keep the people from protesting too
much or with much effect. At the same time, most Americans, even the rul-
ing class, knew that progress was necessary and a whole era became dedi-
cated to making changes in the way consumers were treated, children and
women were forced to work, and in the way people wrote and thought, all to
create stability and deter dissent. At the same time, corporate and financial